Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature

Petra Jureková

The Pronunciation of English in Czech,

Slovak and Russian Speakers

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph.D.

2015
 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………

Author’s signature

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I would like to express gratitude to my supervisor, PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph.D., and

thank her for her advice, patience, kindness and help. I would also like to thank all the

volunteers that participated in the research project.

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Table of content

List of tables......................................................................................................................5

1. Introduction...............................................................................................................7

1.1. English as an important language for international communication..................7

1.2. Acquisition of a foreign language.......................................................................8

1.2.1. English as a foreign language......................................................................8

1.2.2. Pronunciation...............................................................................................8

1.3. About the thesis..................................................................................................9

2. English phonetic system..........................................................................................11

2.1. Segmental level.................................................................................................11

2.1.1. Vowels.......................................................................................................11

2.1.2. Consonants................................................................................................15

2.2. Suprasegmental features in connected speech..................................................22

2.2.1. Stress..........................................................................................................23

2.2.2. Rhythm......................................................................................................27

3. Introduction to Czech, Slovak and Russian languages............................................29

3.1. Czech and Slovak sound systems.....................................................................30

3.1.1. Segmental level.........................................................................................30

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 3.1.2. Suprasegmental level.................................................................................37

3.2. Russian sound system.......................................................................................40

3.2.1. Segmental level.........................................................................................41

3.2.2. Suprasegmental level.................................................................................45

3.3. Comparison of the errors..................................................................................47

4. Practical section.......................................................................................................49

4.1. Procedure..........................................................................................................49

4.2. Recordings........................................................................................................50

4.3. Results...............................................................................................................52

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................60

Reference list...................................................................................................................63

Summary (English)..........................................................................................................66

Summary (Czech)............................................................................................................67

Appendix A: The text......................................................................................................68

Appendix B: The CD.......................................................................................................69

Appendix C: The questionnaire.......................................................................................70

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List of tables

Table 1: The distinctive consonants of English....................................................16

Table 2a and 2b: The review of voiced and voiceless consonants........................17

Table 3: Pronunciation of /ð/ or /θ/ when th occurs..............................................20

Table 4: Compressing of the syllables..................................................................28

Table 5: Classification of the Slavonic languages................................................29

Table 6: System of Czech consonantal sounds.....................................................33

Table 7: System of Slovak consonantal sounds....................................................34

Table 8: English pronunciation errors in three respective Slavic languages........48

Table 9: Rate of accentedness...............................................................................53

Table 10: Rate of intelligibility.............................................................................54

Table 11: Rate of phonaesthetic evaluation..........................................................55

Table 12: General overall assessment...................................................................56

Table 13: Overview of respondents’ guesses about the speakers’ nationalities...58

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1. Introduction

1.1. English as an important language for international

communication

At the present time to have a command of English means to have more

opportunities, to be able to communicate with the outer world and also to understand it

better. The English language has spread to such an extent that it has penetrated into

almost every sphere of life. Apart from travelling, English also plays a major role in the

entertainment industry, since it is the most preferred language for films, songs and

games (Foley, 2007, p. 3). David Crystal, famous writer, editor and lecturer, says that:

English is the language of international air traffic communication, and its usage

is growing in maritime, policing, and emergency services. Most scientific,

technological, and academic information in the world is expressed in English;

over 80% of all information stored in electronic retrieval systems is in English.

(as cited in Short, Boniche, Kim, & Li Li, 2001, p. 3)

Crystal further remarks that English stands out from other languages since it has

become the worldwide lingua franca of interaction. People from countries where

English is not their native language are trying to learn English to be able to participate

in international activities (as cited in Short et al., 2001, p. 3). Mastering the English

language can have an essential role in people’s careers, too. There are three main ways

of making professional use of speaking English well. (a) English as a global language

gives people the opportunity to go and work abroad since the knowledge of it is often

enough, even in countries with the first language other than English. (b) Another

possibility is to apply for a better paying position with a higher prestige in one’s native

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 land as it is common nowadays that business companies belong to international trade

and cooperate with other countries and English can be a helpful tool for the

partnership. (c) The third possibility refers to teaching. As the number of those who

choose to learn English increases, the number of teachers needed for performing this

profession grows as well.

1.2. Acquisition of a foreign language

1.2.1. English as a foreign language

Mastering a foreign language involves a long process of studying its grammar,

vocabulary and pronunciation. English is nowadays taught at most schools as a

compulsory subject. However, based on the author’s own experience from Slovak

schools and the information gathered from Czech students, teaching of English

pronunciation at primary and secondary schools in both Slovak and Czech Republics

often seems to be underestimated by teachers. Attention is given mostly to grammar,

vocabulary and other features, but not to pronunciation (Tichý, 2014, p.6). Due to this,

those who try to achieve a good level of English often do not realize how important

correct pronunciation can be.

1.2.2. Pronunciation

Pronunciation is a very noticeable aspect in oral communication. With improper

pronunciation speakers lose a certain degree of understandability and thus often the

purpose of the utterance is lost as well. For this very reason, even more attention should

be paid to pronunciation when a person is learning a foreign language. As the well-

known English phonetician A. C. Gimson (2008) at the beginning of his work suggests,

for the acquisition of spoken language skills of one’s mother tongue a long process

consisting in imitating the recurrent sound patterns is needed (p. 5). That implies more

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difficulties and often only a partial success in mastering a foreign language learnt later

in life (Gimson, 2008, p. 6). The different sound systems contain sounds often hardly

distinguishable for learners and not giving enough attention to correct pronunciation

when learning a second language can easily lead to misunderstandings. A different

meaning can easily be conveyed without the speaker having realized the mistake just

made.

With the increasing number of people learning English as their second language

all over the world, the importance of correct pronunciation of English should be taken

into consideration more intensively. Studying the sound system of the second language

properly, focusing on both segmental as well as on suprasegmental aspects, is a

necessary step in order to achieve the highest possible level of good pronunciation, and

thus also a chance of efficient and trouble-free conversations.

Apart from making it more difficult for a listener or not passing a correct

message when speaking a foreign language with faulty pronunciation, there is another

disadvantage that may occur on the part of the speaker. It is generally known that the

way a person speaks can produce certain attitudes in a listener. These attitudes

sometimes happen to be negative when some kinds of prejudices against the speaker are

being formed. Unintelligibility, inarticulate speaking skills and a lack of confidence in

oral communication often result in speakers being judged as lacking knowledge or

intelligence, unable to make decisions, or lacking in reliability (Morley, 2005).

1.3. About the thesis

The thesis deals with non-native speakers’ problems with acquiring English as a

second language pointing to pronunciation mistakes made while they are speaking.

Attention is given to three Slavic nationalities. As a student of Slovak nationality

attending University programmes in English and Russian in the Czech Republic, the

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author of the thesis analyses the most frequent pronunciation errors of Czechs,

Russians, and Slovaks when speaking English. The work then compares these errors

and since a mother tongue is naturally what from a big part influences the pronunciation

of a foreign language, the basic differences in the sound systems of these languages are

presented. Before anything else the theoretical section provides a chapter which gives a

short description of the English phonetic system. The main secondary sources used for

this chapter are Gimson’s Pronunciation of English and English Phonetics and

Phonology by Peter Roach which provide a detailed characterization of the system,

including its sounds and suprasegmental features, all described within the standard

accent of Received Pronunciation. These books serve as a pattern according to which a

comparison can be made and possible errors recognised.

The practical section focuses on native speakers’ perceptions of foreign

pronunciation of English. The research is carried out to find out if they can hear any

differences when the respective Slavic accents are spoken and if the accents give any

undesirable impressions. The methodology of the practical section is as follows: taking

short recordings of representative speakers of each nationality, then giving recordings,

together with a questionnaire, to volunteer assessors (native speakers of English) and

analysing their answers.

The aim of the thesis is to identify possible common and different mistakes in

the English pronunciation of Czech, Slovak and Russian speakers, which can help

respective students to realize their specific errors and improve their language skills.

Another very important goal is to learn about native speakers’ perceptions of non-native

pronunciation of English and their attitudes towards these accents.

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2. English phonetic system

This section examines the English phonetic system on its basics, at first on

segmental and then also on suprasegmental level. The pronunciation described in this

work is the Received Pronunciation, RP. Despite the fact that RP itself can nowadays be

perceived also as a disadvantage, since in the past it was used only by higher classes and

it can be taken as an attempt to show social superiority, it has traditionally been used as

a model of pronunciation for learners of English (Gimson, 2008, pp. 77-79). RP is often

used in formal situations and its forms are usually most generally accepted and

understood, even by those who themselves do not speak it (Gimson, 2008, p. 77). RP

form is also the one used by authors of textbooks, educationalists and scientists as it is a

standard for the basic linguistic research (Melen, 2010, p. 9).

2.1. Segmental level

2.1.1. Vowels

In English there is a large number of vowels. The term covers monophtongs,

which are pure vowels, as well as diphthongs, which are gliding vowels (Pavlík, 2000,

p. 61). English has twelve (relatively) pure vowels which can be, according to Roach

(1991), divided into short and long monophtongs (pp. 14, 18):

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 Short monophtongs: Long monophtongs:
ɪ as in pit iː as in see
e as in pet uː as in too
æ as in bad ɑː as in car
ɒ as in not ɔː as in door
ʊ as in put ɜː as in word
ʌ as in bus
ə as in ago
However, these are only relatively short and relatively long vowels as “the length of all

English vowel sounds varies very much according to context (such as the type of sound

that follows them) and the presence or absence of stress“ (Roach, 1991, p. 18).

Nevertheless, it is practical to divide the vowels in this manner to see certain phonetic

and phonological relationships between them (Pavlík, 2000, 65):

sit – seat / ɪ - i: /

cut – cart / ʌ - ɑ: /

full – fool / ʊ - u: /

don – dawn / ɒ - ɔ: /

for (weak form) – fur / ə - ɜ: /

bet – bat /e–æ/

Pavlík (2000) states, “Special attention should be paid to the sound /æ/ which compared

to the length of the rest of English vowels, is sometimes classified as neutral, that is,

neither short nor long” (p. 65). The sound will be analysed more in detail later as well as

sound /ə/ which occurs only in unaccented syllables (Gimson, 2008, p. 92).

As already mentioned the length characteristic of vowels in English very much

depends on the sound that directly follows the vowel. If the following sound is a

voiceless consonant (/ p, t, k, tʃ, f, θ, s, ʃ /) the quantity of the preceding vowel is

shortened, like in the word cat /kæt/ the vowel /æ/ is short and curt. On the contrary, if

vowel is placed before a voiced consonant (/ b, d, g, dʒ, v, ð, z, ʒ, m, n, ŋ, l /) its length

does not get shorter and it sounds distinctly longer, like in a word bad /bæd/ (Melen,

12
2010, p. 14). This means that short vowel followed by voiced consonant gets the same

length as has long vowel before voiceless consonant. Because of this dependence of the

quantity on the neighbouring sounds, the attribute cannot serve as a primary

distinguishing characteristic of the vowels (Skaličková, 1974, pp. 12-13).

English has eight diphthongs, sounds which involve movement or glide between

two vowels (Roach, 1991, p. 20). According to their endings they can be divided into

three groups (Gimson, 2008, p. 92):

Those with glide to /ɪ/ eɪ aɪ ɔɪ

Those with glide to /ʊ/ əʊ ɑʊ

Those with glide to /ə/ ɪə eə ʊə

When the length is taken into consideration, diphthongs can be assigned as long vowels.

Roach (1991) claims that:

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about all the diphthongs is that

the first part is much longer and stronger than the second part; for example, most

of the diphthong aɪ (as in the words ‘eye’, ‘I’) consists of the a vowel, and only

in about the last quarter of the diphthong does the glide to ɪ become noticeable.

As the glide to ɪ happens, the loudness of the sound decreases. As a result, the ɪ

part is shorter and quieter. Foreign learners must, therefore, always remember

that the last part of English diphthongs must not be made too strongly. (p. 20)

2.1.1.1. Vowel /æ/

The sound /æ/ is a very specific sound of English phonetic system. It does not

appear in Czech or Russian language, the two of Slavic languages involved in the thesis,

and only similar form of the sound can be found in Slovak language, yet it is very rarely

used. That is why it can make difficulties to the foreign learners, and so it is important

to look at the vowel in more details.

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 Because of the raising of the front part of the tongue when æ is pronounced, the

sound is an open front vowel. The description of the vowel according to Gimson (2008)

is:

The mouth is more open than for /e/; the front of the tongue is raised to

a position midway just above open, with the side rims making a very slight

contact with the back upper molars; the lips are neutrally open. (p. 112)

The English /æ/ has always been considered to be a ‘short’ vowel. However,

besides some of the features of the short vowels, it also shows some attributes of long

vowels. For instance, just as the other short vowels, it cannot take a final position and it

occurs before /ŋ/. On the other hand, similarly as the long vowels, it is not included as

an element in the gliding vowels or diphthongs and its quantitative attributes classify it

more as the long vowels (Skaličková, 1974, p. 30). According to Gimson (2008), “The

length of the vowel /æ/ varies considerably and is often almost as long as that of the

long vowels” (p. 92). He also states, “Such lengthening is particularly apparent before

voiced consonants, e.g. in cab, bad, bag, badge, man; /æ/ in these contexts is almost

equivalent to the long vowels, so badge /bædʒ/ and barge /bɑːdʒ/ have vowels of

similar length” (Gimson, 2008, p. 113). He argues that “length is dependent on

individual speaker’s usage, on the context, and on the characteristic pronunciation of

particular words” (Gimson, 2008, p. 92).

2.1.1.2. Vowel /ə/

From the frequency point of view, the mixed vowel /ə/ or schwa is the most

common sound in English (Melen, 2010, p. 20). As Gimson (2008) and Skaličková

(1974) state in their works it is a very typical vowel of English unaccented syllables and

both of them define it as a central vowel with neutral lip position (p. 132; p. 40).

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However, pronunciation of schwa in various words is not exactly the same. Gimson

(2008) discusses two main variations of the articulation of schwa. The first one is in

non-final positions, as in the words ɑlone or afterwɑrds, which means raising of the

tongue between open-mid and close-mid. The other one is in final positions, as in the

words mother or doctor, where “the vowel may be articulated in the open-mid central

position. The acoustic formants of /ə/ are, therefore, likely to be similar to those for /ɜ:/

or /ʌ/ according to the situation” (p. 132). Skaličková (1974) describes the feature as the

light a-ish timber: sofa [ˈsəʊfə] (p. 40).

The schwa sound is often used in unstressed grammar words such as articles and

prepositions: the, for, from, above... It can also replace any vowel sound if a syllable

which includes the vowel becomes unstressed (Skaličková, 1974, p. 41). For example in

the word ‘man’ the letter ‘a’ is pronounced with its full sound /æ/ but in the word

‘fireman’ the syllable ‘man’ is not stressed and the /æ/ sound is replaced by schwa.

2.1.2. Consonants

In English we can find 24 consonantal units. Consonants are generally defined

by their positions in syllables as the units that form the edges of the syllables (Melen,

2010, p. 27). Besides that, in most of the realizations, articulation of consonants is

accompanied by formation of obstructions of the airstream caused by closure or

narrowing of the vocal tract, resulting in production of a noise component (Gimson,

2008, p. 157; Melen, 2010, p. 27). When investigating consonants in more detail, the

question of defining the consonantal sounds proves to be not so clear. For example,

although the sound /h/ does not block the airstream more than some vowels do, it ranks

among the consonants. Another more complex units are the sounds /j/ and /w/ which are

formed in a similar way as vowels and are sometimes called semi-vowels, and /r, l, m,

n, ŋ/ which can have sonant quality typical of vowels (Melen, 2010, p. 27). However,

15
the thesis does not follow up all these issues. Similarly, as in the section on vowels, the

consonants with their main aspects are briefly introduced and only few sounds are

examined in detail. These are the sounds that do not exist in the phonetic systems of

Czech, Russian and Slovak languages and may be difficult to learn and put into

practical use.

Consonants are usually distinguished by the place and manner of their

articulation as it is shown in the table below:

Table 1: The distinctive consonants of English

Plosive Affricate Fricative Nasal Approximants

Bilabial p, b m (w)
Labiodental f, v
Dental θ, ð
Alveolar t, d s, z n l
Post-alveolar r
Palato-alveolar tʃ, dʒ ʃ, ʒ
Palatal j
Velar k,g ŋ w
Glottal h
Source: Gimson (2008, p. 157)

Based on their sonority they can be classified into voiced and voiceless

consonants (Melen, 2010, p. 28). The tables below show the review of the consonants

and examples of words which they occur in:

Table 2a and 2b: The review of voiced and voiceless consonants

Voiced: initial Medial final Voiceless initial medial final

b best about rib p paper repair top
d day lady kind t tea hotel bat
g game ago dog k keep blanket cheek
v vein Event give f fast roofing cough
ð that breathing bathe θ think earthy bath
z zoo reason quiz s sit system peace
ʒ genre version garag ʃ shy fishing posh
e
dʒ joke Egypt huge h heat behind
l late olympic file tʃ chat teacher much
m more common team

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n nose funny soon
ŋ longing sing
r red terror care
j you beyond
w wall outward

However, the sonority of the voiced consonants can be very weak. Especially in

initial and final position it is scarcely audible at all. Thus some phoneticians suggest

using the terms lenis and fortis which regard more the aspect of the articulatory

strength. Lenis with the meaning ‘weak’ is used for voiced consonants since they are

produced with less articulatory energy and last shorter. Voiceless consonants are then

called fortis which means ‘strong’ because they last longer and more force is needed for

their production (Roach, 1991, p. 33).

Particular attention should be also paid to the aspect of aspiration. Aspiration

happens where /p, t, k/ are in initial position of a syllable and especially in accented

syllables followed by a vowel (Gimson, 2008, p. 161). Pavlík (2000) defines it as “an

additional puff of air (audible release of breath) accompanying a sound’s articulation”

(p. 88). Missing aspiration can change the meaning of the word since it is a main feature

that distinguishes voiceless plosives from the voiced ones (Pavlík, 2000, p. 88). If for

example a word pet is pronounced without aspiration, that is [pet] instead of [phet], the

initial plosive may not be correctly recognised, and the word will more likely sound like

bet. The most conspicuous aspiration occurs with /k/, and the weakest with /p/ (Melen,

2010, p. 30). The aspiration also operates when /p, t, k/ are followed by /l, r, j, w/, by

the devoicing of /l, r, j, w/ such as in the words try, class, crab compared with dry,

glass, grab (Gimson, 2008, p. 162). On the other hand, voiceless plosives lose the

aspiration when they follow /s/ in a stressed position, e.g. in stay, sky, speak (Pavlík,

2000, p. 88).

17
 It is important to observe that even though the voiced or lenis consonants lose

their voicing when they stand in final position, they do not become completely voiceless

and cannot be pronounced as their voiceless pairs. As Gimson (2008) explains the

reason is shortening of vowels before voiceless consonants while keeping the full length

of vowels preceding the voiced consonants, so for example, the /ʌ/ of bug is longer

compared with the same vowel in buck (p. 162).

2.1.2.1. English voiced /ð/ and voiceless /θ/

Both of these sounds are formed in a following way, described by Gimson

(2008):

The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the tip and rims of

the tongue make a light contact with the edge and inner surface of the upper

incisors and a firmer contact with the upper side teeth, so that the air escaping

between the forward surface of the tongue and the incisors causes friction (such

friction often being very weak in the case of /ð/). (p. 195)

Skaličková (1974) in her work states that there are textbooks which describe formation

of /ð/ and /θ/ as interdental (p. 99) which means that the position of tip of the tongue is

in between the teeth. However, Roach (1991) claims it is a way of teachers to teach

their students to make the sound (p. 49). Correctly the tongue should be placed behind

the teeth (Melen, 2010, p. 34). The lip position varies a little according to the adjacent

vowel. For example, for the word thief the lip is spread but for the word truth it is more

rounded (Gimson, 2008, p. 195).

The sound /θ/ is voiceless, longer and shortens the preceding vowel; /ð/ is

voiced, shorter and does not shorten the preceding vowel (Melen, 2010, p. 35). The

spelling of the two dental fricatives is always th. The rules for pronouncing /ð/ or /θ/

18
when th occurs in a word are a bit complex. Here are a few examples which Melen

(2010) gives in his work (p. 35):

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 Table 3: Pronunciation of /ð/ or /θ/ when th occurs

/ð/
In grammar words such as the
TH word-initial articles, pronouns, conjunctions:
the, this, that, than, though
In the words of Germanic origin:
TH word-medial father, brother, gather
When there is ‘e’ written at the
end:
TH word-final bathe, clothe
Most frequently in verbs:
to mouth, smooth, bequeath
/θ/
In the other cases:
think, thumb, thought
In the words of non Germanic
origin: method, author,
sympathy
In some other words:
path, cloth, fourth

2.1.2.2. /w/

The sound /w/ does not occur in any of the three Slavic languages and its

pronunciation should be examined to prevent replacing it with simple /v/ which is

familiar to all three languages. In English there is a huge difference between /w/ and /v/.

They are completely different sounds and interchanging them might alter the whole

meaning of a word. For example, pronunciation of the word wet with /v/ at the

beginning would result in substitution of the word for vet.

/w/ has common relations with the u-ish articulations and as it was already

mentioned before /w/ is sometimes classified as semivowel (Skaličková, 1974, p. 95). In

the initial phase of /w/ the lips are strongly rounded similarly as when /u:/ is

pronounced. Characteristic of this sound is its final stage which makes the basic

difference and that is when the lips come loose and at the same time the switch to the

first phase of the following vowel is realised. /w/ is produced with both lips, so it is

a bilabial articulation in contrast to labiodental /v/ (Melen, 2010, p. 35).

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2.1.2.3. /ŋ/

Although the sound /ŋ/ is not completely unknown to the three Slavic languages,

in neither of them it exists as a separate phoneme (Skaličková, 1974, p. 115). The

production of /ŋ/ in Gimson’s (2008) description is similar to /k, g/ when by touching

the velum by the back of the tongue a closure is formed. The soft palate is lowered,

allowing the air to escape through the nasal cavity. The lip position varies depending on

the preceding vowel. Apart from a few cases of devoicing, /ŋ/ bears an attribute of

voiced consonant (p. 212).

/ŋ/ does not occur in initial positions but medial and final positions are frequent.

In those two latter positions /ŋ/ is sometimes pronounced with a plosive following it and

sometimes without it. Words including written ‘nk’ such as ankle, sink or thinker are

pronounced with /ŋk/. However, it gets more complicated with words containing the

letters ‘ng’. When ‘ng’ occurs in the final position it is pronounced as /ŋ/ without /g/ at

the end of the word: tongue - [tʌŋ], long - [lɒŋ], sing - [sɪŋ], etc. (Roach, 1991, pp. 57-

58). Medially Roach (1991) distinguishes a few basic rules according to which ‘ng’ is

pronounced as (p. 57):

1. /ŋg/ if it occurs inside of a morpheme, which means that the word is

grammatically further indivisible as in the words finger, hunger

2. /ŋg/ in the comparative and superlative forms of the adjectives such as in longer,

longest, stronger, strongest

3. /ŋ/ if the word can be grammatically divided so that /ŋ/ is found at the end of

a morpheme for instance in a word singer

Skaličková in her work adds another case of ‘ng’ or ‘nk’ occurring in a word. She states

that if a prefix con- appears before /k, g/, its pronunciation depends on the stress

position in the word. If the stress is on the syllable which follows the prefix,

21
pronunciation is usually with alveolar /n/ as in a word congratulate - [kənˈgrætjʊˌleɪt],

but if the syllable following the prefix is unstressed, the prefix is usually pronounced

as /ŋ + k,g/ such as in a word congress [ˈkɒŋgres] (Skaličková, 1974, p. 116).

2.2. Suprasegmental features in connected speech

Connected speech, as described by Gimson (2008), is “an utterance consisting of

more than one word” (p. 263). There are several features which characterize the

connected speech and which need to be taken into consideration to achieve a good level

of pronunciation. It is not enough to master individual phonemes of a language but on

the other hand, to sound as correct and intelligible as possible it is necessary to know

what the phonetic aspects are when phonemes are combined into words and words into

sentences. These phonetic features known as suprasegmental can be defined as the

features which “stretch over more than a single segment – possibly a syllable,

a complete word or phrase, whole sentences, or even more” (Collins & Mees, 2008, p.

124). They include rhythm, stress, assimilation, liaison, elision, intonation etc.

Skaličková (1974) in her work cites several phoneticians who emphasize the

importance of the aspects in connected speech as for example J. D. O'Connor in his

work Stress, Rhythm and Intonation argues, “Many students learn to make the

individual sounds correctly enough, yet their speech remains barely intelligible to the

English ear. The reason for this paradox is usually to be found in faulty rhythm and

intonation” (p. 124). Or W. S. Allen who in his Living English Speech states that

“a reasonably correct speech-flow is more important for intelligibility than correct

sounds” (as cited in Skaličková, 1974, p. 124).

22
 Some of the suprasegmental features are discussed more often in various works on

phonetics while some of them are considered to be less important. This work focuses

only on some of the above mentioned aspects which seem most relevant for the work.

2.2.1. Stress

Stress as defined in the Oxford Dictionaries is “an emphasis given to a particular

syllable or word in speech, typically through a combination of relatively greater

loudness, higher pitch, and longer duration” (“stress,” 2015). Gimson (2008) besides

these three factors states also the forth one – quality of the vowels (p. 236). All these

four factors cause certain parts or syllables to be more prominent; however, some of

them seem to have more significance. As stated by Gimson (2008) “it is principally

pitch change which marks an accented syllable” (p. 236). Also Roach (1991) in his

work asserts that “these factors are not equally important; the strongest effect is

produced by pitch, and length is also a powerful factor. Loudness and quality have

much less effect” (p. 86).

Pitch assigns the degree of highness of sounds as perceived by a human. The most

important factor which governs the quality of the sounds is the rate of vibration or

frequency of the vocal folds (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 133). Collins and Mees (2008)

state that “the higher the frequency, the higher the perceived pitch” (pp. 124, 133) and

the higher the pitch, the stronger the stress.

The other factor which on the part of the listener is loudness would be intensity.

The level of intensity depends on how much breath effort and muscular energy are

expended by the speaker. The greater effort and energy means the stronger intensity and

that associates with the stressed syllables (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 124), although, as

23
mentioned before, loudness is not so significant in determining the stress in English

(Gimson, 2008, p. 237).

Vowel quality is highly connected to so-called vowel reduction in the context of

unstressed syllables. Vowel reduction is realized when “the peripheral vowel in the

unstressed syllable is actually replaced by another phoneme – most commonly by /ə/,

sometimes by /ɪ/ or /ʊ/, or even a syllabic consonant, e.g. attention [əˈtenʃn]” (Collins &

Mees, 2008, p. 124). The quality of the vowels in a word changes if the placement of

the stress changes. When compared the noun present [ˈprezənt] to the verb (to) present

[prəˈzent] the peripheral vowel /e/ can be found in the first syllable of the noun but in

the second syllable of the verb. The opposite can be seen with the central vowel /ə/.

This means that the peripheral vowel /e/ occurs in the stressed syllables while the

central vowel /ə/ occurs in the unstressed syllables instead. Thus, vowel reduction

causes the unstressed syllables to be less prominent (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 124).

When the quantity (duration) of vowels is considered, vowels are longer in

stressed than in unstressed syllables. It can be noticed in an example by Collins and

Mees (2008) when compared the length of the vowel in two words with different

stresses: sarcasm [ˈsɑːkæzəm] and sarcastic [sɑˈkæːstɪk] (p. 125). In spite of the fact

Gimson (2008) states, “Despite the lesser prominence of all short vowels, a long vowel

in an unaccented syllable is sometimes longer than a short vowel in an adjacent

accented syllable, e.g. pillow [ˈpɪləʊ], record [ˈrekɔːd]” (p. 237).

Collins and Mees (2008) distinguish between word stress and sentence stress (p.

124). The latter one is meant as the stress in connected speech involving the subject of

strong and weak forms.

24
2.2.1.1. Word stress

In English each individual word carries its own stress when it stands in isolation.

In contrast to some languages which have regular stress pattern, English stress can

occur in different positions depending on each individual word. Gimson (2008) claims

the stress pattern to be both fixed and free. With certain exceptions stress has always its

particular place in any given word and therefore it is fixed, but it is free when taken into

consideration that in general there is no particular syllable on which stress falls (p. 235).

There can be more levels of stress. In some words besides the main stress (also

called primary or principal stress) occurs a syllable which is not as strongly stressed as

the one with the main stress but still carries more prominence than the unstressed

syllable. This is assigned as a secondary stress. For example, the word photographic

would be transcribed as [ˌfəʊtəˈgræfɪk] where the first syllable carries the secondary

stress, represented by a low vertical line, while the primary stress is as usually indicated

by a vertical line at the top just before the stressed syllable (Roach, 1991, p. 87).

Although there exist some rules on English stress patterns, they involve too many

exceptions and so it is very hard for a foreign learner to predict the main stress of the

words just from the written form. The rules are very complex and this thesis does not

focus on them for the sake of the given extent and also for the sake of complexity and

beliefs of certain phoneticians that it is better for the foreigners to learn the stresses by

heart together with individual words (Roach, 1991, p. 88).

2.2.1.2. Sentence stress

As cited in Kingdon’s definition on sentence stress, it is “the relative degree of

force given to the different words in a sentence” (as cited in Pavlík, 2000, p. 181). The

degree of the force depends on how important the word in the sentence is i.e. how much

25
information it conveys. Generally the more information the word carries the more

stressed it becomes. Based on this general rule, the words which convey only little

information often lose their stresses in connected speech. (Collins & Mees, 2008, p.

130; Pavlík, 2000, p. 181). These are usually function words which play important

structural role for the sentence but their lexical meaning is almost none. These involve

articles, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, determiners and some

adverbs. Function words have their own stress when they stand isolated in which case

they are said to be in their strong form. However, they usually appear as the parts of

sentences in their weak unaccented forms (Pavlík, 2000, p. 173). By contrast there are

content words such as nouns, adjectives, main verbs, numerals and most adverbs in

which “lexical meaning prevails over their grammatical meaning” (Pavlík, 2000, p.

182). The difference can be seen on the example taken from Collins and Mees (2008, p.

130):

I’ve ˈheard that ˈJack and ˈJane ˈspent their ˈholidays in Jaˈmaica.
FF C F C F C C F C F C
(C = content word, F = function word)

When the function word is being used in its weak form, several phenomena can take

place, involving (Pavlík, 2000, pp. 173-174):

1. Reduction of length; to / tu: / → / tu /

2. Obscuration of vowels: at / æt / → / ət /

3. Elision of sounds: him / hɪm / → / ɪm /

There exist some cases when function words are used in their strong forms in

connected speech. This applies mainly to (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 130):

 (a) wh-words where these form questions, e.g. where, why, how

(b) demonstratives, e.g. this, that, these, those

 Function words indicating a contrast:

26
 I said give it to ˈhim, not ˈher.

Collins and Mees (2008) also talk about the case when some of the content words

become unstressed which happens if the utterance is said at more rapid tempo (p. 130):

I've heard that ˈJack and ˈJane spent their ˈholidays in Jaˈmaica.

The use of the weak forms in English is very frequent and every learner of the

English language and its pronunciation should practise this phenomenon. The reason for

this is not only to achieve sounding more natural and more native-like but to be aware

of the weak forms means also better understanding of the speakers who use them

(Pavlík, 2000, p. 73).

2.2.2. Rhythm

The feature which gives English an impression of being rhythmical and which is

the basis for the rhythm in English is sentence stress. English is assigned to a group of

languages called the stress-time languages (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 131). Pavlík

(2000) in his work states the definition by Crystal which says, “In stress-timed

languages, it is claimed that the stressed syllables recur at regular intervals of time,

regardless of the number of intervening unstressed syllables” (p. 186). Of course the

regularity is relative and the time period occurring between the stressed syllables is not

exactly the same but English has “a tendency towards taking an approximately equal

period of time between one stressed syllable and the next” (Pavlík, 2000, p. 187).

Such stress-timing is related to so called borrowing rule which is about

shortening some vowels due to the others. Gimson (2008) defines it as the rule of

English rhythm “whereby a syllable with a reduced vowel ‘borrows time’ from any

immediately preceding syllable containing a full vowel” (p. 265). In this way the

stressed syllables followed by reduced syllables become shortened while the other

stressed syllables are equally long and reduced syllables are equally short (Gimson,

27
2008, p. 265). The example by Collins and Mees (2008) shows the shortening of the

vowel in a word as unstressed syllables are added (p. 131):

Table 4: Compressing of the syllables

The ban's back in place The banner's back in The banister's back in
place place
/bænz/ /ˈbænəz/ /ˈbænɪstəz/
───── ──── • ─── • •

28
3. Introduction to Czech, Slovak and Russian languages

Czech, Russian and Slovak all rank among the big group of Indo-European

languages called Slavic or also Slavonic languages (“Slavic languages,” 2015). This

Slavic language group is traditionally classified into three main branches which further

consist of several subgroups. The three main branches are East which include Russian

language, West which include both Slovak and Czech, and South as it can be seen in the

table (Schenker, 2002, p. 60):

Table 5: Classification of the Slavonic languages

Eastern Bulgarian
South Macedonian
Western Serbo-Croat
Slovene
Czecho-Slovak Czech
Slovak
West Sorbian Upper Sorbian
Slavonic Lower Sorbian
Lechitic Polish
Cassubian
Russian
East Ukrainian
Belorussian

With regard to phonology, one of the most salient features of Slavonic languages is the

presence of a substantial number of palatal and palatalized consonants. Typical,

especially of the Russian language, are pairs of palatalized (soft) and non-palatalized

(hard) consonants (Comrie & Corbett, 2002, p. 6).

In the previous chapter the basics of English phonetic system were introduced.

Now the focus shifts to basic differences within the sound systems of the three

respective Slavonic languages when they are compared to English. These differences

are introduced and proceeding from them the most common errors made by the Czechs,

29
Slovaks and Russians in English pronunciation are stated as well. Since Slovak and

Czech belong to the same Slavic branch, and the same subgroup, the languages are very

close and share many similarities. Therefore, their phonetic systems are analysed

together in one chapter. Russian as another Slavonic language has certainly a lot in

common with the other two as well, but because of its placement in a different branch,

obviously, there are more distinctions and the language is discussed in a separate

subchapter.

3.1. Czech and Slovak sound systems

3.1.1. Segmental level

3.1.1.1. Vowels

Both Slovak and Czech languages have in their phonetic systems fewer vowels

than English. In Czech there exist five simple short vowels with the set of five matching

long vowels (Krčmová, 1999, p. 87):

/ a – a:, e – e:, i – i:, o – o:, u – u: /

Apart from few very little quality differences, Slovak pairs of long and short vowels are

the same (Kráľ, 1996, p. 48):

/ a – a:, e – e:, i – i:, o – o:, u – u: /

Moreover, there exists one more short vowel /æ/. The sound is orthographically written

as ä. Although the vowel /æ/ belongs to the standard Slovak, it is not actively used.

Only by about 5 per cent of speakers use it in their pronunciation. It is commonly

replaced by the vowel /e/ (Short, 2002, p. 534).

In contrast to English, the pairs are primarily distinguished by their quantity

(Kráľ, 1996, p. 92; Skaličková, 1974, p. 19). Considered the pairs, long vowels are

basically formed by prolongation of short vowels (Melen, 2010, p. 13) in an

30
approximate ratio of 1:2 (Kráľ, 1996, p. 92; Skaličková, 1974, p. 19). Quality

differences of the sounds in each pair are hardly noticeable while in English they have

the primary importance. Considered the timbre, each of the five basic spheres – A-ish,

E-ish, I-ish, O-ish and U-ish – contain only two phonemes (excluding Slovak

vowel /æ/ ) which are distinguished by their quantity, thus the vowel quality can

extensively fluctuate and have different variations. In English each of the spheres is

represented by several phonemes which are distinguished by the timbre, thus the quality

variation has to be restricted and the individual phonemes must be pronounced more

accurately. (Skaličková, 1974, p. 19) This is often a problem for Czech and Slovak

learners of English to distinguish between the members of the vowel pairs and to

observe the different timber of the sounds (Kráľová, 2011, p. 25; Skaličková, 1982, p.

185). Influenced by their mother tongues they often focus on quantity but ignore the

importance of quality aspect.

One of the most frequent cases when the timbre differences are not correctly

observed is the case of /e – æ/. As a consequence of missing the sound /æ/ in their

system, Czech students often mispronounce words which contain this sound by

replacing it by the vowel /e/ (Skaličková, 1982, p. 185). The fact that Slovak phonetic

system contains sound similar to English /æ/ could seem as a certain advantage for

Slovak learners when compared to Czech. However, as it was already mentioned /æ/ is

used by almost none of the Slovak speakers and even in their language it is frequently

substituted for /e/. Thus the Slovaks tend to do the same mistake and replace the vowel

/æ/ by /e/ when speaking English (Kráľová, 2011, p. 25). In English this kind of

mispronunciation can in many cases lead to change of meaning, for example, if the

word bad is pronounced as /bed/ instead of its correct pronunciation /bæd/, the word

gets completely different meaning. The basic thing that needs to be realized when /æ/ is

31
pronounced is that “the mouth is more open than for /e/” (Gimson, 2008, p. 112). Based

on the author’s experience, this little hint is a big step forward in achieving the aimed

pronunciation.

Length makes certain difficulties for Czech and Slovak students too. Since their

languages have only two grades of length, students tend to pay not enough attention to

the different grades of length of English vowels influenced by the following consonant

and pronounce them with incorrect duration (Kráľová, 2011, p. 25). For example, the

words bit, bid are pronounced with an equally short length or words beat, bead with an

equally long length instead of shortest length in bit, middle length in bid and beat and

longest length in bead (Melen, 2010, p. 71).

Another difference in the phonetic systems which appears to have a significant

influence on English pronunciation of Czech and Slovak speakers is the quality of the

vowels in accented and unaccented syllables. Neither Czechs nor Slovaks in their

systems distinguish diverse vowel quality between accented and unaccented syllables

and in both cases vowels maintain their acoustic qualities. English, in contrast, is

characterized by frequent reductions of the vowel quality in unstressed syllables in

which vowels are reduced to the sounds /ə/ or /ɪ/ (Kráľová, 2011, p. 23; Skaličková,

1961, p. 16). However, Czech and Slovak phonetic systems do not involve the mixed

vowel /ə/ either and thus Czechs and Slovaks are often not aware enough of its timber

and replace it by the vowel /e/ (Kráľová, 2011, p. 25; Skaličková, 1982, p. 186).

Relevant differences which also need to be taken into consideration are articulation

differences of which the most important one consists in the position of the tongue. In

Czech and Slovak tongue is in so called convex position i.e. the tip of the tongue is

practically always in contact with the floor of the mouth cavity. In English, on the other

hand, the tip of the tongue is loose, oriented upwards and only rarely comes into contact

32
with the bottom of the mouth i.e. the tongue is in so called concave position (Melen,

2010, p. 15; Kráľová, 2011, p. 25).

3.1.1.2. Consonants

Czech phonetic system includes 27 consonantal phonemes. These are shown in

the table below placed in different groups according to the place and manner of their

articulation (Krčmová, 1999, pp. 97-98):

Table 6: System of Czech consonantal sounds

Occlusive Semi-Occlusive Constrictive

Labial p, b, m (f), v
Alveolar t, d, n c, (dz) s, z, l, r, ř
Post-Alveolar č, (dž) š, ž
Palatal ť, ď, ň j
Velar, Laryngeal k, (g) ch, h
In IPA terms /ť/ = [c], /ď/ = [ɟ], /ň/ = [ɲ], /š/ = [ʃ], /ž/ = [ʒ], /č/ = [tʃ], /dž/ = [dʒ], /ř/ =
[r̝], /ch/ = [x] (Short, 2002, p. 457).

There are 27 consonantal phonemes in the Slovak phonetic system (Short, 2002b, p.

537). Among them there are palatalized l (ľ), long r (ŕ) and long l (ĺ) which are missing

in Czech. Slovak system does not contain Czech trilled ř. Similarly as the Czech

phonemes, Slovak ones are shown in the table below organized into groups according to

classification by Kráľ (1996) based on the place and manner of their articulation (p. 49):

33
 Table 7: System of Slovak consonantal sounds

Occlusive Semi-Occlusive Constrictive

Labial p, b, m (f), v
Alveolar t, d, n c, (dz) s, z
Post-Alveolar č, (dž) š, ž, r, l, ŕ, ĺ
Palatal ť, ď, ň j, ľ
Velar, Laryngeal k, (g) x, h
In IPA terms /ť/ = [c], /ď/ = [ɟ], /ň/ = [ɲ], /ľ/ = [ʎ], /š/ = [ʃ], /ž/ = [ʒ], /č/ = [tʃ], /dž/ =
[dʒ], /ch/ = [x] (Short, 2002, p. 535).

When consonants of English, Czech and Slovak languages are compared, it is

discovered that in all three systems there are almost equal numbers of consonantal units:

24 phonemes in English, 27 phonemes in Czech and 27 phonemes in Slovak. Also, if

Czech and Slovak systems of consonants are taken as one and compared to English,

there can be found consonants which are quite similar and can be put into comparable

pairs (English – Czech and Slovak):

/p/ – /p/ /g/ – /g/ /s/ – /s/ /h/ – /h/

/b/ – /b/ /tʃ/ – /č/ /z/ – /z/ /m/ – /m/
/t/ – /t/ /dʒ/ – /dž/ /ʃ/ – /š/ /n/ – /n/
/d/ – /d/ /f/ – /f/ /ʒ/ – /ž/ /l/ – /l/
/k/ – /k/ /v/ – /v/ /j/ – /j/ /r/ – /r/

In spite of their apparent similarities, in each pair there are substantial distinctions.

Besides them, in each of the languages exist consonants which do not have their rough

equivalents in the system of the other language. For the thesis English consonants which

do not exist in Czech and Slovak are relevant since they are presumptive source of

mispronunciation. These are mainly the sounds /θ, ð, w/.

Dominant characteristic for Czech and Slovak consonants is the contrast of

voiced and voiceless pairs: b/p, d/t, ď/ť, dz/c, dž/č, z/s, ž/š, g/k, h/ch, v/f which are

subjects to assimilation (Kráľová, 2011, p. 23; Skaličková, 1974, p. 64). Among the

34
most frequent errors of Czech and Slovak speakers in English pronunciation is

substitution of voiced consonants for their voiceless counterparts. This habit again

arises from pronunciation within their mother tongues for which such replacements are

typical. In Czech and Slovak the realization of the consonantal phonemes before a pause

is neutralized and the obstruents are pronounced as their voiceless counterparts: zub –

/zup/ (tooth) (Krčmová, 1999, p. 127; Short, 2002b, p. 535). The same happens to

Czech and Slovak speakers in English but there such substitution can easily lead to

a change of meaning. For example, when the word sad is realized as /sæt/ it denotes the

word sat instead (Melen, 2010, p. 72). Similarly, influenced by the Czech and Slovak

customs, wrong assimilation appears in consonantal clusters. In Czech and Slovak

language when voiced and voiceless sounds meet assimilation is regressive i.e. the latter

consonant determines the pronunciation of the sounds (Short, 2002a, p. 458):

Voiced + voiceless → /voiceless + voiceless/ e.g. hádka → /ha:tka/

(argument)

Voiceless + voiced → /voiced + voiced/ e.g. kde → /gde/ (where)

When the same is applied to English again the meaning can be changed, as for example,

when the word backbone is incorrectly pronounced as /bægbəʊn/ (Melen, 2010, p. 72).

Such mispronunciations can easily lead to confusions, therefore, the Czech and Slovak

speakers should be aware of these differences and should try to suppress the influence

of their mother tongues.

Yet another problem arises, especially for Slovak learners. In the Slovak

language the sound /v/ is sometimes pronounced as non-syllabic bilabial /u̯/. One of the

cases when this pronunciation is applied is when /v/ is in its final position e.g. in a word

krv (blood) which is pronounced as /kru̯/ (Kráľ, 1996, p. 110). As a consequence of this

feature, Slovaks tend to mispronounce the final /v/ in English resulting in confusing

35
pronunciation. For example, a word love pronounced with the /u̯/ at the end would be

perceived more as a word law. This might seem as a little disadvantage for Slovak

speakers since Czechs do not have this feature in their language. However, Czechs in

these cases tend to mispronounce the words in a different way. Based on above

mentioned substitution of the voiced consonants by their voiceless counterparts before

a pause, they pronounce there labiodental constrictive /f/ what can also lead to

miscomprehension, e.g. the word love pronounced with the /f/ at the end could be

perceived as the word laugh.

If considered the pairs of similar consonantal sounds of English and two

respective Slavonic languages, quite significant difference is the feature of aspiration

which concerns three English fortis plosives /p, t, k/ but does not occur within the Czech

or Slovak sound systems. Consequently, when Czech and Slovak speakers speak

English, these three consonants are often pronounced incorrectly without the aspiration

what results in sounding as if their fortis opposites were pronounced (Kráľová, 2011, p.

23; Melen, 2010, p. 72). This means that the aspiration must be given more attention

when they are speaking English otherwise they can be very easily misunderstood. For

example unaspirated pan will sound more as ban etc.

Naturally, since the dental fricatives /θ, ð/ are unknown for the phonetic system

of Czechs and Slovaks, they are often a source of mispronunciation as well. It is not

unusual to hear the sounds /d/ or /t/ being pronounced in the positions where /ð, θ/

should take place. The issue is not only incorrect pronunciation but such a substitution

can sometimes cause a shift of meaning as for example in the words: /ðen/ (later) –

/den/ (lair). Another frequent case is when the pronunciation of /θ, ð/ is attempted but its

articulation is realized incorrectly with the tongue being placed in between the teeth

(Kráľová, 2011, p. 26; Skaličková, 1982, p. 188).

36
 For Czech and Slovak learners of English also the velar nasal occlusive /ŋ/

appears to be a problematic sound. In their phonetic system the sound /ŋ/ exists but in

contrast to English in which it is an individual phoneme, with ability to distinguish the

words, it occurs only as an allophone of /n/ before a velar (/k,g/) as in a word banka

[baŋka] (bank). This fact explains Czech and Slovak’s unfamiliarity with the

pronunciation of /ŋ/ in other cases, especially in its final positions or when followed by

a vowel. The result is that, for example, instead of words sing /sɪŋ/, rang /ræŋ/ are

pronounced the words sin /sɪn/ or sink /sɪŋk/, ran /ræn/ or rank /ræŋk/ which have

completely different meanings (Kráľova, 2011, p. 23; Skaličková, 1982, p. 188).

Another pronunciation error of Czech and Slovak students is connected to the

sound /w/. They usually do not have problems with its correct realization but they often

do not distinguish between /v/ and /w/ and mix up the sounds. However, in English

these two sounds exist as two individual units which distinguish meanings of the words:

vale /veɪl/ – whale /weɪl/, vile /vaɪl/ – while /waɪl/. (Kráľová, 2011, p. 26; Skaličková,

1982, p. 189).

3.1.2. Suprasegmental level

3.1.2.1. Word stress

When a word stress is taken into consideration, in case of the Czech and Slovak

languages there is nothing complicated about it. Unlike in English, Czech and Slovak

stress is fixed, in individual words always falling on the first syllable (Kráľ, 1996, p.

163; Krčmová, 1999, p. 140). This becomes a problem when the Czechs and Slovaks

speak English since they are not used to paying attention to different stress patterns.

Similarly, Pavlík (2000) points out placement of the stress within a word as one of the

main problems that the learners of English are faced with and the Czechs and Slovaks

37
are no exceptions (p. 146). At the schools their attention is not drawn to the importance

of the English stresses thus they often ignore the aspect when they learn new words. As

a consequence they tend to stress the first syllables as they do in their mother tongues or

they place the stress in incorrect positions which can lead to misunderstandings

(Mocova, 2012, p. 39). In Czech and Slovak, stress only signalizes the start of a new

word (Skaličková, 1961, p. 66; Kráľ, 1996, p. 164) but in English it can distinguish the

meanings of words e.g. if words incite /ɪnˈsaɪt/ and insight /ˈɪnˌsaɪt/ were pronounced

without the correct stressing, they would sound completely identical (Pavlík, 2000, p.

143). Word stress in English can also have a grammatical function i.e. it can distinguish

parts of speech of the words with identical spellings e.g. if words as contrast, object,

progress are stressed on the first syllable [ˈkɒntrɑːst], [ˈɒbdʒɪkt], [ˈprəʊgres] they

determine the nouns but if they are stressed on the second syllable [kənˈtrɑːst], [əb

ˈdʒekt], [prəˈgres] they determine the verbs (Pavlík, 2000, p. 156). Generally, the

difference between the stressed and unstressed syllables is stronger and more noticeable

in English than in Slovak or Czech (Mocova, 2012, p. 38).

Furthermore stress is connected to sentence stress and that is closely connected

to the rhythm. Here arises another troublesome aspect and often the origin of

unintelligibility in Czech and Slovak speakers. Since the difference of the English and

Czech or Slovak rhythm is substantial, the incorrect use of rhythm is a very frequent

mistake (Skaličková, 1982, p. 182).

3.1.2.2. Rhythm

To understand the difference of the rhythm in individual languages the nature of

a rhythm unit in all three languages needs to be characterised. In Czech as well as in

Slovak the foot i.e. a unit of rhythm which “begins with a stressed syllable and includes

all following unstressed syllables up to (but not including) the following stressed

38
syllable” (Roach, 1991, p. 121) is formed on the basis of the word stress. Also in Czech

and Slovak there are words which are unstressed when they are part of a text, so called

enclitic words, such as chiefly past and conditional auxiliaries and weak personal

pronouns (Kráľ, 1996, p. 165; Krčmová, 1999, p. 140). Thus the foot can be formed by

one word as well as by more words from which only one is stressed and the others are

enclitic. The foot is a rhythmical unit and its extent is not identical to a semantic unit

(Krčmová, 1999, p. 141). However, since the enclitic words do not appear in Czech and

Slovak sentences as often as in English sentences (Skaličková, 1982, p. 174) and since

the Czech and Slovak languages have the word stress always on the first syllable

signalling the word boundary, it is almost a rule that their feet have their separate

meanings:

[ˈU potoka ˈroste ˈkvíťí ] (= By the stream │ grows │ a flower)

In English this is not a typical case and it often happens that the foot begins and ends in

the middle of a semantic unit as can be seen in the example by Skalíčkova (1982, p.

171):

[ˈpɪərɪəl rɪ ]

Here the foot is incomprehensible without the adjacent feet [ɪmˈpɪərɪəl rɪˈspɒns].

Likewise there is difference in stressing prepositions. In Czech and Slovak

a preceding preposition, especially if it is a monosyllabic one, has the tendency to

attract stress and becomes a part of the word, hence │ˈke stolu│ (‘to the table’) or │ˈna

koni│ (‘on horseback’) (Short, 2002a, p. 461). In English a preposition in a sentence

usually becomes a function word and only the content word which follows the

preposition is the one which becomes stressed. Content words in English are often

preceded by the articles or prepositions which grammatically belong to the word but

39
phonetically belong to the previous rhythmical unit (Skaličková, 1982, p. 172):│ˈGive it

to the │ ˈboy │.

Under the influence of their mother tongues, Czechs and Slovaks often do not

consider the rhythmical units but try to look for the semantic units and since they do the

same in their native languages, they tend to make pauses between the semantic units in

English, resulting in not keeping the English rhythm. However, in English it is

important to pronounce a rhythmical unit as if it was one word no matter if it has

meaning as a real word.

Czech and Slovak speakers do not pay enough attention to the quantitative

differences of the syllables, neither to the fact that the longer the foot is the shorter the

syllables within it are (borrowing rule) (Skalčková, 1982, p. 183). Disruption of English

rhythm is also caused by the absence of vowel reductions (Skaličková, 1982, p. 190).

Neither in the Czech nor in the Slovak languages occur any reductions in unstressed

syllables. In both stressed and unstressed syllables the vowels have the same quality.

This is not the case in English where only the stressed syllables have the full quality

vowels (Skaličková, 1982, p. 173). By not reducing the vowels the quantitative and

rhythmical characteristics of the units are disturbed and thus English pronunciation of

Czechs and Slovaks loses the attributes of a stress-time language.

3.2. Russian sound system

Russian phonology is based mainly on its two phenomena which are stress in

vowels and palatalization in consonants (Timberlake, 2002, p. 828).

40
3.2.1. Segmental level

3.2.1.1. Vowels

Some linguists recognize six vowel phonemes in Russian: / ɑ, e, o, u, i, ɨ / but

most of the linguists regard /ɨ/ only as a variation of the vowel /i/ which means that they

recognize five vowel phonemes (Oliverius, 1974, p. 84). However, more vowel sounds

can easily be heard because the phonemes have a number of allophones. They vary

depending on the adjacent consonants, more precisely on palatalization in the

consonants, on the location of accent and the degree of reduction (Jones & Ward, 1969,

p. 28).

Russian five vowel sounds are represented by ten letters: а, э, о, у, ы and я, e, ё,

ю, и. These can be put into pairs: а-я, э-е, о-ё, у-ю, ы-и where each pair represents one

vowel sound. The second letters of the pairs indicate that the preceding consonant is

palatalized i.e. it “has a [j] pronounced directly after it and before the vowel” (Marren,

2011, pp. 76-77).

Despite the numerous variations of the sounds, the vowel system of the Russian

language is not as complicated as the vowel system of English. The Russian sound

system does not have long vowels which are present in English. The length of a vowel

depends on the stress i.e. if the vowel is under stress or not (Romportl, 1973, p. 5).

Similarly as in Czech and Slovak, in Russian the sound /æ/ is missing. Considering

these facts it is likely to hear Russian speakers having problems with the length of

English vowels as well as with the distinguishing of timber in individual vowels.

Gimson (2008) states that “the main difficulty for all those whose own languages have a

less complex vowel system than English lies in the establishment of the qualitative

oppositions /ɪ/-/e/-/æ/-/ʌ/“ (p. 114) from which the opposition /e/-/æ/ should be

emphasized. This means that equally as Czech and Slovak learners the Russians

41
encounter troubles with correct pronunciation of the sound /æ/. Affirmation of this kind

of error can be found in Collins and Mees’ (2008) “Survey of English pronunciation

errors in a selection of languages and language groupings” in which confusion of

phonemic contrast /e-æ/ is assigned as a highly significant problem area for the Russian

learners (p. 211).

As it was already indicated, in the Russian language quantity is the attribute of

the stressed vowels only and it is not meaning-bearing. Quality is dependent on the

location of stress and the adjacent consonants (Havránek, Barnetová, & Leška, 1976, p.

46). In Russian as well as in English occurs reduction of the vowels in unstressed

syllables. This reduction is strong and the difference between the stressed and

unstressed vowels is substantial. However, unlike in English where the unstressed

vowels are replaced by the sound /ə/ or sometimes by /ɪ/, Russian reduction involves a

bit more complicated changes. Usually there are distinguished three degrees of

reduction (Oliverius, 1974, p. 85):

 ‚zero‘ degree – in the stressed syllables

 The 1st degree – in the syllable just before the stressed syllable

 The 2nd degree – in all other unstressed positions

The 1st degree reduction is not as strong as the 2nd degree reduction and the strongest

reduction occurs in the vowel which is located immediately after the stress (Havránek et

al., 1976, p. 46). Qualitative reduction in Russian language can be particularly clearly

observed in the phonemes /o, e/. /o/ in unstressed position is realized as short, weak,

unlabialized sound which is something between a weak /o/ and a weak /ɑ/. The vowel

sound /e/ in unstressed syllable is realized as a weak unclear sound, something between

weak /e/ and weak /i/ (Oliverius, 1974, p. 58). However, there are a lot of realizations

distinguished by tiny differences which depend on the exact position of the unstressed

42
syllables in a word. Generally, in a simplified way, if the sounds /ɑ, o/ undergo the 1st

degree reduction resulting vowel is the sound /ɐ/. In case of the sound /e/ the result is /ɪ/.

When the 2nd degree reduction occurs in the syllable with /ɑ, o/ the resulting

pronunciation for the sounds is /ə/ (Timberlake, 2002, p. 832).

3.2.1.2. Consonants

Russian phonetic system includes 35 consonantal phonemes which is the biggest

number from among so far mentioned languages (Oliverius, 1974, p. 103). The

exceeding number of the Russian consonants over the English consonantal sounds is

mostly constituted in the palatalized sounds which are absent in the English language.

Almost every Russian consonantal sound has its palatalized opposition: /m – mʲ/, /b –

bʲ/, /p – pʲ/, /v – vʲ/, /f – fʲ/, /l – lʲ/, /n – ɲ/, /d – dʲ/, /t – tʲ/, /z – zʲ/, /s – sʲ/, /r – rʲ/, /g –

gʲ/, /k – kʲ/, /x – xʲ/ (Oliverius, 1974, p. 103). These palatalized consonants which are

also known as soft consonants are produced when the front of the tongue is raised so as

to touch the hard palate (Jones & Ward, 1969, p. 81).

Similarly as the Czech and Slovak languages, Russian is characteristic of the

system of voiced and voiceless consonants. This attribute associates again with the

feature of assimilation. Assimilation in Russian has regressive character and devoicing

of the voiced consonants at the end of the words is applied (Havránek et al., 1976, pp.

28-29). These features in the native language cause Russian learners troubles in their

English pronunciation. Wrong pronunciation of final fortis and lenis ranks among the

most often errors in Russian English (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 211). Since possible

misunderstandings on the part of the listener caused by such incorrect pronunciation are

the same as in case of Czech and Slovak speakers, the examples are not depicted again.

Similarly, from the following errors in Russian speakers several misunderstandings can

43
arise. When the errors overlap with those of the Czechs and the Slovaks the

misunderstandings are not repeatedly stated either.

Another difference between the English and Russian sound systems is related to

the matter of aspirated and not aspirated voiceless plosives. Not even in Russian the

aspect of aspiration occurs and therefore the mispronunciation of English p, t, k in

stressed positions can be very often perceived (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 211).

Despite the fact that the number of Russian consonants quite exceeds the number

of English consonants there are English sounds which in Russian consonantal system do

not exist. There are no dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ what results in incorrect

pronunciation of the sounds and sometimes in their substitution for /s/ and /z/. As with

the Czech and Slovak learners of English the /w/ and /v/ sounds are troublesome since

the Russians are not used to pronouncing the sound /w/ in their native language and they

often confuse it with /v/. Russian learners also have difficulties with accurate

pronunciation of the sound /ŋ/ which leads to incorrect pronunciation of the words like

sing, thing, hanger (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 211).

In contrast to English, Czech or Slovak, the Russian language does not have the

sound /h/ in its system. Its pronunciation is ranked among significant errors in Russians

speakers. The fact of the absence of /h/ in their native language sometimes results in its

replacement by the closest Russian equivalent – the velar fricative /x/ (Collins & Mees,

2008, p. 211).

Specific to Russian learners of English is often mispronunciation of the /ɹ/ sound

(Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 211). Speakers articulate an alveolar trill instead of an

alveolar approximant. The alveolar trill, commonly called the rolled r, is typical of

Russian language. The English alveolar approximant /ɹ/ is formed with the tip of the

tongue held against the rear part of the teeth ridge. The tongue in its position is not in

44
contact with upper molars (Gimson, 2008, p. 220). The position of the tip of the tongue

when the Russian rolled r is pronounced is further forward (Jones & Ward, 1969, p.

178). Pronouncing the alveolar trills in English is not a problem which would lead to

unintelligibility (Gimson, 2008, p. 223) but it marks Russian learners with a strong

foreign accent and it is ranked among ‘errors which evoke irritation or amusement’

(Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 209).

3.2.2. Suprasegmental level

3.2.2.1. Word stress

Word stress is a crucial aspect of the Russian language. It is not fixed as in

Czech or Slovak but similarly as in English it is ‘free’ i.e. it can fall on any syllable of

a word. With different grammatical forms word stress in Russian can even become

‘mobile’ and change its position within one word. As already mentioned, the stress

determines the pronunciation of unstressed vowels. On that account to pronounce

a word correctly it is necessary to know the position of the stress (Avanesov, 1964, p.

22). The stress sometimes distinguishes words of identical sound structures e.g. if

a Russian word muka (мука) is stressed on the first syllable the meaning is torture but if

the second syllable of the word is stressed the meaning is flour. In Russian there are no

rules or patterns which would indicate the position of the stress in individual words. The

stress is learnt together with a word as its integral part (Jones & Ward, 1969, p. 212).

When the Russian and English aspects of word stress are compared they seem to share

their characteristics which could mean a certain advantage for the Russian learners of

English. However, although the characteristic of being ‚free‘ is for both languages

common, there are no any common word stress patterns for stressing the individual

words. Even the position of the stress in words which sound similar in Russian and

45
English are different e.g. a word student is stressed on the second syllable in Russian

but on the first syllable in English. Wrong placement of the stress can lead to

misunderstandings as explained in the section about pronunciation in Czech and Slovak

speakers. Nevertheless, there can be seen an advantage for the Russian learners of

English and that is the fact that they are raised to differentiate stress in words and

should understand the importance of stressing. If looked at the Collins and Mees’

(2008) table of English pronunciation errors, in case of the Russians he ranks the stress

among less significant problem areas (p. 211).

3.2.2.2. Rhythm

The Russian language belongs to the group of stressed-time languages in which

stressed syllables occur at roughly equal intervals (Roach, 1991, p. 121). In Russian as

well as in English and the languages with strong dynamic stresses, almost all the energy

is used for the pronunciation of the stressed syllables, and the unstressed syllables are

left with not much energy. Therefore, their vowels weaken and change their quality i.e.

they are reduced (Oliverius, 1974, p. 55). Consequently, largely due to these strong

reductions, the rhythmic feet are not lengthy but very dynamic (Oliverius, 1974, p. 56).

Similarly as in the English language, Russian rhythmical unit is not always identical to

a semantic unit. Russian learners as those, whose native language belongs to the group

of stressed-time languages which are characteristic of strong stresses and reductions, are

expected not to have so many troubles with the English rhythm. The aspect of the

rhythm is marked as the area where in case of Russian speakers not so much difficulties

arise (Collins & Mees, 2008, p. 211).

46
3.3. Comparison of the errors

If the errors of Czech, Slovak and Russian learners are compared there is not so

many differences observed. Despite a few distinctions, all three nationalities seem to

have similar pronunciation problems when speaking English.

The errors which seem to be common for the speakers of all respective

languages can be listed as follows:

 Confusion of timbre differences of the vowels, especially the contrast in

vowels /e – æ/

 Incorrect length of vowels

 Final consonant devoicing

 Lack of aspiration

 Problems with dental fricatives /θ, ð/

 Consonant contrast in /v – w/

 Mispronunciation of /ŋ/

 Location of word stress

The other errors might occur in speakers of all three nationalities too but appear

to be significant problem areas just to some of them. These include the vowel reduction

in unstressed syllables, which makes difficulties to the Czechs and the Slovaks (frequent

pronunciation of vowel /e/ instead of /ə/) but it is supposed not to be a substantial

problem for the Russians since the reduction occurs in their own language as well.

Based on this and on the characteristics of the particular languages, weak forms and

rhythm cause less trouble to the Russians than to the Czechs or the Slovaks. On the

other hand, Russian learners have problems with the /h/ sound which they tend to

47
mispronounce as /x/ while it does not cause any troubles to the Czechs or the Slovaks.

The Russians also tend to substitute the alveolar approximant /ɹ/ for the rolled /r/.

All these errors can be summarized and according to the Collins and Mees’

(2008) table put into a simplified overview (p. 211):

Table 8: English pronunciation errors in three respective Slavic languages

e– Vowel Final Aspir- θ, ð v – ŋ e– r h Stress

æ Lengt fortis/ ation w ə articu and
h lenis of - rhythm
p,t,k lation
Czech x x x x x x x x • - x
Slovak x x x x x x x x • - x
Russian x x x x x x x • x x •
x Highly significant problem areas
• Although some difficulties may arise, these errors are (in general) less significant problem
areas
- No problem in this area

48
4. Practical section

4.1. Procedure

The question about possible errors in Czech, Slovak and Russian pronunciations

of English was analysed and answered in the theoretical section. The practical section

now focuses on the other aim of the work, which is to find out about native speakers’

perception of the three respective Slavic nationalities when speaking English. Several

questions arise in connection to the matter. These are whether the native speakers

perceive different nationalities speaking, to what extent they perceive their foreign

accents and whether any of the respective nationalities have better pronunciation skills

than the other two. To answer the questions the following steps were taken.

At first the recordings of Czech, Slovak and Russian students were made. Total

number of six volunteer students (two of each nationality) participated in this part of the

survey. All the students were given the same short text which they were asked to read

aloud while they were recorded. The text was adopted from the internet page. The

attempt was to choose a text which would be neither too long nor boring and which

would include the specific English sounds that differ from the phonetic systems of the

other languages and thus are often mispronounced by foreign speakers. The full text is

included in the appendices. To get the most plausible results the students saw the text

for the first time when they read it and read it without any preliminary preparations.

The next step was formation of a questionnaire which was together with the six

recordings given to native speakers of English. The questionnaire was designed with the

aid of Google Drive and delivered to respondents electronically. At the beginning

personal info part about their gender, age and country where they come from was

involved. Respondents were then asked to listen to the recordings and to individually
49
rate each speaker. In the questionnaire recordings of the speakers were put in a scattered

order and subsequently they were given names “Speaker 1”, “Speaker 2”, “Speaker 3”

etc. as follows:

Speaker 1 = Czech Speaker 4 = Slovak

Speaker 2 = Russian Speaker 5 = Slovak

Speaker 3 = Czech Speaker 6 = Russian

In the questionnaire there were six sets of the same questions asked (one set for each

recording) and to each set the corresponding title of the recording was assigned. The

sets included four closed questions in which respondents could choose an answer on the

scale from 1 to 5 where numbers indicated the intensity of the aspect mentioned by the

headword. The better the evaluated aspect was, the lower the number was. For instance

in the first point with the headword accentedness number 1 was determined as “native-

like” and number 5 as “very foreign”. The questionnaire included one open question

where the respondents could write their comments, impressions and recommendations

for the speakers’ pronunciations to improve. In the last question of each set participants

in the survey were asked to guess the nationality of individual speakers heard from the

recordings. They could choose from three options (Czech, Slovak or Russian). Finally at

the end of the whole questionnaire questions about the best and the worst speakers were

given. Preview of the questionnaire can be found in the appendices. There were ten

assessors who completed the survey. All of them were native speakers of English. This

included 4 Americans, 3 English, 2 Irish and 1 Canadian.

4.2. Recordings

Before the analysis of the respondents’ answers, a short description of the

recordings is given. It has to be mentioned that pronunciation of the speakers was good

50
and there were not so many mistakes made. For future reference, full recordings were

copied on a compact disk which is attached to the thesis.

Czech students were assigned as “Speaker 1” and “Speaker 3”. The errors made

by the Speaker 1 could be listed as follows. At first very noticeable problems are weak

word stresses, missing sentence stress and weak forms. Consequently, the rhythm is

missing. Speaker tends to pronounce the words separately, each in its strong form and

not as the rhythmical units. Final consonant devoicing in such words as [sed] or [hɜːd]

occurs. There is a weak aspiration in case of stressed p, t, k sounds. The sound /æ/ is not

open enough when pronounced and it is replaced by /e/. Voiced dental fricatives are

sometimes not pronounced correctly, particularly in the case of function words the

sound is replaced by /d/. -ing endings happen to be pronounced incorrectly and the

inconsistency in /v/ and /w/ occurs. Pronunciation of Speaker 3 is much better when the

rhythm and stressing the significant words are considered. However, the weak forms are

not always applied either. The vowel quality appears to be a problem too. The schwa

sound in unstressed positions is pronounced more like /e/, the timber difference between

/ɪ/ and /e/ makes difficulties and the vowel /ɜː/ is not pronounced completely correctly.

Again the sound /æ/ is mispronounced. Speaker pronounces p, t, k sounds in a right way

with their corresponding aspirations but dental fricatives within the function words and

some of the -ing endings are mispronounced.

Slovak students are represented by “Speaker 4” and “Speaker 5”. Pronunciation

of Speaker 4 does not include enough reductions in weak forms and in unstressed

syllables of some words e.g. [ˈsemɪtrɪ] is pronounced as [ˈsemetrɪ]. The sound /æ/ is

pronounced more like /e/. The dental fricatives in the function words, and also within

the word [ɡæðəd], are pronounced as /d/. There is weak aspiration of the corresponding

consonants. Speaker 5 pronunciation errors are almost identical with the previous

51
speaker: missing reduction in the weak forms and in unstressed syllables, replacement

of the vowel /æ/ by /e/ sometimes even by /a/ and pronunciation of /d/ instead of dental

fricatives in the function words. There is weak aspiration in case of the sound /k/ and –

ing endings happen to be pronounced not completely correctly.

The two remaining speakers – “Speaker 2” and “Speaker 6” – are Russians.

Surprisingly, not even the Russians do the reductions in weak forms. Neither are the

stresses strong enough. Aspiration is weak. However the sound /æ/ seems to be more

openly pronounced then in case of the rest of the speakers. Interestingly, Speaker 2

pronounces some of the definite articles with the dental fricative but substitution for /d/

occurs too. In Speaker 6 happens to occur the substitution of /ð/ for /d/ and for /z/ as

well. Moreover Speaker 6 does not always succeed in correct pronunciation of /h/ sound

and the /x/ can be heard instead. The /z/ sound at the end of the words like was, days are

mispronounced as /s/. Another specific feature in this speaker is some kind of

palatalized pronunciation of the /b/ sound in the word [bent].

4.3. Results

The data from the questionnaire completed by the respondents have been

collected and a number of observations can be derived. At first comparison and

evaluation of the closed questions with the rating scales are made.

If the evaluations of the speakers are to be seen as the evaluations of the three

Slavic nationalities, for the practical reasons, the following groupings can be made:

Speaker 1 + Speaker 3 = the Czechs

Speaker 2 + Speaker 6 = the Russians

Speaker 4 + Speaker 5 = the Slovaks

The first question of each set asked the respondents to rate the speakers on their

perceived accentedness on the scale from 1 to 5, where 1= ‘native-like’ and 5= ‘very

52
foreign’. The results for the question are given in Table 9. An average rate for each

speaker was calculated and afterwards speakers of the same nationalities were put

together according to the above mentioned groupings and the mean for each nationality

was deduced. The final numbers are added to the table.

Table 9: Rate of accentedness

Respondents The average rating

for respective nationalities
1 2. 3 4. 5 6. 7 8. 9 10.
. . . . .
Speakers
Czech S1 3 4 4 4 5 4 3 4 4 4
3.45
S3 1 3 3 4 3 5 3 3 3 2
Slovak S4 3 2 2 1 4 2 3 3 3 2
2.25
S5 1 2 2 2 1 2 3 2 3 2
Russia S2 4 3 4 2 2 5 2 2 2 3
3.15
n S6 4 4 2 4 2 4 2 4 5 3
“S” is the abbreviation for “Speaker”

As for the question of accentedness, the results show that the mean for Czech

students’ rating is 3.45, for Slovak students it is 2.25 and for Russian students it is 3.15.

According to these results the Czechs come out as the most foreign sounding in the eye

of the respondents. The Russians are just behind them while the Slovaks seem to be the

least accented.

The second question asked about intelligibility. Number 1 indicated ‘easy to

understand’ while number 5 was ‘difficult to understand’. The results for the question,

with the added mean of the values for each nationality, are presented in Table 10.

53
 Table 10: Rate of intelligibility

Respondents The average rating

for respective nationalities
1 2. 3 4. 5 6. 7 8. 9 10.
. . . . .
Speakers
Czech S1 2 3 4 3 4 3 4 3 4 3
2.65
S3 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 2 2 2
Slovak S4 1 1 2 1 3 3 3 2 2 1
1.8
S5 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 3 1
Russia S2 1 2 3 1 2 3 2 2 2 2
2.45
n S6 4 3 2 4 2 3 2 3 4 2

The table shows the Czechs and the Russians, with a negligible difference between

them, to be more difficult to understand on the part of the listener than the Slovaks. For

all three nationalities the rating of this question is better than the rating for the question

of accentedness. It follows that even though the foreign accent of speakers is easily

noticeable it does not necessarily make the speakers unintelligible. There are certain

pronunciation mistakes which cause the speech to be unintelligible.

Data from these two questions generally show that all three nationalities have

reached similar evaluations. Since all three languages belong to the group of Slavic

languages the results are understandable. However, an interesting observation is that

while the means for Czech and Russian speakers are almost the same, differing only in a

few decimal points, contrast between the average rates of Czech and Slovak speakers is

much bigger. This contrast is surprising because Czech and Slovak belong to the same

branch of West Slavic languages and have a lot in common while Russian belongs to

East Slavic languages and thus is more different.

The third question also asked the respondents to rate the speakers on the scale

from 1 to 5, the question having the headword of phonaesthetic evaluation, where 1

meant ‘very positive’ and 5 meant ‘very negative’. The results can be seen in the Table

11.
54
 Table 11: Rate of phonaestetic evaluation

Respondents The average rating

for respective nationalities
1 2. 3 4. 5 6. 7 8. 9 10.
. . . . .
Speakers
Czech S1 2 3 3 2 2 3 2 2 3 2
2.15
S3 1 1 2 1 1 3 3 2 3 2
Slovak S4 2 2 2 1 2 2 3 3 3 1 2
S5 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 4 2
Russia S2 3 2 3 1 1 3 3 2 2 2
2.5
n S6 3 3 3 3 1 4 2 4 3 2

In this question Russian students come out as the worst speakers. The mean for Czech

and Slovak students is almost equal. Interestingly, it does not correspond with the order

in the previous questions. This might mean that even though one speaker makes a lot of

errors and sounds not completely intelligible there might be mistakes in the other

speaker which are more irritable or unpleasant to hear even if there are just a few.

General overall assessment was the last of the closed questions. It was designed

to see if the general impression corresponds with the ratings of the previous aspects.

The ratings were basically almost equal to those of the phonaesthetic evaluation as it

can be seen in the Table 12.

55
 Table 12: General overall assessment

Respondents The mean of the rating

for respective nationalities
1 2. 3 4. 5 6. 7 8. 9 10.
. . . . .
Speakers
Czech S1 1 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 2
2.25
S3 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2
Slovak S4 1 2 2 1 1 2 3 2 2 1
1.75
S5 1 2 2 1 1 1 3 3 2 2
Russia S2 2 2 3 1 1 3 4 2 2 2
2.55
n S6 4 3 2 3 2 4 2 3 4 2

An open question was added with the aim to find out whether the listeners

realized what mistakes the speakers made, whether they had any specific impressions

about any of the speakers and to learn what would in the respondents’ opinions help the

speakers to improve their pronunciations. Many respondents answered this question

only shortly, but positively, in the way encouraging the speakers, writing comments

like “It is ok”, “Just a few small mispronunciations”, “Pronunciation not bad, but

definitely needs practice”, “Yes, good! Just keep reading aloud to yourself, practice

makes perfect” etc. Moreover, there were some answers which commented on particular

features in the speakers’ pronunciations.

Czech Speaker 1 was told to more clearly enunciate ‘th’ sounds in such words

like gathered and speaker’s “S’s were a bit hard to understand”. Interesting is that

speaker’s word decomposing was pointed out as a mispronunciation. It was pronounced

as [ˌdɪkɒmpəʊzɪŋg] with a weak aspiration instead of [ˌdiːkəmˈpəʊzɪŋ] which does not

look like a substantial mistake at first. However, the respondent’s indication points to

the importance of the vowel quality. Furthermore the speaker was advised to speak

slower. Comments on the errors of the other Czech speaker related to the vowels too.

One respondent wrote that “the ‘ack’ in backwards is pronounced oddly like ‘ick’

56
bickwards” and also that “bent close was pronounced like bin close”. Other respondents

advised the speaker to work on the pronunciation of vowels and to speak slowly.

Slovak speaker (Speaker 4) was recommended to pronounce the word ‘the’

clearer since it “sounded more like a letter D”; also the word gathered was commented

to sound like ‘gadered’. Pronunciation of ‘th’ in the second Slovak speaker (Speaker 5)

was also said to be pronounced like ‘d’ and the emphasis on the syllables was

sometimes off. The speaker was furthermore advised to pronounce words ending with

‘t’ more definitely and to have more confidence while speaking.

Speaker 2 who was a Russian student was recommended to slow down, to make

the words more distinct and to pay attention to the place to pause in a sentence.

Moreover the emphasis on syllables was said to be often off. To the other Russian

speaker the respondents advised to practice the vowel sounds and two letters “like st, sh,

ch etc”, also not to roll words with ‘r’ and they commented on the pronunciation of fifth

which sounded as if ‘fis’ was pronounced.

The obvious problem of each nationality, easily heard by the natives, seems to

be incorrect pronunciation of ‘th’ sound and mispronunciation of some vowels. Another

very frequent comment was the recommendation of slowing down. Sometimes maybe

students want to speak quickly with the aim to sound more native like. However, as it

can be seen from the advice, the speed is not the key aspect. It is about pronouncing the

substantial words distinctly and correctly while keeping to the correct stressing and

rhythm.

The respondents do not seem to differentiate between the three respective

nationalities speaking. It seems that each of the speakers was rated individually and no

specific connections between the errors of two speakers of the same nationality can be

57
observed. The assumption can be developed by looking at the next question of the

survey.

The last question of each set asked the respondents to choose one out of three

possible nationalities for each speaker and in this way to guess where they come from.

Each speaker was matched with several nationalities e.g. Speaker 1 was guessed to be a

Czech by four respondents, to be a Slovak by four respondents and to be a Russian by

just two of them. The overview of the answers can be seen in Table 13.

Table 13: Overview of respondents’ guesses about the nationalities of the

speakers

How many times was the speaker guessed to belong to a

particular nationality
To Czech To Slovak To Russian
Speaker 1 (Czech) 4 4 2
Speaker 2
3 4 3
(Russian)
Speaker 3 (Czech) 6 0 4
Speaker 4 (Slovak) 2 7 1
Speaker 5 (Slovak) 4 4 2
Speaker 6
4 4 2
(Russian)

In most of the speakers, the numbers of their guessed nationalities are in such ratios as:

4:4:2 or 3:4:3. These numbers do not substantially determine the speakers as

representatives of just one nationality. Therefore, it seems that the respondents saw the

speakers more likely as a group of foreign speakers not distinguishing any specific

nationalities among them. Only in case of Speaker 3 and Speaker 4 the results could be

taken as significant. Out of 10 assessors 6 think that the Speaker 3 is Czech. In case of

Speaker 4 there are 7 people who think that the speaker is Slovak. Interestingly, both of

these guesses are correct. However no clarification for the choices was given.

58
 Another interesting observation is the fact that the least chosen nationality was

the Russian one. Since Czech and Slovak are very similar languages, fusion of the

speakers of these two languages is not surprising. However, the Russian speakers who

would be expected to stick out a bit, sounded for the assessors equally as the other two

nationalities. There is possibility that the respondents had expected the Russians to

sound more specifically and thus most of them did not assign the Russian nationality to

any of the speakers.

Based on the answers to the questions about the best and the worst speaker,

Czech Speaker 1 comes out as the worst while Slovak Speaker 4 seems to be the best.

However, neither of them was selected by more than half of the respondents – the

Czech was chosen 5 times as the worst speaker and the Slovak was labelled 4 times as

the best speaker.

59
5. Conclusion

The aim of the present thesis has been to explore the specific mistakes that

foreign learners of English make in their English pronunciation, with the focus being on

the Czech, Slovak and Russian speakers and the mistakes originating from their native

languages and to learn native speakers’ perceptions of these three nationalities speaking

English.

At first a theoretical background is established. A concept of English as an

important language in the contemporary world is introduced. Afterwards the thesis

outlines the importance of pronunciation in learning a foreign language and

subsequently communitating efficiently. The sound system of the English language

including its segmental and basics of the suprasegmental level is provided, with a focus

on particularly specific sounds and features of the language. In order to investigate the

most frequent errors of English pronunciation of the Czechs, the Slovaks, and the

Russians, a brief analysis of the main differences between English sound system and the

sound systems of the respective languages has been carried out. The errors have shown

to be almost identical in Czech and Slovak speakers, while in Russian speakers a few

different pronunciation mistakes have been identified. These occur mainly at the

segmental level while at the surpasegmental level the Russians appear to have fewer

difficulties, in particular with the reductions and the rhythm, than the Czechs or the

Slovaks.

The practical section consists in research which was carried out in order to

determine whether native speakers distinguish between the respective foreign accents of

English and how they perceive them. The results, due to a relatively small number of

60
participants with slightly different levels of English, do not aspire at being

representative. They serve as a springboard for possible further research.

After the evaluation and comparison of the results, several observations can be

deduced. As for the questions on accentedness and intelligibility, Slovak speakers have

come out as the ones with the weakest foreign accent and the most understandable

pronunciation. The Czechs were evaluated similarly as the Russians which is quite

surprising since the Russian language differs from the very similar Czech and Slovak

languages and thus the Russian speakers were expected to be perceived as distinctly

different. In the questions on phonaesthetic evaluation and general overall assessment

the Slovaks have attained the best scores too. The Czechs were behind them and the

Russians came last. However, it has to be said that even though the Slovaks have come

out as those with better pronunciation skills in English than the other two nationalities,

generally the differences in the ratings between the respective nationalities were not

substantial and thus the results cannot be taken as unequivocal. Moreover similar ratings

indicate that the speakers were perceived by the respondents as a group of foreign

speakers which were evaluated rather as six individuals and no differentiation among

their nationalities was recognized.

The answers to the open question have shown that the assessors were not overly

critical of the speakers’ pronunciations. Some of the errors were identified and these

were mostly related to the vowel quality and the pronunciation of ‘th’. However, no

specific comments which would indicate that the speakers perceive any distinction

between the nationalities were found. The outcomes of the respondents’ guesses of the

nationality of each speaker also show that the assessors did not distinguish the three

different nationalities speaking and perceived all the speakers as similarly accented.

61
 Last, according to the advice that assessors gave to the speakers, high speed of

speech has proved not to be the way to better pronunciation. The advice was, above all,

to do more practice of vowels and other sounds and to slow down the pace of speech.

This observation leads to an interesting conclusion that it is not a high tempo that makes

a foreign speaker sound better and also that besides the appropriate pronunciation of

sounds, it is suprasegmental features, namely stresses, reductions and consequent

rhythm that constitute an intelligible speaking performance.

62
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Collins, B., & Mees, I.M. (2008). Practical phonetics and phonology: A resource book

for students (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Comrie, B., & Corbett, G. G. (2002). The Slavonic languages. New York, NY:

Routledge.

Cruttenden, A. (Ed.). (2008). Gimson´s pronunciation of English (5th ed.). London:

Hodder Education.

Foley, J. (2007). English as a global language: My two satangs worth. Regional

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Havránek, B., Barnetová, V., & Leška, O. (1976). Příruční mluvnice ruštiny pro Čechy

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Jones, D., & Ward, D. (1969). The phonetics of Russian. Cambridge: Cambridge

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Kienzle J. (2014, December 4). Jörg’s collection of jokes. Retrieved from

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nakladateľstvo.

Kráľová, Z. (2011). Slovensko-anglická zvuková interferencia. Žilina: Žilinská

univerzita.

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Melen, D. (2010). Výslovnost angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. Praha: Big Ben Bookshop

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Language Studies, 3. 9-14.

Oliverius, Z. F. (1974). Fonetika russkogo jazyka. Praha: Státní pedagogické

nakladatelství.

Pavlík, R. (2000). Phonetics and phonology of English: A theoretical introduction.

Bratislava: Pedagogická fakulta Univerzity Komenského.

Roach, P. (1991). English phonetics and phonology: a practical course (2nd ed.).

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Romportl, M. (1973). Stručná fonetika ruštiny (3rd ed.). Praha: Státní pedagogické

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Short, D. (2002b). Slovak. In B. Comrie & G. G. Corbett (Eds.), The Slavonic

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Skaličková, A. (1974). Srovnávací fonetika angličtiny a češtiny. Praha: Academia

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65
Summary (English)

This bachelor thesis deals with the question of foreign speakers’ pronunciation

of English, with the focus on commonly made typical pronunciation errors of Czech,

Slovak and Russian learners. Its aim is to find out what the differences between the

English pronunciation mistakes of Czech, Slovak and Russian learners are and what the

native speakers’ perceptions of the respective nationalities speaking is.

The theoretical section gives a description of English phonetic system on both

segmental and suprasegmental levels. Afterwards short descriptions of Czech, Slovak

and Russian sound systems are presented, focusing on the main differences when

compared to the English phonetic system. Further on, common errors of the speakers of

these nationalities are characterized. It is established that between Czech and Slovak

pronunciation there are minor differences while in Russian speakers certain distinctive

errors occur.

Finally, in the practical section, responses obtained via questionnaire are

analysed. From the results it can be established that native speakers do not distinguish

between the three different nationalities speaking English. Moreover it has been

discovered that although they hear a foreign accent in the speakers, they perceive the

speakers’ pronunciation in rather positive way.

66
Summary (Czech)

Tato bakalářská práce rozebírá téma anglické výslovnosti u nerodilých mluvčích

a speciálně se zaměřuje na časté výslovnostní chyby, kterých se dopouštějí Češi,

Slováci a Rusové. Jejím cílem je charakterizovat rozdíly mezi těmito chybami a také

zjistit, jak tyto národnosti, když mluví anglicky, vnímají rodilí mluvčí.

Teoretická část popisuje anglický fonetický systém a to jak na segmentální, tak i

na suprasegmentální úrovni. Následně je podán stručný popis českého, slovenského a

ruského zvukového systému se zaměřením na hlavní rozdíly ve srovnání s anglickým

fonetickým systémem. Dále jsou definovány časté chyby ve výslovnostech těchto

mluvčích. Prokazuje se, že ve výslovnosti Čechů a Slováků jsou rozdíly minimální,

zatímco ve výslovnosti Rusů se objevuje několik specifických chyb.

Na závěr praktická část analyzuje výsledky dotazníků. Výsledky prokazují, že

když příslušníci těchto tří národnosti mluví anglicky, rodilí mluvčí mezi nimi nějakých

rozdílů nerozeznávají. Kromě toho se ukázalo, že i když je cizí přízvuk u nerodilých

mluvčích slyšet, jejich výslovnost je rodilými mluvčími vnímána spíše pozitivně.

67
Appendix A

The text which was read by the speakers:

"When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple of days later,

the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming

from the area where Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to

come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint,

unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the

town magistrate. When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a

moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that’s Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, being played

backwards." He listened a while longer, and said, "There’s the Eighth Symphony, and

it’s backwards, too. Most puzzling." So the magistrate kept listening; "There’s the

Seventh… the Sixth… the Fifth…" Suddenly the realization of what was happening

dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in

the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s just Beethoven

decomposing."

68
Appendix B

Contents of enclosed CD-ROM

This CD contains six recordings, used in the survay. The excerpts are in mp3 format.

(CD is attached at the end of the thesis).

The order is as follows:

1. Speaker 1 (Czech)

2. Speaker 2 (Russian)

3. Speaker 3 (Czech)

4. Speaker 4 (Slovak)

5. Speaker 5 (Slovak)

6. Speaker 6 (Russian)

69
Appendix C

The questionnaire designed to learn native speakers’ perception of the six respective

speakers

70
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