The research question of this dissertation is whether the early Cantonese-English contact provides a phonological basis to the development of Hong Kong English (HKE henceforth). The dissertation provides an affirmative answer by studying four Cantonese-English bilingual dictionaries in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. The empirical evidence from the four bilingual dictionaries reveals three types of phenomena: inheritance, stabilization, and deviation. The phenomenon of inheritance refers to the phonological features discovered in the early Cantonese-English contact that have persisted in modern HKE. The phenomenon of stabilization includes the phonological features of the early Cantonese-English contact that are fortified and regularized in modern HKE. The phenomenon of deviation indicates certain phonological features of the early Cantonese-English contact differ from those of modern HKE. The findings of the dissertation fill two research gaps in the literature of HKE. One research gap is the omission of the English acquisition patterns for average Hongkongers before mass English-language education was implemented in the 1970s. For the Hongkongers who had no access to formal schools, the Cantonese-English bilingual dictionaries were used as the learning materials in self-study or private schools. The other research gap is the lack of a historical perspective into the variations of modern HKE phonology. Most of the studies on HKE are synchronic in nature and fail to realize that the variations may be derived from the two different English acquisition patterns in history. This dissertation reveals that the phonology of the functional bilinguals in HKE (the HKE speakers who could use English for various formal and informal needs) might be influenced by the phonological features of inheritance and stabilization discovered in the early Cantonese-English contact. The findings establish the historical connections behind modern HKE phonology, enhancing the recognition of HKE as an autonomous New English Variety. This enables HKE to be the symbol of solidarity for Hongkongers. This dissertation investigates the historical data from the Cantonese-English bilingual dictionaries that remain largely unstudied for a long time. Transformed into a retrievable dataset, the historical data can be used for linguistic theorizing.

In children with well-developed handwriting, handwriting speed is more strongly related to orthographic coding—the speed at which they can access verbal codes (SAVC) in memory— than fine motor speed. Only one study has investigated this relationship in an adult population (Peverly et al., 2014). This dissertation is a replication of that study, using archival data collected during two prior studies. Two separate groups of students from an undergraduate university (Study 1, N = 147; Study 2, N = 94) completed measures of handwriting speed (Studies 1 and 2: a modified Alphabet Writing Task from Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting 17+), fine motor speed (Study 1: Digit Symbol Copy task from the WAIS-III; Study 2: Diagonal Line task developed by Peverly et al., 2014), SAVC (Study 1: an adapted Verbal Fluency measure from the NEPSY; Study 2: RAN-A designed by Denckla & Cutting, 1999), language comprehension (Study 2: Nelson-Denny Reading Test), working memory (Study 1 and 2: Listening Span Test developed by Daneman & Carpenter, 1980), and executive attention (Study 2: group administered Stroop Color and Word Test). In the analysis, handwriting speed (DV) was regressed on all other variables (IVs) in each study. In Study 1, three variables significantly and positively predicted handwriting speed: fine motor speed, compositional fluency, and SAVC (semantic retrieval only). Because of the measure of SAVC used in this study, the construct was split between phonetic retrieval and semantic retrieval. In Study 2, only fine motor speed and SAVC were positively predictive. Despite the differences in measurement between Study 1 and Study 2, the relationship between handwriting speed, SAVC, and fine motor speed remained consistent. Overall, these results lend further support to the conclusion of Peverly et al. (2014) that the relationship between fine-motor fluency and SAVC to handwriting speed is consistent beyond childhood and is evident in an adult population.

Mgr. Veronika Štěpánová Czech orthoepic codification Abstract This doctoral thesis deals with the codification of standard Czech pronunciation. It focuses on how the phonetic level of the language is studied and described and, more generally, on orthoepic codification, its criteria, sources, relationship to orthography, etc. A historical overview of Czech orthoepic research, in particular of the first attempts at codification, work carried out for the orthoepic manuals Výslovnost spisovné češtiny I (ed. B. Hála; 1955, 1967) and Výslovnost spisovné češtiny II (ed. M. Romportl; 1978) is presented. In addition, research into standard Czech pronunciation from the 1980s to the present day is summarised from a new perspective. The primary focus of the thesis is a critical analysis of the principal Czech orthoepic manuals: not only Výslovnost spisovné češtiny I and II but also some older and newer works. Special attention is given to features (1) whose evaluation has changed over time (e.g. the pronunciation of mě and sh, the use of the glottal stop, simplification of certain consonant clusters, or voice assimilation before sonorants) and (2) which are problematic form the point of view of the contemporary pronunciation norm. This thesis is closely connected with the recently created Monolog corpus, which...

This thesis examines the presentation of palatalisation in four descriptions of Russian phonetics from the 19th century. It presents the modern phonetic and phonological view on palatalisation in Russian, with which the view presented in the examined 19th century works is compared. The thesis comes to the conclusion that the examined works provide a relatively modern phonetic description of palatalisation in Russian and, through their inability to properly analyse the role of palatalisation in the sound system, demonstrate the need for phonology as a study. / Эта работа рассматривает презентацию палатализации в четырёх описаниях русской фонетики с XIX века. Она представляет современный фонетический и фонологический взгляд на палатализацию в русском языке, с чем сравнивается взгляд, представленный в рассмотренных работах XIX века. Автор работы приходит к выводу, что рассмотренные работы предлагают сравнительно современное фонетическое описание палатализации в русском языке, и что они своей неспособностью должным образом анализировать роль палатализации в звуковой системе демонстрируют потребность фонологии как науки.

The diploma thesis deals with description of the distribution of diphthongization ý > ej in Moravian Books of Testimonies of the 16th-17th century, which represent important sources for description of the period language. The material basis of the work consists of editions of Smolná kniha Nového Města na Moravě, Smolná kniha velkobítešská, Černé knihy práva loveckého na hradě Buchlově, Smolná kniha města Lipníka a Krevní kniha městečka Bojkovic. All expressions containing ej from the original ý as well as expressions in which the secondary hardened ý was diphthongized (cases such as vozejk) and finally words with the preserved original ý were excerpted, recorded in the Microsoft Excel and manually tagged. The distribution of diphthongization was described on the basis of selected linguistic and non-linguistic variables. Finally, the results were compared with the results of previous research and the place of the books of testimonies within the period manuscript and printed production was specified.

The topic of this master's thesis is the analyzis of a general conception of linguistics in ancient Egypt, with a narrow focus on the ancient Egyptians' knowledge of phonetics and phonology as well as language production and perception. These findings are compared with the information with which non-egyptological disciplines work. We analyse the ancient Egyptian material culture. This analysis also focuses on primary written records provided with the author's own translation and linguistic annotation using the Leipzig Glossing Rules. This study has a potential to help the fields outside of Egyptology better to understand the notions of ancient people's phonetic/phonological knowledge. It is clear from the sources discussed that the Egyptians considered the heart to be the seat of the speech center in today's conception, although there is evidence that they saw the connection between speech and the brain. Written sources also provide information on the categorization of hieroglyphic characters according to phonetic value, which points to the existence of segmental perception of the ancient Egyptians. However, there are no explicit mentions of vocal folds and voice formation, the essence of speech and language was seen by the Egyptians in the magical-religious sphere. Part of the thesis is a summary...

This thesis analyzes what acoustically sets apart recordings of healthy people from recordings of people afflicted with multiple sclerosis, and how this distinction can be used to automatically detect multiple sclerosis from fairly simple recordings of a subject's voice, potentially discovering early cases of this disease. Chapter 1 includes the theoretical background of the effect of multiple sclerosis on speech and the descriptions of the data, software, hypotheses and assumptions used here. Two sets recordings of read speech were used, a corpus of afflicted speakers and a control corpus of healthy speakers, totalling 250 individuals. A subset of this corpus was manually annotated, resulting in one dataset. Simultaneously, these entire corpora were also annotated automatically, resulting in another dataset, which was created to explore the possibility of detecting multiple sclerosis automatically. Chapter 2 describes the 13 acoustic parameters used in this thesis, their exact hypothesized relationships with the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and the ways they were calculated. Chapter 3 elaborates on the statistical testing of the aforementioned parameters, their interpretation, the success rate of the two machine learning models used to assess their total predictive power, and a potential way to apply the...

The study aims to investigate the differences between Taliesin Jaffe and Matthew Mercer’s portrayals of a standard Irish English accent in Critical Role in their respective performances of the character Mollymauk/Lucien. Using previous studies on Irish English pronunciation, the presence of each established feature was investigated to find how authentically the actors succeed to produce the accent. The main features investigated were the rhoticity, plosivization of /θ/ and /ð/, lenition of /t/ and /d/, yod-dropping, diphthongs, and some monophthongs. Using transcripts to locate the instances of said features, the audio of the footage was studied to discover whether the phonemes were produced in accordance with the proposed realizations within Irish English. Both actors were found to excel and struggle with different features, with plosivization of /θ/ and /ð/, lenition of /t/ and /d/, and aspects of yod-dropping proving especially difficult to consistently produce in accordance with supraregional Irish English. The study concluded that neither accent comes close to achieving an authentic Irish English accent and that both portrayals share many similarities with each other, as well as overlapping with the actors’ native General American accent, especially in cases where Irish English and General American shared potential realizations of phonemes.

v anglickém jazyce Abstract The theoretical part of the dissertation thesis dealing with the "Phonetics of Advertising in terms of Perception Assessment" studies literature sources focusing on spoken utterances, namely on language elements of various Czech pronunciation styles and characterizes both radio as a medium and basic principles of the theory and practical aspects of radio advertising. It outlines the grounds for description of phonetic aspects at both segmental and suprasegmental level. It provides basic features describing phonetic characteristics of the Czech language in light of its orthoepic standard. Based on the results of a quantitative survey and namely the perception tests, the goal of the paper is to show potential applicability of phonetics in marketing communications, specifically concerning the variability of the verbal part of commercials reflecting different products and target consumer groups, i.e. to show the potential the Czech language is offering at present and ways of making the most of this potential in radio advertising.

<p>The present dissertation explores the effect of exposure to non-native speech via foreign film on non-native speech production and perception. In order to explore potential effects, two main experiments were developed, which examined French production and perception by monolingual native speakers of English before and after exposure to French film. Across both experiments, two variables were selected for observation: high rounded vowels (/y/ and /u/) and consonant voicing (VOT). The production component of the dissertation investigated whether exposure to French film aided in the ability of monolingual American English speakers (n=74) to shadow French words containing high rounded vowels, /y/ and /u/, as tested through acoustic analyses and native French listener perceptual judgements (n=221). Perception of high rounded vowels and consonant voicing were examined using a perceptual assimilation task with category goodness ratings and a binary forced-choice voicing identification task, respectively.</p> <p>With regard to the role of foreign film in non-native speech production, results indicated that a single session of exposure to French film had a small but significant effect on shadowing of French /y/, which was also perceptible to native French listeners. Shadowing of /u/, however, was not significantly affected by exposure. Additionally, while the acoustic analysis of VOT did not reveal any significant effects of film, native French listeners perceived post-film exposure productions to be significantly more target-like than pre-film exposure productions. This finding suggests that although VOT was seemingly unaffected by foreign film exposure, participants may have adjusted alternative acoustic correlates of voicing and that these modifications were perceptible to native listeners. In general, these results suggest that while potential effects of film are present, they are highly dependent on the variable being observed.</p> <p>Results from the perceptual portion of the dissertation do not provide evidence that film exposure was effective at influencing non-native speech perception for either high rounded vowels or consonant voicing. However, it is suggested that this could be due to the difficulty of the tasks chosen rather than the effectiveness of foreign film.</p> <p>Taken together, the present dissertation provides evidence that exposure to non-native speech via foreign film can affect some aspects of non-native speech learning. It is hypothesized that further sessions may compound these initial benefits, especially in those who are already learning a second language.</p>