This book illustrates the objectives and assumptions—as well as the construction techniques and the structure—of some of the most interesting forms of reduced English, including Basic English, Special English, Plain English, Simplified English, Easy English, Specialized English, Nuclear English, Globish, and Basic Global English. Although they have different cultural approaches and are aimed at communication purposes which are not always homogeneous and are sometimes divergent, all the studies underpinning these projects share a common goal: bearing in mind the globalization processes of the contemporary world, their primary aim is to use English as a starting point from which to build a language tool to be employed as a lingua franca for effective and adequate international communication in economic, scientific, and cultural fields. The book is primarily intended for students and scholars interested in the various attempts that have been made to simplify the English language in order to make it universally available for a simple, effective and global communication.

English Pronunciation for Speakers of Spanish fills a gaping hole in the market for books on English phonetics and pronunciation because it not only combines theoretical issues and applications to practice, but it also adopts a contrastive English-Spanish approach to better suit the needs of Spanish-speaking learners of English (SSLE), enabling them to build gradually on the knowledge gained in each chapter. The book covers the key concepts of English phonetics and phonology in seven chapters written in an accessible and engaging style: 1. Phonetics and Phonology 2. The Production and Classification of Speech Sounds 3. Vowels and Glides 4. Consonants 5. Segment Dynamics: Aspects of Connected Speech 6. Beyond the Segment: Stress and Intonation 7. Predicting Pronunciation from Spelling (and vice versa) Features: in-text audio illustrations, as well as over a hundred written and audio exercises with corresponding keys and different kinds of artwork (Tables, Figures, illustrations, spectrograms, etc.) classic readings in the discipline in the Further Reading section of each chapter highlights the phonetic contrasts and specific cues that are more important to aid comprehension in English and offers guidelines on "correct" pronunciation habits to help SSLE sound as close as possible to native English The book's companion website, EPSS Multimedia Lab, can be used on computers, smartphones and tablets, and is useful for the self-taught student and the busy lecturer alike. The website of the EPSS Multimedia lab can be accessed here: http://www.usc.gal/multimlab/ Features of the website: a complete sound bank defining and illustrating the sounds of English RP as compared with those of Peninsular Spanish written definitions and animated diagrams, videos and original recordings (by native speakers of English and Spanish) showing the articulation of each sound, alongside its most common spellings, as well as pronunciation practice for individual words and whole sentences a comprehensive selection of over a hundred written and audio exercises (with their keys) for practice both at home or in the language lab audio files corresponding to the audio illustrations given in the written book a repository of useful resources by topics and a list of online glossaries and pronunciation dictionaries

An argument that the way we listen to speech is shaped by our experience with our native language. Understanding speech in our native tongue seems natural and effortless; listening to speech in a nonnative language is a different experience. In this book, Anne Cutler argues that listening to speech is a process of native listening because so much of it is exquisitely tailored to the requirements of the native language. Her cross-linguistic study (drawing on experimental work in languages that range from English and Dutch to Chinese and Japanese) documents what is universal and what is language specific in the way we listen to spoken language. Cutler describes the formidable range of mental tasks we carry out, all at once, with astonishing speed and accuracy, when we listen. These include evaluating probabilities arising from the structure of the native vocabulary, tracking information to locate the boundaries between words, paying attention to the way the words are pronounced, and assessing not only the sounds of speech but prosodic information that spans sequences of sounds. She describes infant speech perception, the consequences of language-specific specialization for listening to other languages, the flexibility and adaptability of listening (to our native languages), and how language-specificity and universality fit together in our language processing system. Drawing on her four decades of work as a psycholinguist, Cutler documents the recent growth in our knowledge about how spoken-word recognition works and the role of language structure in this process. Her book is a significant contribution to a vibrant and rapidly developing field.