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Teachers of English: L1 and L2 Articulation Rate Correspondence
Friedel, Radim ; Luef, Eva Maria (advisor) ; Bulantová, Barbora (referee)
This thesis focuses on the domain of articulation rate and its comparative variation between Czech and English as a foreign language. Recordings of Czech and English monologues produced by native speakers of Czech (and teachers of English) have been gathered for the purpose of studying further this phenomenon. What adds value to the thesis is not only its educational focus, but also the general underestimation of articulation rate as an important factor in the evaluation of speech. Furthermore, the studied material is a set of brand new and authentic set of recordings which may either prove or question some firmly established beliefs. The primary goal of the thesis is to explore the following hypotheses: articulation rate is higher for the native language of a speaker than for their foreign one, and the variation of this tempo is directly dependent on the position, frequency and function of the given words within the intonation phrase. Both languages are compared with regards to their articulation rate characteristics and speaker variables are considered as clarifications for possible rate discrepancies among the speakers. The theoretical part of the thesis further juxtaposes articulation rate with speech rate and defines the most frequent terms used in these domains: run, pause and intonation...
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First language attrition in voice onset times of Czech expatriates residing in Anglophone areas compared with Czech students of English.
Ripl, Vojtěch ; Luef, Eva Maria (advisor) ; Bulantová, Barbora (referee)
The present thesis investigates first language attrition on the level of phonetics, specifically the voice onset times of Czech expatriates living in Anglophone countries and advanced Czech students of English residing in the Czech Republic. First, it is questioned whether first language attrition occurs only in a migration context or whether it is possible for it to occur to advanced language learners still residing in their native environment. The results show non-monolingual like behaviour in both groups, however, of a different kind. Students drifted further from the English paradigm in the VOT of their L1 while expatriates drew closer to it. The results replicate what some other researchers found and suggests that L2 immersion environment determines the kind of crosslinguistic influence but is not conditional to L1 attrition, defined as diversion from the monolingual standard. The thesis also questions whether more frequent and variable L1 use decreases first language attrition, suggesting that it does, however, only partially and only in lenis plosives and not in fortis plosives.
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Syntactic Complexity in the Speech of Learners of English: Issues in Operationalization
Bulantová, Barbora ; Gráf, Tomáš (advisor) ; Brůhová, Gabriela (referee)
The thesis analyses syntactic complexity of monologic tasks of 10 B2 and 10 C1 speakers of English with Czech as their L1. The data derives from LINDSEI_CZ (Gráf 2017). The transcripts of the recordings were segmented into AS-units (Foster et al. 2000) and adapted for the purposes of the analysis. Syntactic complexity was calculated using following measures: mean length of AS-unit, mean length of clause, clauses / AS-unit. These were complemented by fine-grained indices of structural complexity, comprised of ratios of subordinate clause types and coordinate verb phrases per total number of clauses (Vercellotti & Packer 2016) and a weighted complexity scale designed by Vercellotti (2018). The results of the quantitative analysis showed no significant effect of proficiency on syntactic complexity of the speakers. In fact, all speakers irrespective of language proficiency level produced very similar complex structures as opposed to lower-proficiency structures. This indicates that more fine-grained indices should be incorporated into spoken complexity research. At the same time, scores of each measure varied considerably within groups, pointing at the importance of inter-speaker variability in this research. The thesis thus produced outcomes that are largely methodological, in that it has identified...
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Indefinite Article and Definiteness of Nouns in Corpus-based ELT
Bulantová, Barbora ; Gráf, Tomáš (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
This BA thesis aims to compare two distinct approaches towards grammar explanation in ELT: deductive and inductive. The deductive method is commonly used in traditional curricula. The learners are presented with the metalinguistic information on the target pattern, which is followed by practice activities. The second method uses inductive reasoning - the learners are provided with texts containing the target linguistic pattern, from which they form hypotheses about the rules of its use. The thesis presents a quasi-experimental study with 25 upper- intermediate Czech secondary-school students, which was conducted to determine which of the approaches is more beneficial for teaching English grammar. Another purpose of the study was to compare the corpus data as an authentic study material in contrast with concocted model sentences in a language textbook. The indefinite article was chosen as the target linguistic feature. The theoretical part is divided into several sections. Firstly, it provides a linguistic account on the use of the indefinite article, with A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language and Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny as the primary sources. The second section describes the indefinite article as a target linguistic feature within the frames of ELT and SLA. It...
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Segmentation of the detergent market
Bulantová, Barbora ; Koudelka, Jan (advisor)
This Masters Thesis is focused on detergent market in the Czech Republic and its market segmentation. The goal of this thesis is to find differences and similarities between consumers and to uncover the segments which are internally homogeneous and externally heterogeneous, and to suggest a marketing approach for each segment. Theoretical part of this thesis is about theoretical explanation of the market segmentation process, different approaches to segmentation and methods of segmentation. There is also a description of the detergent market in the Czech Republic. The analytical part is focused on segmentation process itself. The segmentation is based on both primary and secondary data. The revealed segments are then described in detail. There is a suggested marketing approach how to effectively address each segment.
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Use of the communication tools in marketing to children
Bulantová, Barbora ; Pešek, Ondřej (advisor) ; Pařezová, Petra (referee)
This thesis examines the effects of communication tools in marketing to children aged three to eleven years. The main part of this thesis is devoted to advertising as the most used tool in marketing to children. The goal of the thesis is to discover what attitude children have to advertising, if they believe it and if the advertising influences them. The theoretical part deals with the communication mix used in marketing to children, especially with advertising. The research was held among the children at the nursery school and primary school and their parents using a questionnaire survey. Research shows that advertising influences children, but most of their parents do not realize it. There are some recommendations to parents and companies whose target group are children based in the end of this thesis.
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