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Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 21:1/2 (1994) ► pp.103–121

Laura Soames’ contributions to phonetics

| University of Glasgow

Laura Soames (1840–1895) came to the attention of the teaching and phonetics professions through her work in applying phonetic principles to the teaching of reading and to the pronunciation of English and foreign languages. Lauded by many European phoneticians, she was despised by Henry Sweet – much to his discredit. Her publications, especially the Introduction to Phonetics (English, French and German) (1891) and The Child’s Key to Reading (1894) reveal a capacity to simplify the more technical expositions of phonetic theory in order to achieve a popular and readable exposition of the subject. Together with a number of other phoneticians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she represents the bridge between the work of Henry Sweet (1845–1912) and Daniel Jones (1881–1967).

Published online: 1 January 1994
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.21.1-2.06mac
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Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

MacMahon, Michael K. C.
2007. The work of Richard John Lloyd (1846–1906) and “the crude system of doctrine which passes at present under the name of Phonetics”. Historiographia Linguistica 34:2-3 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo

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