$re = '/\b(i|em|b)(\w*)\/(i|em|b)\b/i';
$str = '{"query":"incessant","sourceLanguage":"en","targetLanguage":"en","primaries":[{"type":"headword","terms":[{"type":"text","text":"in·ces·sant","language":"en","labels":[{"text":"Adjective","title":"Part-of-speech"}]},{"type":"phonetic","text":"/inˈsesənt/","language":"und"},{"type":"sound","text":"http://www.gstatic.com/dictionary/static/sounds/de/0/incessant.mp3","language":"und"}],"entries":[{"type":"meaning","terms":[{"type":"text","text":"(of something regarded as unpleasant) Continuing without pause or interruption","language":"en"}],"entries":[{"type":"example","terms":[{"type":"text","text":"the emincessant/em beat of the music","language":"en"}]}]}]}]}';
$subst = "$2";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php