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Phonetic features of strong Czech accent in English
Rumlová, Jana ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Lewis, Suzanne (referee)
The main aim of this thesis is to analyse problematic phonetic features of Czech accent in English and to discover how they contribute to strong foreign accent. The theoretical part presents the concept of foreign accent and why it occurs. Individual segmental and supra-segmental features of language that are different in each language and can, therefore, cause problems while acquiring a foreign language are presented afterwards, along with the most influencing models of their acquisition. Social consequences of a non-native accent are also mentioned. The theoretical part also briefly compares the segmental and supra-segmental levels of Czech and English and then introduces research that has been performed so far on the topic of the Czech pronunciation of English. The empirical section presents the methodology of the research, the analysed features of the Czech English and the results of the study. The analysis of the ten speakers has shown which aspects are causing the biggest problems and which ones are individual. According to the results, the most problematic features are vowels /æ/, /ɒ/, /ə/ and consonants /ð/, /θ/ and /ŋ/ that tends to co-occur with the plosive /k/, and aspiration. On the prosodic level, linking, or glottalization, seems to cause the most significant problems, along with the...
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