Spectral Characteristics of Schwa in Czech Accented English

Abstract

<jats:p>The English central mid lax vowel (i.e., schwa) often contributes considerably to the sound differences between native and non-native speech. Many foreign speakers of English fail to reduce certain underlying vowels to schwa, which, on the suprasegmental level of description, affects the perceived rhythm of their speech. However, the problem of capturing quantitatively the differences between native and non-native schwa poses difficulties that, to this day, have been tackled only partially. We offer a technique of measurement in the acoustic domain that has not been probed properly as yet: the distribution of acoustic energy in the vowel spectrum. Our results show that spectral slope features measured in weak vowels discriminate between Czech and British speakers of English quite reliably. Moreover, the measurements of formant bandwidths turned out to be useful for the same task, albeit less direct.</jats:p>

Acoustic Correlates of Word Stress as a Cue to Accent Strength

“…If we compare the results with our earlier study on schwa (Volín et al, 2013), the current results regarding spectral slope are in agreement but much clearer, due to the fact that the identity of the vowel was controlled for. Nevertheless, our findings show a significant effect of stress caused primarily by the unstressed vowels of British speakers, which exhibit the steepest spectral slope.…”

Phonetic aspects of strongly-accented Czech speakers of English

“…In total, 37% of the items were pronounced with a mid central quality of a schwa [ə] or an r-coloured schwa [ɚ]; one must keep in mind, however, that this only refers to the quality of the vowel, not to the overall (absence of) prominence (cf. Volín et al, 2013 and other studies mentioned in section 2.3). Not surprisingly, the schwa vowels were frequently realized with what is known as spelling pronunciation.…”

“…It is this aspect of English which has received most attention in studies of Czech speakers. Volín, Weingartová & Skarnitzl (2013) compared the spectral properties of schwa in native British and Czech speakers. While the Czech speakers' formant values did not significantly differ from the native speakers' pronunciation (in other words, vowel quality was comparable to a schwa), the Czech-accented schwas were still too prominent, as reflected in narrower formant bandwidths and flatter spectral slopes.…”

Vowel Perception and Transcription Trainer for Learners of English as a Foreign Language

“…1 Specific vocalic difficulties of Czech learners of English documented in research studies include e.g. spectral non-differentiation of GOOSE and FOOT 2 , or of DRESS and TRAP vowels (Šimáčková andPodlipský 2018, Šimáčková 2003), non-reduction of unstressed vowels (Volín, Weingartová and Skarnitzl 2013), or no durational adjustments in the context of a following fortis obstruent (Skarnitzl and Šturm 2016). Although unquestionably all the various aspects of Czech EFL learners' interlanguage phonology deserve attention during pronunciation practice, our training programme targets vowels, specifically identification of vowel phonemes.…”