Ladefoged was involved with the phonetics laboratory at UCLA, which he established in 1962. He also was interested in listening to and describing every sound used in spoken human language, which he estimated at 900consonants and 200vowels.[7] This research formed the basis of much ofThe Sounds of the World's Languages. In 1966 Ladefoged moved from the UCLA English Department to join the newly established Linguistics Department.[8]
While at UCLA, Ladefoged was hired as a consultant on the movieMy Fair Lady. He wrote the transcriptions that can be seen in Professor Higgins's notebook, and his voice was used in the scenes where Higgins describes vowel pronunciation.[9]
In 1992, Ladefoged appeared on theBill Bixby-hosted TV specialThe Elvis Conspiracy to give his professional opinion that 1980s recordings purported to be the voice ofElvis Presley were not authentic.
Ladefoged married Jenny MacDonald in 1953, a marriage which lasted over 50 years.[10] They had three children: Lise Friedman, a bookseller; Thegn Ladefoged,archaeologist and professor ofanthropology atUniversity of Auckland;[11] and Katie Ladefoged, attorney andpublic defender, residing inNashville, Tennessee.[10] He also had five grandchildren Zelda Ladefoged, Ethan Friedman, Amy Friedman, Joseph Weiss, and Catherine Weiss.
On May 5, 1970, Ladefoged was arrested and sustained injuries from police while participating in an anti–Vietnam War protest atUCLA.[12][13] He was initially charged with failure to disperse, but the charge was later changed to assault on a police officer. He was acquitted in the first trial.[14]
Ladefoged died on 24 January 2006 at the age of 80 in hospital in London, England after a research trip to India.[8] He was on his way home to Los Angeles, California from his research trip.[15]
Ladefoged (1962).The nature of vowel quality. Monograph supplement toRevista do Laboratório de Fonética Experimental da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra (Journal of Experimental Phonetics Laboratory of the Faculty of Arts, University of Coimbra).
Ladefoged (1962).Elements of acoustic phonetics. University of Chicago Press.ISBN0-226-46764-3.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) Paperback edition 1971. Translation into Japanese, Taishukan Publishing Company, 1976. Second edition, with added chapters on computational phonetics 1996.
Ladefoged (1964).A phonetic study of west African languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University.ISBN0-521-06963-7.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) Reprinted 1968.
Ladefoged (1967).Three areas of experimental phonetics. London: Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-437110-7.
Fromkin, Victoria A.; editor (1985).Phonetic linguistics: Essays in honor of Peter Ladefoged. Orlando: Academic Press.ISBN0-12-268990-9.{{cite book}}:|author2= has generic name (help)
^Dundjerski, Marina (2011).UCLA: The First Century. Third Millennium. p. 186.ISBN978-1-906507-37-4.
^Mora, Carlos (2007).Latinos in the West: The Student Movement and Academic Labor in Los Angeles. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 54–5, 92.ISBN978-0-7425-4784-1.
Quotations related toPeter Ladefoged at Wikiquote