Language is not only about correct spelling.












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            * Čeština není jen to, jak se co píše. S fonetiky o projektu Sound To Sense, kráse adekvát
            naslouchat
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            Fourteen university departments from eleven European countries have participated in the in
            “Sound To Sense” project, part of the Marie Curie Research Training Network financed by th
            The Czech partner in the project was the Institute of Phonetics at the Charles University 

            IForum discussed the project, which brings together linguistic phoneticians, engineers and
            with its leaders, the director of the Institute of Phonetics doc. PhDr. Jan Volín, PhD. an
            Zdena Palková, CSc.
                                                                                                      
            What was the idea behind the Sound To Sense project and what exactly does it deal with?   
            The Marie Curie Research Training Network project as a whole is focused on the education a
            Sound To Sense project is focused on speech and its sound representation. The aim is to st
                                                                                                      
            technician. The objective is to provide an interdisciplinary view of the subject because p
                                                                                                      
                                                                                                      
                                                                                                      
            While the project did not support research as such, it operated on the fact that research 
            explicitly stated in the project provisions even though Asians and Americans were hired as
            Psychologists approach the issue of speech communication in their own way but they lack th
                                                                                                      
            databases and similar applications but they are not achieving the results they could if th
                                                                                                      

            Equally, linguistics has to take into account the psychological aspect of speech communica
            about its technical and technological features. Communication among these three basic fiel
            and the European project pledged to bridge the gaps. I believe that was one of the crucial

            while deciding whether to take part in it. The overall idea comes from England and that’s 
            fourteen university departments are based, with the coordinator located at Cambridge Unive
            As we speak the Sound To Sense project is coming to an end. Do we know its results? What w

            concrete outcome?
            JV: The first project concentrated on the building of databases. Namely our centre contrib
            of a database but mainly with a general description and organisational structure of databa

            so at one moment we played quite an important role in the project. We did not take an acti
            second project but it was very interesting if rather technical. Its goal was an automatic 
            a particular defined problem in the collected databases – because with a classic database 

            each millisecond of speech. We were also heavily involved in a project studying foreign ac
            but we were particularly interested in Czech English because English is being promoted as 
            code, a modern-day lingua franca. We were interested in what a Czech accent in English ent

            extent it can hinder perception and hamper understanding. You may say – it’s just a foreig
            cute and it doesn’t do any harm – but sometimes a particular feature of a foreign accent m
            directly cause misunderstanding but it can hinder communication and wear the listener out.

            describe a few interesting principles and we published a special issue of Speech Communica
            which summarizes the findings of the departments involved including one of our own article
            This elaborately structured project has lasted a number of years – will its results serve 

            apart from educating another generation of phoneticians?
            JV: The outcome of this project is really those roughly 25 interns who travelled around Eu
            something on a doctoral level, some on a post-doctoral level. These young researchers are 

            with modern speech science and can look at speech not only through the eyes of a tradition
            psychologist but through those of engineers, psychologists and linguists at the same time.
            valuable.







            (Marie Kohoutová)


            Translation: Pavla Horáková