Exploring the International Intelligibility of the Czech Accent and Pointing out Common Pronunciation Problems of Czech Learners of English Language

This thesis explores how intelligible Czech accented English is to foreign speakers and what pronunciation issues Czech learners of English have. With English language becoming the world’s lingua franca, there has been a significant change in the attitude towards English pronunciation teaching over the years. This paper introduces the change from the Nativeness Principle, that focused on sounding native-like, to the Intelligibility Principle, the goal of which is to have a clear pronunciation enough to converse comfortably with other speakers of English. This paper’s focus is particularly on the Czech accented English and its understandability in conversation. Mutual intelligibility is what Jenkins (2000; 2002) aimed at when putting together a list of core pronunciation features one should focus on when learning English. This Lingua Franca Core (LFC), as she named it, serves as a base for this paper. In this study, recordings of less advanced Czech learners of English were collected...Show moreThis thesis explores how intelligible Czech accented English is to foreign speakers and what pronunciation issues Czech learners of English have. With English language becoming the world’s lingua franca, there has been a significant change in the attitude towards English pronunciation teaching over the years. This paper introduces the change from the Nativeness Principle, that focused on sounding native-like, to the Intelligibility Principle, the goal of which is to have a clear pronunciation enough to converse comfortably with other speakers of English. This paper’s focus is particularly on the Czech accented English and its understandability in conversation. Mutual intelligibility is what Jenkins (2000; 2002) aimed at when putting together a list of core pronunciation features one should focus on when learning English. This Lingua Franca Core (LFC), as she named it, serves as a base for this paper. In this study, recordings of less advanced Czech learners of English were collected and analysed, in order to pinpoint the main pronunciation mistakes. These were compared to Jenkins’ LFC to establish how intelligible the Czech accent is. Selected bits of the recordings were also sent to responders through a survey, to find out what their opinion on the Czech accent is. The main findings of the analysis showed that less advanced Czech learners substitute English vowels with Czech ones, they put stress on the first syllable in every word and pronounce English weak vowel forms as full ones. They also struggle with the pronunciation of voiced and voiceless dental fricatives, and they insert a glottal stop in between words, creating clear boundaries. The survey results showed that these aspects of Czech English mainly constitute a problem in isolated words. When context is provided, the Czech accent proved to be quite intelligible and some of the pronunciation features even helped with intelligibility. The study concluded with pronunciation tips for English learners.Show less

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Exploring the International Intelligibility of the Czech Accent and Pointing out Common Pronunciation Problems of Czech Learners of English Language