本书不仅介绍语言学的核心理论，如语音、形态、句法、语义等基础理论，又较全面介绍语言学相关知识。同时，还将重要的知识点编成强化训练题，对教材的部分内容加以补充，以便于学生学习和掌握教材中的关键内容，可以帮助学生课外学习。

                                                   Chapter 1 Acoustics and Articulation
1.1 Speech perception
1.1.1 Definition of speech perception
1.1.2 Acoustic cues
1.1.3 Perception of continuous speech
1.1.4 Theories of speech perception
1.2 Speech production
1.2.1 The stages of speech production
1.2.2 The speech chain
1.2.3 Organs of speech
1.2.4 Articulatory description of speech sounds
Summary
Exercises
Further reading
Chapter 2 The English Pronunciation and Phonetic Transcriptions
2.1 Received Pronunciation (RP)
2.2 General American (GA）
2.3 Pronunciation differences between Received Pronunciation and American English
2.3.1 Vowel differences
2.3.2 Consonantal differences
2.4 Phonetic transcriptions and the Interna-tional Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
2.4.1 Why do people use phonetic transcription?
2.4.2 Introduction to IPA
2.4.3 Diacritics  
2.4.4 Broad and Narrow Transcriptions
Summary
Exercises
Further reading
Chapter 3 English Consonants
3.1 The manners of articulation
3.2 The places of articulation
3.3 Teaching of consonants
Summary
Exercises
Further reading
Chapter 4 English Vowels
4.1 The Cardinal Vowel system
4.2 The criteria of vowel description
4.3 The classification of vowels
4.4 Teaching of vowels
Summary
Exercises
Further reading
Chapter 5 Phonemes and Phonology
5.1 Phonetics and phonology
5.2 Phonemic system
5.2.1 Phoneme
5.2.2 Phonological rules
5.3 Distinctive features
5.4 Allophone
5.4.1 Phonemic contrast
5.4.2 Complementary distribution
5.4.3 Free variation
Summary
Exercises
Further reading
Chapter 6 Syllables and Suprasegmental Features
6.1 Syllable
6.1.1 Phonological structure of a syllable
6.1.2 Classification of syllables
6.2 Stress
6.2.1 Word stress
6.2.2 Sentence stress
6.3 Strong forms and weak forms
6.4 Length
6.5 Rhythm
6.6 Pitch
6.7 Intonation and tone
6.7.1 Types of intonation
6.7.2 Functions and uses of intonation
6.7.3 Tone
Summary
Exercises
Further reading
References                                                

张庆宗教授系湖北大学外国语学院院长、硕士生导师，英语语言文学硕士点负责人。全国英语专业教学指导委员会委员、国际应用语言学学会会员、担任湖北大学学术委员会委员，湖北大学学位评定委员会委员，校级品牌专业（英语）责任教授，湖北省优秀学士学位论文评审专家。研究方向为英语教育及应用语言学，曾先后在国内和国际知名学术期刊，如英国的《教育心理学》、美国的《行为教育》、国内的《外语教学与研究》、《现代外语》、《外语与外语教学》等期刊上发表论文，出版专著《英语词汇附加语境研究》，并主编、参编多部英语教材。目前主持、参加教育部等不同级别的科研、教研项目。