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Vowel length in Czech two-syllable words in L1-German speakers
Chabrová, Anna ; Veroňková, Jitka (advisor) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
(in English): When learning a second language, besides other things, it's important to acquire its correct pronunciation. In this thesis, I decided to merge my two fields of study, German language and literature and phonetics, and analyse the pronunciation of native German speakers learning Czech as their second language. I decided to focus on the vocal quantity in Czech two-syllable words. Within my experiment, I used recordings of 8 native German speakers reading a Czech text. From these recordings, I extracted the two-syllable words and out of those I created a perception test for native Czech listeners. The listeners' task was to choose the word they heard based on given options and also to mark how difficult it was to decide between the options. Additionally, I carried out an acoustic analysis of vowel duration and extracted the formant values of vowels. The perception test and acoustic analysis confirmed the assumption that native German speakers have problems with quantity in Czech two-syllable words and allowed a clearer understanding of which errors are the most common ones and what is the relationship between the results of objective measurements and perception.
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Melodic patterning in advanced Czech students of English
Hertlová, Adéla ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Lewis, Suzanne (referee)
This thesis is aiming to observe the process of acquisition of intonation in native Czech students of English on an advanced level, who were regularly and intensely exposed to English. The students were recorded reading a simple text at the beginning of their studies, and for the purpose of this thesis, they were re-recorded two years later, and compared to two native speakers of English. The theoretical part of this thesis first explains the key terminology of intonation together with its functions. The following part of the theoretical background focuses on the acquisition of intonation, the differences between Czech and English in regards to intonation, and is concluded with research questions. The following chapter consists of the methodology employed in this thesis: the particularities regarding the students, the text, and the recording process, together with how the analysis was performed and the data extracted. This is followed by the results and their interpretation, which is further elaborated in the following chapter as well. The data generally indicated a decrease in the melodic range of the students recorded two years later. Yet, some improvements were observed in the distribution of tones, where the later recordings indicated an increase in complex tones. A slight positive development...
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Acoustic properties of schwa in Czech English and its relation to spelling
Hrabánek, Patrik ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Hubáčková, Iva (referee)
and key words The aim of this thesis is to explore the acoustic features of the schwa vowel in the speech of Czech speakers of English and its relation to spelling. The theoretical part introduces the schwa vowel and describes its phonetic and phonemic features in English. The main differences between the word-medial and the word-final schwa are then explained. Topics of word stress, speech rhythm and vowel reduction are discussed in order to show the systematic appearance of schwa in connected speech. In the empirical section the methodology and the results with discussion of the study can be found. The analysis of eight female speakers, six of which were native speakers of Czech, shows that Czech schwas generally display higher variation in formant values of the first two formants in all environments when compared to native speakers of English. The greatest difference in formant variation between the two groups was found in word-initial schwas, suggesting that Czech speakers tend to overgeneralize English pronunciation rules. When it comes to semantic function, both lexical and grammatical words showed higher variation in the Czech group. In terms of spelling, the greatest difference between the two groups was found in words in which the grapheme o is canonically realized as a schwa. The results...
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Voice: The Interpreter's Instrument
Hronová, Kateřina ; Přibylová, Marie (advisor) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
The present thesis focuses on voice in relation to interpreters. The aim of the thesis is to provide insight into the situation of spoken language and sign language interpreters in the Czech Republic with focus on how the interpreters use their voice, what voice disorders connected to their profession they struggle with, how they take care of their voice and what voice training options they have. To find answers to these questions, questionnaires were distributed to both spoken language and sign language interpreters. The results of the questionnaires were compared with information from professional literature and with the results of research into current and past voice training options for interpreters. On the basis of the outcomes, recommendations for practice are outlined not only for interpreters, but also for their educators and employers.
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Phonetic realization of coda /t/ in current Southern British English pronunciation
Bocková, Barbora ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Luef, Eva Maria (referee)
The phoneme /t/ is known for featuring a wide variety of realizations in speech throughout the English-speaking world. Its realization is conditioned both by linguistic factors, such as phonetic environment or stress, and by social factors, such as region, sex, or socioeconomic background. The present bachelor thesis aims to explore and analyse the manifestations of coda /t/ in current Southern British English pronunciation. The theoretical section includes a general description of stops in world languages and an overview of various realizations of /t/ in varieties of English and recent pronunciation developments in standard British English. In the empirical part, recordings of 16 speakers of Southern British English from political radio debates were collected and processed. An auditory analysis of the phonetic realization of the target consonants was conducted and subsequently, the occurrence of individual variants was evaluated in terms of segmental, prosodic as well as semantic context. The results confirm that stress, the word's position within a phrase, its segmental environment and semantic status, and the speaker's sex all have an influence on the realization of /t/ in speech. Furthermore, the thesis documents the recent development of the sociolinguistic status of glottalling, which has...
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In-class pronunciation of Czech secondary school English teachers
Fischer, Ondřej ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Gráf, Tomáš (referee)
The present thesis examines in-class pronunciation of Czech secondary school English teachers in relation to the international debate about goals and models of English pronunciation teaching. The theoretical part of the work briefly describes the phenomenon of a foreign accent, its sociolinguistic significance, and factors influencing its degree. Subsequently, it delineates segmental and suprasegmental aspects of English pronunciation relevant to Czech foreign accent, and discusses selected accents of English regarding their status in the eyes of non-native speakers and their suitability as models of pronunciation. The core of our study is an auditory analysis of pronunciation, based on recordings of speech of ten Czech secondary school teachers of English, obtained directly in class at four Czech secondary schools - two in Prague and two in Opava - using a lavalier microphone. The results of this analysis are compared to the results of questionnaires focused on these teachers' convictions and attitudes concerning pronunciation teaching. Our findings indicate that while the phonemes /r/, /w/ and /θ/ are easy for Czech teachers to realise in a standard manner, it seems that learners typically cannot acquire standard pronunciation of /ð/ and /æ/ only through listening to their teacher's...
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Use of glottalization as a factor enabling speaker identification
Skákal, Ladislav ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Bořil, Tomáš (referee)
While handling the task of speaker identification, forensic phoneticians use a combination of various parameters contained in different levels of speech signal. The main aim of the present thesis is to explore whether glottalization in Czech may be considered as a potentially useful parameter in this sense. In our research, we focus on the rate of prevocalic glottalization at word boundaries and we distinguish between different realisations of glottalization: canonical glottal stop and its hypoarticulated form - creaky voice. The studied material consists of repeated recordings of three male and four female speakers and contains both read text and spontaneous speech. The results do not indicate that the same speaker would use glottalization differently in the first and second recording, but a difference in glottalization is found between speakers. From the forensic phonetics point of view, this finding seems to be useful. Marginally, some other factors which are not directly connected with the speaker (height of following vowel, lexical factors and speech rate) were examined, but no influence on glottalization was found. Keywords: glottal stop, glottalization, forensic phonetics, speaker identification
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Harmonicity as a possible indicator of segment boundaries in Czech
Heranová, Jana ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Volín, Jan (referee)
The aim of this diploma thesis is to examine harmonicity as an indicator of segment boundaries in Czech. ln our analysis we have focused on sequences of voiced and unvoiced segments, more precisely the combination of voiceless obstruents and vowels. First we examined the behaviour of harmonicity in the area of segment transitions. Based on the results we established a classification of harmonicity behaviours, which was further used as a basis for examining the relationship between the placement of segment boundaries and the behaviour of harmonicity. The results, Le. established time intervals, in which most boundaries were situated, imply harmonicity to be a promising indicator of segment boundaries in Czech. The further course of research, which attempts to use harmonicity for purposes of automatic segmentation, is to examine the accuracy of segmentation while using different settings for HNR estimation.
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Temporal features of Czech fricatives
Homolková, Veronika ; Machač, Pavel (advisor) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
The thesis is focused on a description of temporal features of Czech central fricatives (f, v, s, z, š, ž, ch [x], h). The duration of fricatives in the intervocalic position is investigated according to the place of articulation and the voicing contrast. These results are contrasted to the preceding comparable researches. Also other contexts that can influence the duration of fricatives are examined (the phonological quantity of the neighbouring vowels, the position of the fricative in the stress unit, the type of speech, the gender of the speaker). The possible reciprocal influences are analysed in relation to the duration of the fricative and the articulation rate. The thesis deals also with the compensation tendencies in the field of duration of sequences "vowel + fricative" or "fricative + vowel". The basis for this research is formed by adequately extensive material of two types - read speeches, acquired advisedly for this analysis, and semi-spontaneous speeches, gained thanks to the Prague Phonetic Corpus (formerly Phonetic-Acoustic Database of Czech), created at the Phonetic Department of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prague. The methodical basis for the thesis is formed by the doctoral thesis of PhDr. Pavel Machač, Ph.D.
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Aspiration of English plosives in Czech students of English studies
Pospíšilová, Andrea ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Dušková, Libuše (referee)
Voice onset time (VOT) was shown to provide an effective basis on which to differentiate individual plosives in English. This thesis carries out an analysis of recordings of university students to determine whether specific phonetic in- struction improves pronunciation of non-native speakers of English with focus on aspiration of plosives and VOT. In the first part, a theoretical background is provided with definitions of plosives, VOT and its use and measurement. It also reviews the factors that have been shown to affect the VOT values. In addition, a brief overview of second language acquisition is given, with focus on English pronunciation. The second, empirical part describes the material and method used in the analysis and provides figures and results of statistical tests that were run. The results suggest a significant increase in VOT values as a result of one semester of Phonetics and Phonology course. Furthermore, individual plosives and positions in a word were examined sep- arately to determine whether there are any differences as suggested by the theoretical overview. Keywords: voice onset time, aspiration, Czech English, second language acquisition
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