Academic Paper

Unlike many other introductory textbooks that focus specifically on English phonology (Carr, 1999; Giegerich, 1992; Roach, 2000), McMahon's text does not begin with the mechanics of how English vowels and consonants are produced but rather focuses first on the heart of phonology: the phoneme. Although the book is slim, it adequately covers the same topics that comparable books cover, and McMahon's strength comes from apt metaphors and clear explanations that help the reader comprehend difficult concepts.

This article appears in Studies in Second Language Acquisition Vol. 27, Issue 3, which you can read on Cambridge's site or on LINGUIST .