There has been some research in recent years which has attempted to demonstrate the effect of needs, attitudes and stereotyped beliefs on social judgements and perception (see, for instance , Secord,1959). One type of experimental design that highlights the role that such factors play in perception consists of observing and comparing the reactions of a subject when presented with the same stimulus under different labelling conditions .

The main content of my diploma thesis is Pronunciation of middle school children. The theoretical part deals with the aims of pronunciation teaching. This part concerns the question to what measure the pronunciation is important and whether it is possible to influence it by teaching process. Furthermore, I attended to pronunciation differences between English and Czech sounds and typical mistakes made by Czech pupils. The practical part searches and analyses mistakes in Engish pronunciation made by pupils who have just come to middle school by research scanning. Consequently I suggested several exercises to eliminate some of the ascertained mistakes. At the end, I also practically verified them in school practise and summed them up in my final reflection.

The thesis mainly concerns itself with an analysis of the present day pronunciation of Xhosa-English. The isolation and identification of the segmental phonemes and the phonemes of stress, intonation and transition form the core of the work. The author has attempted to give continuity by introducing a subsidiary theme, the Lado hypothesis as stated on page 1. In conformity with the the methodology imposed by the Lado formula, it was first necessary to establish two things: first, a standard background against which the characteristics of XEP could be compared, and secondly, to give briefly, but in sufficient detail for our purpose, the main phonological features of the mother tongue.

Following a review of the literature on French immersion, this thesis considers the implications of the systematic transcription of oral texts for linguistic analysis. In transcribing a corpus of spoken French by children attending a French immersion school and a corpus of children from Quebec (both from tape recordings and included in the appendice), the transcription conventions proposed by the Groupe Aixois de Recherche en Syntaxe were applied. In chapter III, some of the most common deviations from the norm that occur in the French immersion corpus are discussed, and for the most part these aberrations reflect the results of previous error analyses done on second language learners. In chapters IV and V, a study of "slip-ups" is undertaken. Slip-ups are repetitions or self-corrections, referred to as "rates" in this thesis. They occur frequently both in the Francophone and French immersion corpus. The purpose of this study is to analyse the intrinsic structure of these hesitations (that were previously brushed off as un-grammatical) and to discover whether the repetitions or self-corrections produced by the French immersion speakers share characteristics with or differ from the slip-ups identified in the Francophone corpus. Whereas an enumeration of grammatical errors will almost always show that the French spoken by French immersion pupils is not as "good" as that spoken by Francophone children, the analysis of slip-ups is a more objective endeavor. And indeed, the study reveals some unpredicted results. On certain parts of the sentence, such as the predicate, French native speakers surprisingly slip up more often than French immersion children, while the latter tend to hesitate more often on subjects and indirect objects. Further analysis reveals that native French speakers almost always repeat (or correct) entire word groups, or syntagms, although they don't always complete such groups. The French immersion children, on the other hand, do not always repeat the entire word group when they slip up, but they do seem to finish their construction (or sentence), once it has started. Finally, the situation (formal or informal) appeared to only affect the speakers in the Francophone corpus: they hesitated slightly more often in a formal setting, whereas the situation did not seem to affect the results for the French immersion speakers. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Abstract This research explored professional singers’ pronunciation of German in Frauenliebe und Leben, a song cycle, composed in 1840 by Robert Schumann (1810–1856). Adopting a two-fold approach, the thesis examined pronunciation from the viewpoints of normative German pronunciation and vocal pedagogy, paying special attention to the relationship between the two sets of norms. Normative German pronunciation is based on ‘reine Hochlautung’ as defined by Theodor Siebs, as well as on his instructions to classical singers. Norms of pronunciation used in vocal pedagogy were derived from 11 German pronunciation manuals for classical singers. At the centre of this study were 11 elements of the German language: the phonemes /s/, /r/, /b/, /d/ and /g/, the suffix -ig, double consonants, connecting consonants, the letter combination ng, liaison and diphthongs in a melismatic setting. Twelve professional singers’ – Anne Sofie von Otter, Barbara Bonney, Brigitte Fassbaender, Elly Ameling, Elisabeth Grümmer, Irmgard Seefried, Janet Baker, Jessye Norman, Kathleen Ferrier, Soile Isokoski, Marjana Lipovšek, Tamara Takács – pronunciation of these elements was studied via their recording of Frauenliebe und Leben between 1950 and 1997. Both descriptive statistical analysis methods and hierarchical cluster analysis were applied to the data. A reliability analysis was conducted using intra-category correlations and relative frequencies. This analysis indicated a reasonable degree of reliability. Descriptive statistical analysis methods yielded the result that the actual pronunciation of the professional singers, as evidenced by their recordings, was considerably more varied than what could be expected on the basis of normative or pedagogical norms. Hierarchical cluster analysis, too, showed that the professional singers shared the same category to a moderate degree. We may conclude that vocal pedagogical theory needs to be further developed, because pedagogical norms for pronunciation proved partially confusing and difficult to grasp. In addition, specific attention must be given to source critique. The actual pronunciation of professional singers challenges singing instructors to reflect on how they teach German pronunciation and what they can do to help their students develop the skills required for a critical listening of recordings. / Tiivistelmä Eksperttilaulajien saksan kielen ääntämistä havainnoitiin Robert Schumannin (1810–1856) vuonna 1840 säveltämässä laulusarjassa Frauenliebe und Leben, ja ääntämistä tutkittiin suhteessa sekä saksan kirjakielen ääntämisnormistoon että pedagogiseen ääntämisnormistoon. Tutkimuksessa syvennyttiin myös ääntämisnormistojen välisen suhteen tarkasteluun. Saksan kirjakielen ääntämisnormisto perustui Theodor Siebsin reine Hochlautung -ääntämistapaan sekä Siebsin klassisen laulun ohjeistuksiin. Pedagoginen ääntämisnormisto eli klassisille laulajille osoitetut saksan kielen ääntämisen oppaat oli rajattu yhteentoista teokseen. Tutkittavana oli yksitoista saksan kielen elementtiä: konsonantit s, r, b, d, g, suffiksi -ig, kirjainyhdistelmä ng, kaksoiskonsonantit, konsonanttien yhdistäminen, vokaalien sitominen ja diftongit. Laulusarjan levyttäneitä eksperttilaulajia oli kaksitoista: Anne Sofie von Otter, Barbara Bonney, Brigitte Fassbaender, Elly Ameling, Elisabeth Grümmer, Irmgard Seefried, Janet Baker, Jessye Norman, Kathleen Ferrier, Soile Isokoski, Marjana Lipovšek ja Tamara Takács. Äänitteet olivat vuosien 1950 ja 1997 väliseltä ajalta. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin perinteisiä kuvailevia tilastollisia analyysimenetelmiä ja hierarkkista ryhmittelyanalyysia. Aineiston luotettavuutta tarkasteltiin reliabiliteettianalyysin avulla. Reliabiliteettianalyysi osoitti, että aineistolle saavutettiin kohtuullinen luotettavuus. Kuvailevien tilastollisten analyysimenetelmien tuloksena oli havainto, että eksperttilaulajien ääntäminen äänitteissä oli huomattavasti monimuotoisempaa kuin saksan kirjakielen ja pedagoginen ääntämisnormisto antoivat olettaa. Hierarkkinen ryhmittelyanalyysi puolestaan osoitti, että eksperttilaulajien sijoittuminen samaan ryhmään oli maltillista. Tutkimus vahvistaa käsitystä, että laulupedagogista teoriaa tulee tarkastella dynaamisena, alati muuttuvana ilmiönä. Tutkimuksen perusteella myös havaitaan, että eksperttilaulajien ääntäminen noudattaa laulupedagogiikassa käytettyjä ääntämisen ohjeistuksia vain osin. Eksperttilaulajien ääntämisen käytäntö täten haastaa laulupedagogit pohtimaan sitä, kuinka he itse opettavat saksan kieltä, ja sitä, kuinka he liittävät opetustyöhönsä äänitteiden kriittisen kuuntelemisen taidon ja lauluoppaiden kriittisen käytön.

toc / English Studies and Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Arts

University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

No description available.

As dificuldades de pronúncia percebidas por adultos jovens e idosos, ambos totalmente desdentados com ou sem próteses completas, e por adultos com dentição natural, foram investigadas e relacionadas a suas respectivas avaliações miofuncionais orais, adaptação às novas próteses e idade. Os participantes foram solicitados a julgar por procedimento psicofísico a dificuldade de pronunciar: (1) frases com predomínio de cada fonema do idioma português brasileiro e (2) frases com predominância de fonemas fricativos. Estes julgamentos foram realizados em três sessões: (1) na condição oral em que se encontravam os participantes antes de tratamento odontológico, (2) após uma semana da instalação da prótese total e (3) após aproximadamente 40 dias de uso da prótese total. As tarefas para a avaliação miofuncional de cada participante foram realizadas em cada sessão, gravadas em videocassete e posteriormente avaliadas por duas fonoaudiólogas. As avaliações miofuncionais indicaram alterações entre as sessões quanto às condições musculares, a postura de lábios e de língua, nas funções de deglutição, na mastigação e na fala dos usuários de prótese total, independente da idade dos participantes. Houve diferença entre as frases quanto à dificuldade para pronunciar, independentemente se os participantes eram ou não desdentados. As avaliações da condição muscular e das funções orais foram correlacionadas com os julgamentos de dificuldade para pronúncia, indicando que as condições musculares e funcionais dos usuários de prótese total interferem na produção de frases com determinados fonemas e na dificuldade de sua pronúncia. / Perceived difficulties of pronunciation by totally-edentulous young adults and totally-edentulous old people, both with and without complete denture, and by adults with natural dentition were investigated and related to their oral miofunctional evaluations, adaptation to the usage of complete denture, and age. For such purpose, the participants were asked to judge by psychophysical procedure the difficult to pronounce: (1) sentences with predominance of each phoneme of the Brazilian Portuguese idiom and (2) sentences with predominance of fricative phonemes. These judgments were carried out in sessions: (1) in the oral condition that the participants exhibited before the onset of the dental treatment, (2) one week after the insertion of the complete denture and (3) after approximately 40 days of routine usage of the complete denture. The tasks for miofunctional evaluations of each participant were performed before each session, videocassette recorded and further evaluated by two speech therapists. The miofunctional evaluations revealed alterations in the muscular structures, positions of the lips and tongue, functions of deglutition, mastication and speech of the users of complete dentures at the three sessions, irrespectively of the age. There were differences among the judgments regarding the difficulty to pronounce the sentences, regardless whether or not the participants were edentulous. The evaluations of the muscular condition and oral functions were correlated to the judgments of the difficulty of pronunciation, indicating that the functional and muscular conditions of the users of complete dentures interfere with the production the sentences with certain phonemes, as well as with the difficulty of their pronunciation.