1. English Phonetic Transcription in Slovene Secondary Schools : master's thesisUrška Kajbič, 2025, master's thesis Abstract: This thesis explores the role of phonetic transcription in teaching English pronunciation to Slovene secondary school students. Pronunciation has long been marginalised in EFL classrooms, yet it is crucial for intelligibility. For Slovene learners, whose L1 is syllable-timed, the main difficulty lies in adapting to the stress-timed rhythm of English, especially in recognising word stress.
The research combined two parts: an analysis of six secondary school coursebooks and an experimental study. The coursebook analysis revealed that phonetic transcription is often limited to glossaries, leaving learners without clear guidance on stress placement. The experiment compared traditional teaching with a kinaesthetic technique—clapping for syllables. Results showed that the experimental group did not outperform the control group in transcribing -ed endings or schwa. However, this outcome points to a transitional stage: the experimental group had already disrupted Slovene stress patterns but had not yet stabilised English ones.
The findings highlight the importance of phonetic transcription as a tool that bridges segmental and suprasegmental levels, supports the shift from orthography to pronunciation, and makes hidden features such as vowel reduction and allomorphic variation visible. Combined with kinaesthetic techniques, it offers a pathway for more systematic and effective pronunciation teaching in Slovene classrooms.
Keywords: phonetic transcription, language learning, pronunciation teaching, word stress, syllable clapping
Published in DKUM: 16.10.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 11
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4. Influence of highly inflected word forms and acoustic background on the robustness of automatic speech recognition for human–computer interactionAndrej Žgank, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: Automatic speech recognition is essential for establishing natural communication with
a human–computer interface. Speech recognition accuracy strongly depends on the complexity of
language. Highly inflected word forms are a type of unit present in some languages. The acoustic
background presents an additional important degradation factor influencing speech recognition
accuracy. While the acoustic background has been studied extensively, the highly inflected word
forms and their combined influence still present a major research challenge. Thus, a novel type of
analysis is proposed, where a dedicated speech database comprised solely of highly inflected word
forms is constructed and used for tests. Dedicated test sets with various acoustic backgrounds were
generated and evaluated with the Slovenian UMB BN speech recognition system. The baseline word
accuracy of 93.88% and 98.53% was reduced to as low as 23.58% and 15.14% for the various acoustic
backgrounds. The analysis shows that the word accuracy degradation depends on and changes
with the acoustic background type and level. The highly inflected word forms’ test sets without
background decreased word accuracy from 93.3% to only 63.3% in the worst case. The impact of
highly inflected word forms on speech recognition accuracy was reduced with the increased levels of
acoustic background and was, in these cases, similar to the non-highly inflected test sets. The results
indicate that alternative methods in constructing speech databases, particularly for low-resourced
Slovenian language, could be beneficial.
Keywords: human–computer interaction, automatic speech recognition, acoustic modeling, highly inflected word forms, acoustic background
Published in DKUM: 28.03.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 8
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5. Multiple conceptual modelling of perceived quality of in-flight airline servicesUrban Šebjan, Polona Tominc, Karin Širec, 2017, original scientific article Abstract: Despite growing literature on the different aspects of airline service quality in relation to behavioural intentions, less attention has been paid to some specific aspects of in-flight services. The focus of the present research is, therefore, on a multiple conceptual model of the quality of in-flight services in relation to passengers’ perception of value, followed by recommendations (word of mouth - WOM) of airlines, as well as the quality and comfort of airline seats. The study is performed using two databases of reviewers’/passengers’ opinions regarding the quality of in-flight airline services and airline seat comfort. Our research results reveal that the perceived comfort of the airplane seat is the most important factor of passengers’ perceived quality of in-flight airline services, which also considerably affects the passengers’ perception of value, and consequently moderates behavioural intentions (in our research, expressed through positive WOM). The analysis of the relative importance of the components of perceived airline seats’ comfort shows that seat width is the most significant factor that contributes to the overall perceived comfort of the airline seat.
Keywords: in-flight airline service quality, perceived value, recommendations (word of mouth), airline seat comfort, transport, air transport, services, quality
Published in DKUM: 19.09.2017; Views: 1302; Downloads: 470
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6. Context-dependent factored language modelsGregor Donaj, Zdravko Kačič, 2017, original scientific article Abstract: The incorporation of grammatical information into speech recognition systems is often used to increase performance in morphologically rich languages. However, this introduces demands for sufficiently large training corpora and proper methods of using the additional information. In this paper, we present a method for building factored language models that use data obtained by morphosyntactic tagging. The models use only relevant factors that help to increase performance and ignore data from other factors, thus also reducing the need for large morphosyntactically tagged training corpora. Which data is relevant is determined at run-time, based on the current text segment being estimated, i.e., the context. We show that using a context-dependent model in a two-pass recognition algorithm, the overall speech recognition accuracy in a Broadcast News application improved by 1.73% relatively, while simpler models using the same data achieved only 0.07% improvement. We also present a more detailed error analysis based on lexical features, comparing first-pass and second-pass results.
Keywords: speech recognition, factored language model, dynamic backoff path, word context, inflectional language, morphosyntactic tags
Published in DKUM: 26.06.2017; Views: 1829; Downloads: 383
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7. Testing pronunciation varieties of English in primary school through pictorial and textual inputMejade Tomažič, 2016, undergraduate thesis Abstract: We are surrounded with different varieties of English language. We listen to English music or radio shows, watch English movies and shows and watch English videos on the internet. The most common varieties that we encounter are British English and American English, which have distinctive differences in stress and pronunciation. Because we encounter both varieties daily, we have found it interesting to see which one prevails in our primary schools. The British English variety is primarily taught in school and the American variety is all around us and is thus more likely to be acquired. Children acquire a foreign language very easily if they are in contact with it on a regular basis. This is as nowadays, as we all hear English lyrics on the radio or hear English conversations on TV.
The thesis focuses on the factors that might influence the choice of the English variety. It explores if the input, whether it is pictorial with pictures or textual with words, influences the choice of variety. It also presents connections between the pronunciation of more frequent and less frequent words with choice of variety, the influence of the pupils’ backgrounds, and way of learning English.
Keywords: word recognition, working and long-term memory, second language, language acquisition, language learning, British and American English pronunciation.
Published in DKUM: 15.11.2016; Views: 1886; Downloads: 76
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8. Uporabnost tehniških risb, narejenih s programskim orodjem CorelDRAW, pri vstavljanju v tekstovne dokumenteČedomir Šnuderl, 2016, undergraduate thesis Abstract: CorelDRAW je program za vektorsko risanje. Čeprav ni namenjen tehniškemu risanju, lahko z njim izdelamo zelo dobre risbe, ki izpolnjujejo zahteve standardov. Največji težavi, na kateri naletimo v procesu risanja, sta kotiranje in šrafiranje. Program nam omogoča, da z nekaj dodatnega truda zadovoljivo premostimo te težave. Velika prednost tega programa je preprosto vstavljanje risb v tekstovni dokument, izdelan s programom Microsoft Word. Vstavljene risbe ne izgubijo na kakovosti, saj črte obdržijo dimenzije in ostrino. Brez opaznih razlik lahko njihovo velikost prilagajamo besedilu. Tako lahko program CorelDRAW uporabljamo za izdelavo risb, ki jih bomo vstavili v seminarsko ali diplomsko nalogo, delovne liste, skripta, učbenike, …
Keywords: CorelDRAW, tehniško risanje, vstavljanje risb v Microsoft Word, risanje zobnikov, risanje zobniških dvojic
Published in DKUM: 11.11.2016; Views: 1670; Downloads: 114
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9. Globalization: The Influence of English on the Language of Macedonian and Slovene StudentsEmi Nikolovska, 2016, master's thesis Abstract: Globalization influences economic development political systems, the environment,
languages and cultures as well as many other aspects of societies worldwide. Language has
become an integral and very sensitive element in the process of globalization; therefore
globalization related issues cannot be discussed without the analysis of language changes.
Today the English is a means of mutual communication of the emerging global culture spread
by international trade and relations, the internet, science, literature, sports and entertainment.
The influence of the English language on Macedonian and Slovene is evident on almost all
linguistic levels. The main goal of this thesis is to present the influence that English has on
the language of Macedonian and Slovene students. The research is focused on the analysis of
undergraduate theses in order to indicate the linguistic levels where the influence is most
evident and frequent. Additionally, as part of the research, I have prepared questionnaires
distributed among students currently studying at major universities in Macedonia and
Slovenia. The results show that the most affected linguistic levels are vocabulary and
orthography. Furthermore, the results point to the necessity of enriching the technological
terminology in both languages of interest. Students do not have negative attitudes toward the
expansion of English; on the contrary they believe that it provides certain benefits (education,
career, international communication). Macedonian and Slovene are not threatened by the
spread of the English language, but that does not mean that we should stop protecting our
linguistic heritage and indulge in indiscriminate use of words borrowed from English.
Keywords: globalization, global language, influence, English, students, word borrowing
Published in DKUM: 05.10.2016; Views: 1945; Downloads: 198
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10. POVEZAVA MED WORD ARTOM IN LANDARTOM ZNOTRAJ KONCEPTUALIZMAMatej Zupanič, 2016, undergraduate thesis Abstract: Diplomsko delo z naslovom Povezava med word artom in land artom znotraj konceptualizma zajema predstavitev konceptualizma z vidika njenih pestrih pojavnih oblik in predstavnikov ter predstavitev lastnega projekta.
V teoretičnem delu je poudarek namenjen likovnima izrazoma word art ter land art, od njune splošne pojavnosti, preko zavestne uporabe in umestitve znotraj umetnosti 20. stoletja, pa vse do njune dokončne potrditve znotraj umetniške smeri konceptualizma.
V praktičnem delu je predstavljen lastni projekt, ki sloni na analizi značilnosti word arta ter land arta, povezanega v konceptualno umetniško delo, imenovano Otok. Predstavljeno je v obliki besednega napisa, postavljenega na otok sredi reke Ledave. Skozi opis postopka lastnega ustvarjalnega izraza je razvidna osebna konceptualna ustvarjalna izkušnja ter videnje specifičnosti zapisa, umeščenega v krajino.
Keywords: word art, land art, otok, beseda, konceptualizem
Published in DKUM: 21.09.2016; Views: 1211; Downloads: 143
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