Born in Roanne, France, Delattre immigrated to the United States of America in 1924. In 1937 he defended his thesis at the Michigan University, Ann Arbor, titled The duration of a French /e/: A Study in Experimental Phonetics. 

During this time he worked at the University of Michigan, taught French at Wayne State University. He joined the faculty of University of Oklahoma in 1941, where he gave his renowned course in experimental French which applies some of the processes of “Language School Method”. He developed the "Oklahoma Plan," an advanced audio-lingual French teaching program. During this time he taught and directed the Summer Remedial Phonetics Program at Middlebury College in Vermont, which he continued to do for 16 summers. 

From 1947-1952 Delattre was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. Being situated on the east coast brought him into contact with acousticians from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Bell Telephone Laboratories and Haskins Laboratories. Delattre was exposed to the sound spectrograph and speech synthesis. He joined the team at Haskins Laboratories and “was a driving force in the team of researchers who made the breakthrough in discovering the principal acoustic cues for speech.”

Between 1953 and 1963, Delattre taught at the University of Colorado, during which time he significantly influenced the renowned vocal pedagogue and singing teacher Berton Coffin. Delattre and Coffin co-authored two books: (1) Phonetic Readings of Songs and Arias; Coffin, Errolle, Singer and Delattre, 1964; 2nd Edition, 1982; (2) Word-by-Word Translations of Songs and Arias, Pt. I, German & French: Coffin, Singer & Delattre.

From 1964-1969, Delattre was on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara where he developed the Speech Synthesis Project. This laboratory was important and unique because

“It combines techniques perfected by Delattre for simultaneously studying the acoustic cues for the significant elements of speech and the physiological articulations that are their genesis. It involves spectrographic analysis, speech synthesis, cineradiology, and a number of other related techniques. He enlarged his sphere of investigation to include several languages, including a few not commonly taught in the United States.”

Throughout his career, Delattre published extensively, significantly advancing the fields of linguistics and phonetics, and became internationally recognized as one of the most prominent phoneticians of his era. . In recognition for both his contributions to science and language teaching he received numerous honors and awards including: Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French Government. Pierre Charles Delattre passed away suddenly following a tennis match with his wife and two sons on July 11, 1969.

A complete list of his publications can be found here. *Originally published in Valdman, A., ed (1972), Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics to the Memory of Pierre Delattre, (Mouton). On pages 21-30 all his publications are listed.

Sources

1. Pierre Charles Delattre. (n.d.). In University of California: In memoriam, 1969. Retrieved from http://texts.cdlib.org
   
2. National Association of Teachers of Singing. (n.d.). Berton Coffin Endowment. Retrieved from https://www.nats.org/_Library/Named_Funds/Berton_Coffin_Endowment_-_web_ready.pdf
   
   
3. Phonétique du FLE. (2008, April 30). Pierre Delattre: Un des plus grands phoneticiens du 20ème siècle. Retrieved from https://phonetiquedufle.canalblog.com/archives/2008/04/30/9006876.html
   
4. IDRef. (n.d.). Notice de personne: Delattre, Pierre (1903-1969). Retrieved from https://www.idref.fr/029196256
   
   
5. Straka, G., & Meyer, E. A. (Eds.). (2015). Papers in linguistics and phonetics to the memory of Pierre Delattre (Reprint ed.). De Gruyter Mouton. Retrieved from https://ebin.pub/papers-in-linguistics-and-phonetics-to-the-memory-of-pierre-delattre-reprint-2015nbsped-9783110803877-9789027923103.html