The book moves from a presentation of general concepts to a total of eleven chapters on phonetic classification, and it includes discussion of other issues such as the relationship between phonetics and phonology, the nature of accent, dialect and language, and the description of voice quality and tone of voice.

Introduction; Part I. General Concepts: 1. The semiotic framework; 2. The relationship between phonetics and phonology; 3. Accent, dialect and language; Part II. The Anayltical Framework: 4. The phonetic analysis of speech; 5. The architecture of phonetic classification; Part III. Initiation and Phonotation: 6. Airstream mechanisms; 7. Phonation; Part IV. Linear Segmental Analysis: 8. Stop articulations; 9. Fricative articulations; 10. Resonant articulations; 11. Multiple articulations; Part V. Articulatory Co-ordination and Phonetic Settings: 12. Inter-segmental co-ordinations; 13. Phonetic similarity and multi-segmental settings; Part VI. Temporal, Prosodic and Metrical Analysis: 14. The temporal organization of speech; segmental duration; 15. The prosodic organization of speech: pitch and loudness; 16. The metrical organization of speech: stress, syllable weight, prominence and rhythm; 17. The temporal organization of speech; continuity and rate; Part VII. Principles of Transcription: 18. Types of transcription; Part VIII; Conclusion: 19. Evaluating general phonetic theory; Envoi; References; Appendices; Index of names; Subject index.