Sons et sens presents a unique cultural approach to French pronunciation for English-speaking students. Each chapter presents a new cultural topic, such as the French education system, vernacular French, and cooking in the francophone world, in order to enhance students’ pronunciation skills within the context of French and francophone culture. Phonetic explanations and rules throughout the textbook are anchored in recent research on French phonology, reflecting contemporary French as well as elements of nonstandard variation from around the francophone world. The authors' approach derives from current research on second language acquisition and pedagogy as well as contemporary research on French linguistics—especially sociolinguistics.

The textbook’s fifteen chapters include a variety of exercises on sound discrimination, rule formulation, phonetic reading and transcriptions, and conversations. The publisher's website (press,georgetown.edu) provides about 200 sound files and several video files that show how sounds are formed with the body. A teacher's edition contains additional materials, including comments and answers keyed to the student text. Perfect for third year students, Sons et sens should appeal to instructors and students of college-level pronunciation and phonetics courses and serve as a valuable reference in a variety of courses where pronunciation is of importance. The book will also interest students with some background in French who want to perfect their pronunciation on their own.