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The internal and external variation in speaker assessments based on speech performance
Nagyová, Eliška ; Volín, Jan (advisor) ; Chládková, Kateřina (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with the internal and external variation in speaker's assessments based on speech performance. Using the material of two poems ("Portrét" by Karel Toman and "Píseň zhýralého jinocha" by František Gellner), the variability in the evaluation of the recordings of 32 speakers (16 women and 16 men) was studied. Their performance was rated by 30 listeners on a seven-point scale based on their impression of the overall recitation. The general nature of the perception test instructions allowed us to observe which factors may play an important role in the perception of the overall speech performance. The results point, among other things, to the possible influence of the text of the poems on respondents' assessments. This study serves as a basis for further in-depth research in the area of speech assessment. Keywords: internal variation, external variation, voice perception, voice attractiveness, voice measurement, voice assessment, recitation
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Vowel length in infant-directed speech: the realisation of short-long contrasts in Czech IDS
Svoboda, Michaela ; Chládková, Kateřina ; Kocjančič Antolík, T. ; Paillereau, Nikola ; Slížková, P.
When interacting with young children, talkers across many languages use a speech style that reflects positive affect, draws infants' attention, and supposedly facilitates language acquisition. As for the latter, a well-documented feature of infant-directed speech is an exaggeration of spectrally-cued vowel contrasts. Here we tested whether talkers exaggerate also durationally cued contrasts. Sixty-three mothers, native speakers of Czech, were recorded while playing with their infant (4- to 10-month-olds, IDS) and while speaking to an adult (ADS). The durations of the five Czech phonemically short vowels were compared to their long counterparts. Vowel duration (normalised for word duration) was longer in IDS than in ADS more for phonemically long vowels at the younger infant ages, indicating a developmentally specific early exaggeration of length contrasts in Czech infant-directed speech. The present finding suggests that in a language with phonemic length, caregivers' realisation of speech sounds may go beyond merely being longer and slower overall.
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Infants' learning of novel segments is modulated by prosody
Chládková, Kateřina ; Podlipský, V.J. ; Nudga, Natalia ; Paillereau, Nikola ; Kynčlová, Kateřina ; Šimáčková, Š.
Young infants recognize atypical realisations of native-language speech. Later they learn words better from native-accented talkers. However, 6-month-olds preferentially listen to unfamiliar speech. We tested whether the learning of new vowels matches 6-month-olds’ listening preferences, being more effective from nonnative-accented speech. We exposed Czech six-month-olds to delexicalised utterances with consonants replaced by [f] and vowels by 405 tokens sampled from a bimodal [ɛ]-[æ] distribution, a contrast absent from Czech, and with either native or atypical rhythm. Discrimination of [ɛ]-[æ] was then tested in an alternating/non-alternating paradigm. Longer first-look duration to non-alternating than to alternating trials – indicating a learning effect – was found in infants familiarised with the novel contrast in atypical rhythm, such effect was not\ndetected after familiarisation with native rhythm. Six-month-olds thus more effectively exploit distributional information about novel vowels from non-native rhythm, which matches their previously reported preferences for listening to novel over familiar accents.
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Variability in the duration of vocalic intervals in poetry reading
Vavřičková, Barbora ; Šturm, Pavel (advisor) ; Chládková, Kateřina (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with the variability of temporal characteristics, namely speech rate and duration of vowel intervals. The theoretical part first summarizes general knowledge about articulatory, acoustic, perceptual, and phonological properties of vowels, and explains speech rate with vowel duration. This is followed by a chapter focusing on factors of variability that affect both speech rate and vowel duration. The analysis of these factors is the subject of the practical part. Three specific analyses investigate 32 recordings of the recitation of Gellner's poem XXXI. First, the speech rate and its variability are analysed for speakers, lines, and verses. The analysis of vowel duration in the poem examines individual factors that may have an influence on quantitative differences. The final part of the analysis focuses more specifically on comparing individual couplets and the words within repeated verses. The results showed that the tempo of unrepeated verses decreases, while the tempo of repeated verses slightly increases. In terms of duration, vowels in final phrases, vowels without glottal stop and unaccented vowels were found to be longer.
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Language and Communication Development of a Child after Cochlear Implantation with Focus on the Morphosyntactic Level of the Language
Baslová, Markéta ; Homolková, Kamila (advisor) ; Chládková, Kateřina (referee)
(in English): This thesis is a case study of language and communication development of a boy after cochlear implantation. It focuses mainly on the morphosyntactic level of language. The thesis is divided into two main parts. In the first, theoretical, based on a literature search, hearing, its meaning and hearing impairment are discussed, followed by the development of speech and language, both in hearing and hearing-impaired individuals. The second part of the thesis focuses on the research itself. It is conceived as a longitudinal case study based on the analysis of audiotapes of an implanted boy. Based on the transcripts of these recordings, his communication and language development is analysed, focusing particularly on morphosyntax, but with overlap into other linguistic levels. The aim of the paper is to describe the linguistic specifics in the speech of the implanted child and his possible progress on the communicative level.
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How foreign accent and speech errors affect speaker credibility
Machová, Kateřina ; Chládková, Kateřina (advisor) ; Houzar, Alžběta (referee)
Research into listeners' attitudes towards speakers with foreign accents and speech impediments has been in the spotlight for many years. This diploma thesis aims to contribute to the group of these researches in the Czech environment. Its topic is to compare the influence of foreign accent and speech impediment on the perceived credibility of the speaker. Specifically, the influence of French accent and rhotacism, i.e. articulation disorder when an individual is unable to pronounce the sound /r/ as required by the norm of his native language, was examined. As recorded material, a total of 55 sentences containing the sound /r/ in various contexts and positions and 14 sentences without this sound were compiled. From these stimuli, four versions of the perceptual test were created, always so that all four speakers appeared, in foreign accent and speech impediment conditions only once, in standard Czech twice - one speaker in sentences containing /r/, the other speaker in sentences not containing /r/. The first hypothesis was that the occurrence of rotacism and French accent would negatively affect the perceived credibility of the speaker compared to a speaker without a French accent and without a speech impediment. The second hypothesis was that speakers with French accents would be rated as less...
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Fathers' Infant-Directed Speech in the Czech language environment
Ungrová, Veronika ; Chládková, Kateřina (advisor) ; Saicová Římalová, Lucie (referee)
The aim of the diploma thesis is to describe what characterizes speech in communication between father and child in the Czech language environment. The first part of the thesis defines the basic theoretical concepts and summarizes the results of previous research, which deals with the principles of language acquisition by an infant and defines the basic features of infant-directed speech. The theoretical part of the work is based mainly on the literature, which describes the differences between father's infant-directed speech and mother's infant-directed speech. The second part of the work consists of an analysis of audio recordings of the casual communication of fathers with children in comparison with the casual communication of fathers with adults. The recordings were made as part of project Primus/17/HUM/19. Furthermore, the work focuses on selected pragmatic and lexical phenomena of father's infant-directed speech, which are again compared with the findings of the literature. Key words: father's infant-directed speech, language acquisition, father, child, Czech
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Out-of-school media experience as a resource for L2 learning in primary school age
Šimerková, Anna ; Kuzmičová, Anežka (advisor) ; Chládková, Kateřina (referee)
Based on a case study the bachelor's thesis examines how the extramural media experience (computer games, YouTube etc.) enters the acquisition of L2 of a primary school age child and how the child himself and the adults around him perceive this process. Combining the method of semi structured interview with the child and one of his parents and a media diary of both participants the bachelor's thesis determines how much time the child spends in contact witch L2, what medium enables this contact and how it reflects in everyday discourse. The participatory data collection took one week. The purpose of this thesis is primarily to point out the issue and the necessity of its further examination. Key words: media experience, autonomous learning, extramural English, L2, case study
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Variability of selected acoustic characteristics of nasals in poetry reading
Straková, Leona ; Šturm, Pavel (advisor) ; Chládková, Kateřina (referee)
(in English) Many studies in Czech or other languages studied variability. However, these studies were focused on variability in speech or in written texts and there are not many studies about variability of nasal consonants. This thesis is focused on variability of nasal consonants where speakers are reciting a poem. This poem consists of many nasal consonants and there are two strophes which are similar (the first and the fourth). This thesis consists of a theoretical part where we summarize facts about nasals in generous and about variability. We describe factors and theirs influence on the durations and harmonicity of nasals consonant and we also included the articulation rate. The analytic part is based on recordings of 32 speakers. We analyse the articulation rate through the poem, then through strophes and verses. The second analysis focuses on the durations of nasals. At first, we analyse the durations in the first three strophes, which differ from each other, across the speakers. The durations of nasals were influenced by accents, positions in the phrases and the presence of nasals in cluster (clusters only influence the nasal [n], which occurs most frequently). For every factor we create graphs. These graphs illustrate the influences of these factors on nasal durations. The last analysis...
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Phonetic structure of prosodic phrases in TV talk shows in Czech and American English
Hladká, Adéla ; Volín, Jan (advisor) ; Chládková, Kateřina (referee)
The main aim of this bachelor thesis was to describe prosodic phrasing in the TV debate genre in the context of comparing Czech with American English. The aim was to find similarities and differences between the two languages/cultures in the area of phrasing and to see if inter- individual or intra-individual differences are greater than the differences between the situation in Czech and American English. 4 different sets of recordings of televised political debates (Nedělní partie and Arizona Horizon's), 2 Czech and 2 English, were analyzed, with a total of 14 speakers, two of whom, the moderators, were repeated in the same debate, bringing the total number of speakers to 12. The data for the analysis were provided by the Phonetic Institute of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University under the COCOSDA principle. For each speaker, the number of words, syllables and vowels per phonemic clause was analysed. To extract the resulting data, I used scripts from the phonetic software Praat. The shortest and longest phrases were also examined in an attempt to figure out if these phenomena are somehow generalizable in this genre of conversational speech. The results of this research show that although speakers differ within language groups, the personality of some individuals and the environment in which...
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