Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

4Conclusion

In the theoretical section, a comparative study of English and French phonetic systems has been presented. Both segmental and supresegmental features have been taken into account; systems of consonants and vowels have been compared and contrasted. After each subchapter, a list of presumed mistakes has been introduced, according to the differences between them. The most significant differences have been found in the vowel systems, therefore it was predicted that most of the mistakes that might prevent the French speakers to make themselves understood would come out of the pronunciation of vowels. French language lacks the reduced vowels /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, any inherently long vowels, and vowels like /ɒ/ and /æ/. It has been argued that the pronunciation of these vowels would be adapted to the French vowel system; the reduced vowels would become /i/ and /u/, long vowels would be shortened, and the vowels /ɒ/ and /æ/ would be realized as either /e/, /ɛ/, or /a/. As far as the consonants are concerned, it has been predicted that the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ would be mispronounced as either /s/ or /t/, or, respectively, /z/ or /d/; and that the sound /h/ would be replaced by a glottal stop. The prediction on the sound /r/ was unclear; even though the French phonetic system lacks this sound, it is not difficult to produce it.

The suprasegmental features, namely intonation and stress, differ greatly in these two languages. It has been asserted that the French speakers would try to preserve the model of a French groupe rytmique, a prosodic unit, which is characterized by putting a stress on the last syllable and by affecting the intonation of a sentence or the whole discourse. The stresses in English are distributed irregularly, and it is necessary to learn them as parts of vocabulary.

As for the research part, six respondents were asked to read a short article in English and to discuss it without preparation. Subsequently, they were asked a few questions concerning their personal data and their view not only on their own skills, but also on the skills of French people in general. These speakers have been divided into two groups according to their age and their pronunciation has been studied separately. It has been predicted that the later the speakers had started to study English, the more imprecise their pronunciation would be.

It has been found out that members of both of these groups make mistakes in pronouncing the same sounds, nevertheless, they are quite different. The most perceivable differences occurred in pronunciation of the dental fricatives. The younger group has tended to substitute these sounds with plosives, whereas the older generation has opted for fricatives. The pronunciation of the glottal fricative /h/ has not been a matter of age; some speakers have managed to pronounce it without problems, some have avoided it completely by using the glottal stop. The only word that has not been pronounced correctly by any of the speakers was the word hate. The reduction of vowels has been neglected by both groups. Generally, the younger generation has been more successful in imitating the vowel sounds, but still, the long vowels, and the vowels /æ/ and /ɒ/ have been altered in their speech.

The hypothesis, which was inspired by Flege’s research, has been proven in the amount of foreign accent that has been perceived, in the way the suprasegmental features are used, and in the way the vowel sounds (or even the dental fricative sounds) have been altered and adapted to the register of French vowels, nevertheless, it is of author’s conviction that between these two groups, the amount of sounds that have been pronounced wrongly (with the exception of /r/) is not significantly different.

It is also necessary to point out that some of the mistakes have been repeated throughout their discourse, such as pronunciation of /i/ instead of /ɪ/ or many different /A/, /O/ or /E/ sounds instead /æ/ and /ɒ/.

These findings may suggest further research in the sociological field, as the marker of age is certainly not the only one that influences the quality of pronunciation of a second language. It would be possible to determine to what extend the environment in which a person is taught a second language (bilingual families, a long term sojourn in an English speaking country) influences the pronunciation of this language. Furthermore, this thesis could also serve as a guide for French people who want to work on their pronunciation skills; exercises containing the most problematic sounds could be derived from this work.

5Works cited

Bartoš, J., & Ducháček, O. (1976). Grammaire du français contemporain. Bratislava: Slovenské pedagogické nakladateľstvo.

Boersma, P. (2007). Some listener-oriented accounts of h-aspiré in French. Lingua, 117 (12), 1989–2054.

Collins, B., & Mees, I. M. (2008). Practical phonetics and phonology: a resource book for students. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Cruttenden, A., & Gimson, A. C. (1997). Gimson's Pronunciation of English. 5th ed. London: Arnold.

Dohalská, M., & Schulzová, O. (1991). Fonetika francouzštiny. Praha: Karolinum, státní pedagogické nakladatelství.

Flege, J. E., & Frieda, E. M. (1997). Amount of native-language (L1) use affects the pronunciation of an L2. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 169–186. Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://jimflege.com/files/Flege_Frieda_L1_use_JP_97.pdf.

Flege, J. E., Munro, M. J., & MacKay, I. R. A. (1995). Effects of age of second-language learning on the production of English consonants. Speech communication, 16, 1–26. Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016763939400044B.

Grevisse, M. (1961). Le Bon Usage: Grammaire Francaise Avec Des Remarques Sur La Langue Francaise D'aujourd'hui. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste P. Geuthner.

Jones, D. (1957). An Outline of English Phonetics. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons.

Jowitt, D. (2001). In defence of triphthongs. English Today, 17(3), 36-41. Retrieved March 18, 2016, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205265624?accountid=16531.

Pačesová, J., & Ohnesorg, K. (1998). Úvod do obecné fonetiky a fonologie: Fonetika francouzštiny. Brno: Filosofická fakulta.

Roach, P. (1983). English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Auxiliary sources

[Electronic image. Cardinal vowels]. Retrieved March 14, 2016 from http://learningmoveon.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/cardinal-vowel.jpg

[Electronic image. English diphthongs]. Retrieved April 27, 2016, from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/RP_vowel_chart_(diphthongs).gif/640px-RP_vowel_chart_(diphthongs).gif.

IPA Charts. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2016, from http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/.

Le Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé [online]. [cit. 2016-04-25]. Dostupné z: atilf.atilf.fr.

McRobbie, L. R. (n.d.). Why Do the English Hate the French? Retrieved April 18, 2016, from http://mentalfloss.com/article/21709/why-do-english-hate-french.

6Summary in English

This thesis deals with the pronunciation of English by the speakers of French. It is divided into two sections – the theoretical section describes the phonetic systems of both English and French and focuses on both segmental and suprasegmental features. According to the differences between them, a list of hypotheses is made, predicting the sounds which would be wrongly pronounced by the French speakers.

The practical sections is based on author’s own research. It was inspired by James Emil Flege’s hypotheses on the connection between age and speaker’s ability to adopt a perfect pronunciation of a second language. Six French speakers of English were asked to read a short article and, subsequently, discuss it. The respondents were divided into two groups according to their age. Their pronunciation was analyzed and mutually compared. The results proved that even though the foreign accent of older speakers is more distinct and that they tend to adapt English phonemes to their own phonetic system (i. e. the quality of the sounds pronounced is worse), the number of sounds they pronounce incorrectly is roughly the same as in the young generation of speakers. It has been also found out that many of the mistakes made are not influenced by their age.

7Summary in Czech

Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá výslovností angličtiny u francouzských mluvčích. Je rozdělena do dvou částí – teoretická část popisuje fonetické systémy obou jazyků, angličtiny i francouzštiny, a soustředí se jak na segmentální, tak i suprasegmentální jevy. Na základě rozdílů v jednotlivých systémech jsou pak formulovány hypotézy, ve kterých oblastech budou francouzští mluvčí chybovat.

Praktická část se zabývá vlastním výzkumem. Jeho inspirací byly hypotézy Jamese Emila Flegeho o vztahu mezi věkem a schopností si dokonale osvojit výslovnost cizího jazyka. Šest francouzských mluvčích bylo požádáno o přečtení krátkého článku v angličtině a následně o diskuzi. Mluvčí byli rozděleni do dvou skupin podle věku. Jejich výslovnost byla analyzována a vzájemně porovnána. Ze sesbíraných dat bylo zjištěno, že ačkoliv cizí přízvuk starších mluvčích je markantnější, a hlásky si daleko více přizpůsobují vlastnímu fonetickému systému (tedy kvalita hlásek je poněkud horší), počet hlásek, ve kterých dělají chyby, se výrazně neliší od toho, v němž chybuje mladší generace. Rovněž bylo zjištěno, že chyby na některých fonémech nejsou determinovány věkem.

8Appendices

8.1Appendix 1 – Questionnaire

1) What is your age?

2) Where did you learn English?

3) How long have you been studying English?

4) How often are you in contact with English?

5) How do you evaluate your level of pronunciation?

6) What features of English pronunciation do you personally find difficult to master? Are you aware of the mistakes you make?

7) In your opinion, what are the typical mistakes the French speakers make?

8) Are you satisfied with the opportunities to learn English in France/with the English teachers in France? What could be improved?

8.2Appendix 2 – Article

WHY DO THE ENGLISH HATE THE FRENCH?

It's practically a fact of life here in England, like rain half the summer, painfully congested Tube traffic, and conversations about the weather: The English hate the French.

BECAUSE THE FRENCH ARE RUDE

The English are quick to produce evidence of French rudeness: In London restaurants, it takes an average of 3.4 minutes to get a glass of water after the waiter has been alert, compared to 17.9 minutes in Paris; many French people don't clean up after their dogs, leaving around 6,438 US tons of canine crap on their streets each year; and with some, there's an odor problem: 40 percent of French men and 25 percent of women don't change their underwear every day and only 47 percent bathe every day.

The idea that French people are rude has become so indoctrinated in English culture that a recent remake of the Mr. Men cartoons (Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Tickles, etc.), featured a character named Mr. Rude, who farts, blows raspberries, and speaks with a French accent. Oh, snaps.

And then there's the fact that there is an actual recognized medical syndrome describing the psychological breakdown that occurs when a foreign traveler to Paris discovers that the city of romance and light isn't all its cracked up to be. It's called "Paris Syndrome" and it appears to particularly affect Japanese tourists not accustomed to a society where it's acceptable for a waiter to yell at a customer if they don't speak fluent French.

8.3Appendix 3 - CD

1^ Some languages of the world are codified and regulated by a national institution, for example, Czech is regulated by Ústav pro jazyk český. These rules are respected and taken as valid. There is no such authority for English. Nevertheless, institutions like Oxford and Cambridge University publish their dictionaries and grammars independently.

2^ In RP, there are no retroflex or uvular sounds.

3^ In English, approximants have many allophones and therefore can be further divided. The /l/ sounds are lateral, the /r/ sounds can be trilled, tapped or frictionless. These two groups can be referred to as liquids.

4^ Liaison is further discussed below.

5^ Words that are of “scientific” nature.

6^ Translated from original in French: “Les uns les proclament pour simple variantes parc qu’elles peuvent alterner respectivement avec [i], [y] ou [u] dans certaines positions.”

7^ Dohalská classifies /t/ and /d/ as prealveolar or alveodental, which is more precise. The pronunciation of these sounds differ in English and French slightly (122). For the purposes of the comparison, I will classify these sounds as alveolar, as there is not distinctive opposition between pre-alveolar and alveolar plosives in French.

8^ This feature disappeared during the 17th and 18th century (Dohalská, 1991, p. 67).

9^ They are /r/, /v/, /z/, /ʒ/, and the cluster /vr/.

10^ Groupes rytmiques are discussed in the section Aspects of connected speech.

11^ “Mots invariables” are words such as de, ne, que, jusque etc.

12^ The complete list of the words starting with „h aspiré“ can be found in Grevisse (1961), p. 64.

13^ In English, rhythmical or accentual group.

14^ Not all sentences feature the pre-nuclear or post-nuclear syllables. When there is a full vowel in the tail syllable, the intonation can be (falling-)rising.

15^ This model functions if the speaker does not intend to accentuate any particular piece of information.

16^ Even though the correct RP pronunciation should be [tju:b], it is much more common to slighly affricate the initial sound. The recording of an RP speaker is enclosed in a CD.

17^ Collège is an institution of secondary education. The students frequent it when they are 11–15 years old. Lycée is an equivalent of secondary school. Its students are 15–18 years old.

18^ In these words, the /r/ has been realized as [χ], but the friction is very short and almost unperceivable. It is sometimes even voiced as [ʁ].

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