Reviewed by: English transcription course by M. Luisa Garcia Lecumberri, John A. Maidment Pekka Lintunen English transcription course. By M. Luisa Garcia Lecumberri and John A. Maidment. London: Arnold/New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 156. Paper $19.95. As the title suggests, this book was designed to be used as an exercise book for courses dealing with English pronunciation. It is aimed at native speakers who want to know more about RP (‘Received Pronunciation’) English and learners of English who want to become more accurate in their pronunciation. The book consists of eight chapters (titled ‘lessons’) with the final ninth chapter giving some extra exercises for the reader. Ch. 1 is an introduction to phonetic symbols and terminology (e.g. places and manners of articulation). In addition, there is also a glossary at the end of the book. The IPA symbols used are those that are also used to describe RP in the latest pronouncing dictionaries. Ch. 2 deals with some basic aspects of transcription such as the neutralization symbols; vowel monophthongization; smoothing; the analogical rules for transcribing past tenses, plurals, and possessives; and connected speech. The remainder of the book, including all exercises, deals with connected speech. Ch. 3 introduces the connected speech phenomena sentence (and lexical) stress, rhythm, and weak forms. The section on the weak forms is comprehensive and gives several examples. Ch. 4 deals with sandhi r, and introduces the use of linking and intrusive r. The authors use both of these wherever possible in their model transcriptions. Ch. 5 concentrates on consonant syllabicity and Ch. 6 on alveolar plosive and schwa elision. Ch. 7 deals with assimilation. Some alveolar plosive, fricative, and nasal assimilations are introduced as well as coalescence and voice assimilation. Ch. 8 deals with glottaling, the question of when the alveolar t should be replaced with the glottal stop in RP English. The authors rightly stress that it is not an obligatory sound and not considered a phoneme. Theoretical information is not overwhelming, and the emphasis of the book lies clearly on the exercises. The theoretical part gives clear rules with examples which readers can follow in transcription. The exercises are mainly based on connected speech consisting of complete texts of 500–700 words. Altogether there are 28 texts and 2 dialogues to transcribe. Annotated model answers are given in the appendix. There are also some orthographic texts where readers are asked to identify certain sounds or processes that might occur in pronunciation. Another type of exercise is one in which readers can edit a transcribed text by adding certain features (e.g. some assimilations) into it. The model answers represent quite a relaxed and informal style of speech. The book is probably not suitable for a textbook on English phonetics due to the lack of theory, but it gives plenty of exercises that could certainly be used as a valuable supplement to such a course or to a practical pronunciation course. This workbook could be useful for students of linguistics, phonetics, speech and language therapy, and English philology. Pekka Lintunen Turku University Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America