Vowel lenght: Comparison of Czech and French Vowel Systems from the Phonetic and Phonological Point of View. A Pedagogically Focused Contrastive Study

TITLE: Vowel Lenght: Comparison of Czech and French Vowel Systems from the Phonetic and Phonological Point of View. A Pedagogically Focused Contrastive Study. AUTHOR: Kateřina Vychopňová DEPARTMENT: Department of French Language and Literature SUPERVISOR: prof. PhDr. Marie DOHALSKÁ, DrSc./ prof. Philippe MARTIN The thesis, one of the French-Czech contrastive studies, deals with the issue of vowel length in Czech and French language. The first part of the thesis, which was intentionally written for a potential pedagogic use, introduces the comparison of the main phonetic and phonological characteristics of both languages, their typology considering vowels length and its development through the history of these languages. The second part, experimental, brings the description and results of several attempts which observe whether the French native speakers learning Czech respect the length of Czech vowels, further the influence of following consonants, final and initial stress and also the type of a syllable on the length of French vowels, both in the production of French native speakers and Czech native speakers learning French. The results prove that articulatory habits which both groups of speakers use in their mother tongue have a significant influence on the production of the acquired language. In..