Os sons do português: Uma introdução prática à fonética e à pronúncia da língua portuguesa by André Zampaulo

Reviewed by: Os sons do português: Uma introdução prática à fonética e à pronúncia da língua portuguesa by André Zampaulo Fernanda Ferreira Zampaulo, André. Os sons do português: Uma introdução prática à fonética e à pronúncia da língua portuguesa. Routledge, 2019. Pp. 279. ISBN 978-1-138-22551-0. As noted by the title, this book is written in Portuguese on the topic of Portuguese phonetics and pronunciation. It is an indispensable addition to the library of any academic in the field of Portuguese linguistics. There are few such books written with a view towards didactics and practical activities. Some comparable examples are ¡Qué bien suena! (Stokes 2004) and Sonidos en contexto (Morgan 2010). Zampaulo follows the format of the latter, a popular textbook used in college-level Spanish phonetics and dialectology courses. Aside from an introduction, Os sons do português: Uma introdução prática à fonética e à pronúncia da língua portuguesa includes a chapter on orthography and sounds and another on syllables and accents. Those are followed by a more theoretical section on phonemes and allophones, a chapter on vowels and then another one on Portuguese consonants. The last part of the book is a final summary. Additionally, the book includes an appendix and a bibliography organized by topics. There is also a useful, albeit very short, back-of-the-book index. Each chapter title starts with the phonetic transcription of the word capítulo and the corresponding number in Portuguese, which is a nice touch. The last two content chapters include the contextual pronunciation, also known as allophonic variation, of each associated phoneme. For each of those phonemes, the author includes its principal dialectal variation and the drawing of the articulatory features. The dialect maps of Brazil describe the variation of consonants such as /s/ and /r/ and mid vowels /e/ and /o/, which can be a source of confusion for many learners. Despite some pages dedicated to the origin of the variation of certain phonemes, it would have been useful to have a brief section on the history of key phonological changes in the language. This is a common section in comparable Spanish phonetics books. The intended audience for this textbook is students of Portuguese, from the intermediate to the advanced level. Since many of these students are often speakers of Spanish, the accompanying audio files help them better understand the subtle differences between these closely-related [End Page 638] languages. It is beneficial for students to read the learning objectives for each section, expressed as "can-do" statements. These goals can be easily included by instructors in a proposed syllabus for a Portuguese phonetics course. With any book about a global language such as Portuguese, it is essential to address the vast linguistic diversity of the Portuguese-speaking world. Because it is spoken by a larger number of people, the author decided to use the Brazilian dialect as a starting point for its initial descriptions. Specifically, he opts for the dialect spoken in the urban center of São Paulo, Brazil. However, the author also gives some attention to the standard variety spoken in Lisbon, Portugal. Zampaulo provides significant phonological insights for speakers of Spanish, as well as native speakers of English, which are clearly labeled throughout the text. Due to an increased ease of acquiring music videos and lyrics online, the author wisely decided not to include those as a paid portion of the textbook. That said, there are lists of applicable songs related to specific phonemes that accompany tasks in the book, which are easily searchable on the internet. In addition, the reader has online access to narrated texts. In fact, more than one hundred audio files come with the book in selected práticas. These are clearly designated by a music symbol icon. Some of the most stimulating and useful characteristics of the book are the drawings of objects that contain similar phonological sounds. Students are required to name or transcribe those objects, which invariably leads them to repeat the same sounds. Many exercises require students to transcribe words or texts, but they are always metacognitive and interesting, such as the...