German Professor Sarah Fagan publishes new book, "German Phonetics and Phonology"

Friday, August 19, 2016

German Phonetics and Phonolgy book cover
German Phonetics and Phonolgy
book cover

University of Iowa Professor Sarah Fagan has published a new book, German Phonetics and Phonology: Theory and Practice (Yale University Press), co-authored by Mary Grantham O’Brien of the University of Calgary in Canada.

From the Yale University Press website:

"An essential introduction to the pronunciation of modern German, this unique classroom text is designed to help mid- to upper-level undergraduate students of German produce more accurate and comprehensible German speech. Written in English in a clear and engaging style and employing a minimum of technical jargon, it is the first German phonetics and phonology text to focus on theory and practice, covering topics ranging from the analysis of one's own speech to historical developments and regional variation. This work includes a wealth of exercises supported by an ancillary website audio program designed to help students perceive and produce sounds and prosodic features more accurately. Addressing topics such as word stress, sentence stress, and intonation as well as the pronunciation of individual sounds, this one-of-a-kind primer provides its users with a solid basis in German phonetics and phonology in order to improve their pronunciation of German."

Fagan is a professor in the Department of German, part of the Division of World Languages, Literatures & Cultures in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Her research and teaching interests include Germanic linguistics, theoretical linguistics, and the German language.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.