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Weak-form grammatical words in Czech speakers of English
Fuková, Kateřina ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Luef, Eva Maria (referee)
Adopting processes of connected speech into one's English pronunciation has proven challenging for EFL learners, and Czech speakers are no exception. The objective of the present thesis was to find, whether there is any connection between the level of pronunciation and ability to reduce grammatical words to their weak forms. The first section of this paper describes the contemporary understanding of speech rhythm and connected speech processes, and summarizes existing research in the field of acquisition of these pronunciation practices. In the empirical portion of this thesis, we analysed recordings of 20 native Czech speakers, all of which were women. Speakers were separated into 2 different groups according to their pronunciation capabilities. No general conclusions can be drawn from the evaluated material, as the groups showed many different tendencies. In some cases, the group with an ambiguous accent performed better than the group with a typically Czech accent and this tendency was never completely reversed. On many occasions, however, the groups behaved identically.
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