LINGUIST List 18.1235
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Mon Apr 23 2007
Diss: Phonetics: Abresch: 'Englisches in gesprochenem Deutsch: Eine...'
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1. Julia
Abresch,
Englisches in gesprochenem Deutsch: Eine empirische Analyse der Aussprache und Beurteilung englischer Laute im Deutschen
Message 1: Englisches in gesprochenem Deutsch: Eine empirische Analyse der Aussprache und Beurteilung englischer Laute im Deutschen
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Date: 23-Apr-2007
From: Julia Abresch <jabifk.uni-bonn.de>
Subject: Englisches in gesprochenem Deutsch: Eine empirische Analyse der Aussprache und Beurteilung englischer Laute im Deutschen
Institution: University of Bonn
Program: Institute of Communication Sciences
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2007
Author: Julia Abresch
Dissertation Title: Englisches in gesprochenem Deutsch: Eine empirische Analyse der Aussprache und Beurteilung englischer Laute im Deutschen
Dissertation URL: http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/diss_online/phil_fak/2007/abresch_julia
Linguistic Field(s):
Phonetics
Subject Language(s): German, Standard (deu)
Dissertation Director:
Wolfgang Hess
Bernhard Schroeder
Dissertation Abstract:
English in Spoken German. An Empirical Analysis of the Pronunciation and
Assessment of English Sounds in German.
English words and proper names are omnipresent in the German language (e.g.
Servicepoint, Shareholder, Hardware, cool, Tony Blair). But how are these
words pronounced by German speakers? On the one hand, it seems to be very
unlikely that they will be completely nativised (fully integrated into
German). On the other hand, a "correct" English pronunciation is not to be
expected as well. If the pronunciation of Anglicisms and English proper
names is about half-way in between those extremes, does that mean, that
some English sounds are always nativised to German and others are
pronounced true to original? And, if that is the case, which sound belongs
to which group?
The pronunciation of English sounds in German sentence contexts was
examined in a production study with 40 subjects. It was shown that some
sounds are already quite common in German and that they are articulated
even by subjects with a poor knowledge of English. Other sounds however,
usually vowels, are systematically replaced by specific German sounds.
A subject's own pronunciation of a word or sound and his preferred
pronunciation by another speaker do not necessarily correspond with each
other. It is likely, that the expectations towards the pronunciation of a
professional speaker or the output of a speech synthesis system are higher
than that towards one's one usage of English sounds in everyday German
conversation. In turn, a pronunciation that is too close to the English
original could lead to unintelligibility and hence to a rejection by the
listener.
For speech synthesis it is essential to decide on exactly one pronunciation
for a word. Therefore a preference test with 50 subjects was conducted to
find out how different possible pronunciation variants are assessed. Again,
it appeared that the preferences for English sounds differ systematically.
Some sounds, usually those which were pronounced frequently in the
production experiment, are preferred in the original English pronunciation.
Others, again mainly vowels, are rejected by the listeners and preferred as
a Germanised variant.
By combining the results of the two studies, we do not only get a picture
of the current usage and assessment of English sounds in German, but are
also in the position to give a suggestion for a selective extension of a
German sound inventory for speech synthesis. In addition, the empirical
findings provide reliable references for adequate nativisations of certain
English sounds.
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