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Stress shift in Czech English
Farana, Michal ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Matuchová, Klára (referee)
The purpose of the bachelor thesis is to explore how Czech speakers of English are able to predict and apply stress shift in their speech. The theoretical part gives a brief description of the English stress system and focuses primarily on a detailed exploration of the stress shift phenomenon and its function in relation to the rhythmic structure of English. The practical part aims at examining the ability of Czech speakers to produce stress shift in selected contexts. The respondents were recorded reading a text with items that typically undergo stress shift. The data obtained from these recordings were perceptually analysed and subsequently used to either prove or disprove the hypotheses formulated at the beginning of the research. Key Words lexical stress, sentence stress, rhythm, stress shift, Czech English
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Acoustic properties of word stress in read Czech English
Liska, Jan ; Volín, Jan (advisor) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
key words: Czech English, foreign accent, word stress, word accent, stressed syllable, duration, f0, acoustic cues. This study investigates the acoustic properties of word stress in Czech English. The notion of foreign accent is introduced and its drawbacks are presented. Further on the various influences on the perceived degree, or strength, of foreign accent are discussed. Faulty realization of word stress is identified as one of the factors that contribute to unintelligibility of non-native speech (Benrabah, 1997; Hahn, 2004; Cutler, 1984). In Chapter 2 we compare the results of studies that used speakers of a variety of languages and form a basic theory on the acquisition of acoustic cues to word stress. We are mostly interested in f0 and duration. This theory, based on the feature hypothesis (McAllister et al., 2002 in Lee, Guion & Harada, 2006), states that languages that have a similar stress system to that of English (Dutch, Arabic) use their native cues to signal word stress, while non-contrastive languages (Vietnamese, Czech) prefer cue/s that are phonologically active on segmental level in their native language. Speakers of Vietnamese, a tone language, were found to prefer f0 over duration (Nguyen, 2003), so for Czech, a language that uses phonological vowel duration, it is expected that...
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The ability of Czech speakers to imitate the temporal structure of English words with and without Czech analogues
Jakšič, Jan ; Šturm, Pavel (advisor) ; Gráf, Tomáš (referee)
The aim of the current thesis is to ascertain whether there is an effect of Czech analogues on the temporal structures of English words in realization of Czech speakers. The theoretical part of the thesis introduces three major areas of our focus: foreign accent, word stress, and duration. Definitions of relevant terms are presented and existing findings about the areas are summarized in this part. The empirical part consists of a research; the Czech speakers imitate English words with and without analogues after listening to a native speaker's realization. The temporal structures in realizations of the Czech speakers are compared to those in the native realizations. Apart from examining the temporal structures with respect to analogues, we also try to determine the possible effect of Czech stress placement on the durations of the English words and their segments in Czech realizations. The acquired data are analysed with regard to their significance and the results are subject to a discussion. Key words: Foreign Accent, Duration, Lexical Stress, the English of Czech Speakers, Analogues
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Role of Schwa in Word Stress Perception
Juránková, Martina ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Bojarová, Marie (referee)
The aim of this bachelor thesis is to assess the role of schwa as the main representative of vowel reduction in the perception of English word stress. The research tool will be a perception test consisting of three groups of three to five syllable words. The individual categories will be differentiated from each other by the position of the sound schwa placed either before or after the syllable carrying the primary stress or it will not occur near the stressed syllable at all. Three groups of participants (Czech primary-school, secondary-school and university students) will be asked to mark the main stress in selected items. We hypothesize that the identification of stressed parts will be facilitated by the presence of schwa in the immediate vicinity of stressed syllables.
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Stress shift in Czech English
Farana, Michal ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Matuchová, Klára (referee)
The purpose of the bachelor thesis is to explore how Czech speakers of English are able to predict and apply stress shift in their speech. The theoretical part gives a brief description of the English stress system and focuses primarily on a detailed exploration of the stress shift phenomenon and its function in relation to the rhythmic structure of English. The practical part aims at examining the ability of Czech speakers to produce stress shift in selected contexts. The respondents were recorded reading a text with items that typically undergo stress shift. The data obtained from these recordings were perceptually analysed and subsequently used to either prove or disprove the hypotheses formulated at the beginning of the research. Key Words lexical stress, sentence stress, rhythm, stress shift, Czech English
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The duration of stressed and unstressed vowels in Spanish
Berkovcová, Zuzana ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Šturm, Pavel (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to examine the issue of acoustic correlates of word stress in Spanish. The literature reviewed shows conflicting opinions among scholars engaged in this subject. Most of them traditionally consider intensity or fundamental frequency changes as determining features of prominent vowels, whereas duration is regarded as playing a minor role. The core of this thesis is to be found in the research that deals with the way duration behaves with both Spanish stressed and unstressed vowels analyzed in three different speech styles. Recordings of four Castilian Spanish native speakers were made, featuring two-syllable and three-syllable words which were analyzed with various positions of stressed vowels. On the whole, the results showed trends of major duration of stressed vowels in comparison with unstressed ones only in three-syllable words. No significant differences were observed in two-syllable words. No direct link between duration of stressed and unstressed vowels and each specific speech style could be established either, due to unequal values measured in two-syllable and three-syllable words. Key words: word stress, acoustic correlates, duration, speech styles, Spanish
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Syllable nucleus duration as a signal of foreign accent by L2 Russian speakers of Czech
Pinchuk, Oleksandr ; Zíková, Magdalena (advisor) ; Confortiová, Helena (referee)
The bachelor thesis 'Syllable nucleus duration as a signal of foreign accent by L2 Rus- sian speakers of Czech' focuses on realization of word accent in the Czech speeches of Russian native speakers. Through comparison of the duration values of syllable nuclei in selected words among Czech and Russian speakers, we tried to find a possible link between the vowel duration and perception of the Russian realization of accent as a marked one. This thesis consists of a theoretical and a practical part. In the theoretical part, which has been worked out on the basis of the professional literature studied, we deal with factors affecting the syllable accent and function of vowel duration in Russian and Czech. The practical part is de- voted to analysis of audio recordings, which comprises selection of words for instrumental analysis, manual segmentation of phones in selected words and processing of data on vowel duration. Based on the results obtained, we further compared the duration of vowels among Czech vs. Russian speakers, depending on position of the vowel in a word, phonological length of the vowels and the syllable accent. The realization of selected words among Russian speakers was confronted with the results of a perceptual test. Analysis of the audio recordings showed that the syllable nucleus...
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