Výslovnost dentálních frikativ v anglicismech a anglických vlastních jménech: kodifikace - norma - úzus

• Authors: Martin Havlík

Title variants

The pronunciation of dental fricatives in Anglicisms and English proper names in Czech: codification, norms and use

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

This paper explores the pronunciation of the dental fricatives /θ ð/ in loanwords of English origin (i.e. Anglicisms) as well as in English proper names in Czech. I identify a considerable gap between the recommended and actual pronunciation of the dental fricatives: while alveolar fricatives (/s z/) are recommended in language manuals and textbooks, in actual language use Czech speakers pronounce the dental fricatives predominantly as alveolar stops (/t d/). My hypothesis for this imbalance between recommended and actual pronunciation is that, to date, authors of language manuals and textbooks have failed to take into account both the pronunciation norm of Czech speakers and the original English pronunciation. I make a number of arguments for the replacement of the English phonemes /θ ð/ with the Czech phonemes /t d/ or /f v/, which I consider more suitable than their replacement with the “recommended” /s z/. However, given the lack of reliable guidelines for the pronunciation of the dental fricatives, I observe both significant variability in pronunciation, particularly in the case of recent loanwords such as smoothie and think tank, and a high level of uncertainty among speakers with respect to how Anglicisms containing dental fricatives should be pronounced.

Keywords

CS

anglicismy; čeština; výslovnost; dentální frikativy; norma; kodifikace; kodifikační příručky

EN

Anglicisms; Czech; pronunciation; dental fricatives; norms; codification; language manuals

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of the Czech Language, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovo a slovesnost: časopis pro otázky teorie a kultury jazyka (Slovo a slovesnost: A journal for the theory of language and language cultivation)
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 81
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 195-217
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Martin Havlík

• Slovo a slovesnost, redakce, Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v.v.i., Letenská 4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic