Production Accuracy in L2 English Checked Vowels: Cross-sectional Study of Czech Secondary and Post-Secondary School Students

Sammanfattning: In Czechia, teaching L2 English pronunciation is underestimated, which might lead to potential production slips and affect the intelligibility of the learners. This study investigates accuracy in L2 English pronunciation of checked vowels (/ʌ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʊ, æ/) as produced by Czech students. I applied cross-sectional approach and analysed participants from two distinct school classes who are divided by an 8-year study period. The pronunciation accuracy is analysed with the help of the computer program Praat, which generates frequencies for both Czech and English vowel phonemes produced by the participants reading out loud a set of monosyllabic citation words. The formant frequencies are later compared to a reference set of SSBE frequency values, which represents the targeted native language model. The results of this work show that the L2 English values are influenced by the students’ inventories of L1 Czech, leading to inaccuracy in production of the phonemes /ʌ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʊ/ and setting constraints to the L2 /æ/ acquisition.