LINGUIST List 18.1235
Mon Apr 23 2007
Diss: Phonetics: Abresch: 'Englisches in gesprochenem Deutsch: Eine...'
Editor for this issue: Hunter Lockwood
<hunterlinguistlist.org>
Directory
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
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 andAssessment 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 thesewords pronounced by German speakers? On the one hand, it seems to be veryunlikely that they will be completely nativised (fully integrated intoGerman). On the other hand, a "correct" English pronunciation is not to beexpected as well. If the pronunciation of Anglicisms and English propernames is about half-way in between those extremes, does that mean, thatsome English sounds are always nativised to German and others arepronounced true to original? And, if that is the case, which sound belongsto which group?
The pronunciation of English sounds in German sentence contexts wasexamined in a production study with 40 subjects. It was shown that somesounds are already quite common in German and that they are articulatedeven 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 preferredpronunciation by another speaker do not necessarily correspond with eachother. It is likely, that the expectations towards the pronunciation of aprofessional speaker or the output of a speech synthesis system are higherthan that towards one's one usage of English sounds in everyday Germanconversation. In turn, a pronunciation that is too close to the Englishoriginal could lead to unintelligibility and hence to a rejection by thelistener.
For speech synthesis it is essential to decide on exactly one pronunciationfor a word. Therefore a preference test with 50 subjects was conducted tofind 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 theproduction experiment, are preferred in the original English pronunciation.Others, again mainly vowels, are rejected by the listeners and preferred asa Germanised variant.
By combining the results of the two studies, we do not only get a pictureof the current usage and assessment of English sounds in German, but arealso in the position to give a suggestion for a selective extension of aGerman sound inventory for speech synthesis. In addition, the empiricalfindings provide reliable references for adequate nativisations of certainEnglish sounds.
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