Virginia P. Clark

Technical, but very interesting book about language, such as how we make certain sounds, the difference between 'b' and 'p' etc. This was part of an advanced grammar course I took in college. I enjoyed it. My classmates who were already English teachers loathed it. They were looking for remedial English, I think. This was way over their heads.

Contains a chapter of my book Language the Social Mirror, 1st ed. Good overview of the entire field including sociolinguistics, historical, phonetics, etc.