This thesis deals with the current phenomenon of uptalk. The theoretical part provides a brief overview of the phenomenon, including its characteristics in terms of phonetics and phonology, geographical and linguistic origin, occurrence in contemporary English, relation to gender and functions the pattern fulfils in interactions. The practical part focuses on the implementation of uptalk in teaching English. It aims at producing a lesson plan on the phenomenon and its subsequent application in class. Furthermore, it provides findings of a questionnaire survey conducted among the participants of the implementation project in order to get their feedback on the lesson plan.

This thesis pursues the topic of downtrends in Czech intonation in correlation with the geographical origin of speakers. The theoretical part is devoted to the section on the suprasegmental plateaux of the language - the intonation, the intonation variability, and mainly the intonation downtrends. It also brings a selective dialectical description of three Czech regions, which this thesis deals with: Plzeňsko, Štítecko and Břeclavsko. The practical part is targeted to the intonational analysis of the speech material (74 speakers overall), acquired in the previously mentioned regions. The average caliber of the guidelines, acquired by the application of the regressive line, were − for the given groups of speakers − compared and annotated, considering the age and sex of the respondents, (ideal) number of tacts or relative presence of the finding questions. key words: intonation, intonational downtrends, region, speaker, regressive line

in English TITLE : Prosodic Analysis of Urban Music in French and Czech AUTHOR : Mgr. Polina Chodaková DEPARTMENT : Institute of Romance Studies FF UK SUPERVISORS : doc. PhDr. Tomáš Duběda, Ph.D., prof. Philippe Martin, Dr ès Sci, Dr Ling. KEY WORDS : Prosody, metrics, stress, intonation, declamation, rap, reggae This thesis deals with the rhythm, stress and intonation in rap and reggae music. It describes the form features of declamations which combine chant, half- singing and singing, in the theoretical framework of contrastive prosody and verse theory. The thesis consists of seven chapters and is based on a textual corpus of 200 songs in French and Czech, assembled for this dissertation. The linguistic material of 59,000 syllables is a representative set of excerpts, transcribed in rhythmic grids with an auditive analysis. From the prosodic point of view, rap and reggae display an important degree of rhythmic reorganisation. In both languages, setting texts to music is performed ac- cording to an isochronous pattern, which is imposed on the lyrics with an isosyllabic rhythm and whose bound stress system is weak. This is shown through interactive constraints, which reflect universal tendencies in verbal art, that both genres exhibit a lot of freedom in the association of lyrics and the musical...

The thesis concerns the function of different intonation tunes in British English yes/no questions. The theoretical part of the work explores the phenomenon of language intonation and describes the commonly listed default contours of English yes/no questions. The practical part analyses authentic samples of British speakers' conversations and compares the function of intonation patterns in yes/no questions with the theoretical assumptions.

The diploma thesis deals with the major accents of English used by Northern Irish speakers and their application in teaching English as a foreign language. In the theoretical part of the text, the fundamental information concerning the language development in the given area is put forward. Furthermore, it concentrates on the division of particular accents and attempts for their characterisation in comparison to Received Pronunciation. In the following practical part, the text concentrates on the application of the theoretical findings in lessons for English language students at a Czech grammar school. It describes the preparation of the teaching materials and of the lesson plan, and their subsequent application in sample lessons. The evaluation of the activities is based on the student feedback which is discussed in the final chapter.

The following thesis is divided into two parts. The first one is the mathematical and historical description of common available tuning systems, such as the Pythagorean-system, just intonation, Meantone-system, and other well-tempered tuning. Based on this knowledge there is in the second part theoretical considerations of ensemble and solo intonation and their putting into the practice. This thesis should not to learn to play ?clean?, but rather carry on thinking about the various possibilities in the tuning systems. The work also includes an audio attachment, a complete overview of intonation systems in the table and complete overview of all in European music known interval.

Pronunciation problems of Czech French-learning students and the effectiveness of learning strategies applied by the students of Faculty of Education, Charles University and Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of West Bohemia AUTHOR: PhDr. Kateřina Juřičková DEPARTMENT: Department of French Language and Literature, Charles University TUTOR: doc. PhDr. Marie Fenclová, CSc. This PhD thesis - a comparative study - deals on the segmental level with vowels which Czech French-learning speakers find difficult to pronounce and on the suprasegmental level with prosodic factors. On the former level, closed vowels both labialized and sharp, nasal vowels, schwa and semi-vowels are analysed. The first, theoretical part of the paper contains the phonetic and phonological characteristics of the Czech language and the French language from the viewpoint of vocalic systems of these languages and from the viewpoint of melody-prosody interaction. The second, experimental part, contains descriptions of the pre- research single phase observation of problematic phenomena obtained from three groups of students of KFJL (Department of French Language and Literature; Faculty of Education - Charles University), and findings from the research proper from two-phase observations of two groups of students of KFJL and...

The thesis investigates speech sound characteristics of three different television talk show hosts. Using the experimental analysis it tries to inspect all their typical attributes, especially the suprasegmental features of their speeches. The selected television hosts are both from public and commercial television stations. The first part of the theoretical section introduces the talk show television programming genre and specifies its broadcasting share among the observed television channels, next the diversity of Czech talk shows is introduced together with the individual hosts whose utterances will be analyzed, also the role of communication in mass media as well as the host journalist figure is presented, and the features of publicly spoken speeches are described. Within the part devoted to languages and speeches the linguistic discipline of phonetics is introduced followed by the individual continuous speech sound properties and their specific attributes. The practical section researches performance of the particular hosts and it specifically tries to deal with their sound aspects in order to evaluate whether some typical attributes can be found (primarily within the areas of intonation, pauzation and tempo). Further it observes whether some same sound attributes are shared among the talk...

The aim of the thesis is to describe methods which may be applied to develop a child's voice and its musicality within the first grade of a primary school. The thesis should be used as an inspirational teaching aid for teachers. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part is based on scholarly literature and deals with voice hygiene, proper technique of singing (breathing, posture, non-overstraining of voice). Peripherally it also mentions voice disorders and proper voice preparation for singing. I would like to transfer (apply) the knowledge gained in the theoretical part into an elaborately developed theme plan in the practical part. The conclusion of the theoretical part deals with the development of child's rhythmic creativity. The practical part includes a theme plan compiled for the peroid fo a school year. I tis arranged according to particular months and embraces the description of various activities, which are used to fill each music lesson whithin the period of a school year.

The aim of the thesis was to design an analytical model enabling a comparative analysis of both original and dubbed versions of film dialogues, with special regard to prosodic interference (intonation in particular), to describe and explain such interference, caused by certain differences between Czech and English, and to assess its influence on communication, considering the nature of a film character and its reception by Czech recipients. The analysis showed that higher pitch register and extended intonation range were the most common types of interference, bringing about the impression of over-emotive and over-melodious speech and also changing some of the film characters. These types of interference were caused by a different way of using intonation within the system of a language; English uses intonation to signal information structure and to express emotions as well. Interesting results were obtained when a structural approach to a character, as proposed by Jiří Levý (1971), was applied in the analysis. Surprisingly, another type of interference was discovered; it is a sort "indirect" interference developed in cases when the dubbed version closely follows the original and its dominant prosodic features and uses them in situations where the original does not. Such interference is changing the...