The production of english initial /s/ clusters by portuguese and spanish EFL speakers

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.Este estudo contribui com dados para verificar os diferentes resultados obtidos por Carlisle (1991, 1992, 1997) e Rebello (1997a, 1997b) sobre a adição de uma vogal (epêntese) ao início de um encontro consonantal /sC(C)/ em inglês por falantes de português e espanhol. As diferenças encontradas entre os falantes das duas línguas maternas relativas às estruturas e aos contextos mais difíceis são explicadas com base na relação entre a interferência da língua materna e os universais lingüísticos. Os resultados fornecem informações relevantes ao ensino da pronúncia do inglês no Brasil e nos demais países sul-americanos

Perception and production of english vowels by brazilian efl speakers

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.This study investigated the relationship between the perception and production of English vowels by 18 highly proficient Brazilian EFL speakers, most of them M.A. and doctoral students of the Graduate Program in English of the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Two experiments were carried out: A production test to measure the first two formants of the learners' English and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) vowels, and an identification test with synthetic stimuli to investigate the L2 (second language) perception of English vowels. The production and perception results reveal that the Euclidean distance between the three English target pairs (/i/-/I/, /E/-/ae/, /U/-/u/) was significantly larger for the American English monolinguals than for the L2 learners, thus indicating that the Brazilians have difficulty in both producing and perceiving these vowels in a native-like fashion. Importantly, some relationship between vowel perception and production was found because the target pairs which were better perceived were also the ones produced more accurately by the L2 learners. These results provide further evidence for the fact that L2 perception outperforms L2 production

A percepção de vogais do alemão por bilingues luso-alemães : remigrantes sofrem erosão fonológica?

adolescentes e jovens portugueses que cresceram como bilingues na Alemanha e retornaram a Portugal na infância (com as idades entre 5 e 10 anos). Todos os informantes afi rmaram não utilizar o alemão desde o seu regresso e já não ser capazes de formular frases correctas nesta língua. O estudo teve como objectivo testar se a sua habilidade perceptiva para discriminar sons do alemão tinha sofrido erosão ou se tinha mantido invulnerável à falta de uso da língua. Diferentemente do alemão, as vogais do português não se distinguem em termos de duração e o inventário fonológico desta língua não contém as vogais arredondadas /ʏ/ e /y:/. Assim, testámos a habilidade perceptiva dos informantes para discriminar vogais em termos de (i) duração, no contraste /a-a:/; (ii) duração+qualidade, nos contrastes /ɪ-i:/ e /ʊ-u:/; e (iii) qualidade, nos contrastes /i-ʏ/, /ʊ-ʏ/, /i:-y:/ e /u:-y:/ por meio de um teste de discriminação categórica. Os resultados revelam que os informantes regressados foram capazes de fazer distinções entre vogais que diferiam em termos de duração, duração+qualidade e qualidade na língua que sofreu erosão. Isto indica que, embora sejam incapazes de reactivar a gramática e o léxico da língua não utilizada, a sua habilidade para discriminar os sons do alemão parece permanecer estável.Th is study investigated the perception of German vowels by a group of eight Portuguese adolescents and young adults who were raised bilingually in Germany and returned to Portugal in early childhood (between the ages 5 and 10 years). All the participants reported not using German once in Portugal and being unable to formulate accurate sentences in that language. Our aim was to test whether their perceptual ability to discriminate German sounds had undergone attrition or remained invulnerable to the lack of language use. Diff erently from German, Portuguese vowels are not distinctive in duration and the Portuguese inventory does not contain the rounded vowels /ʏ/ and /y:/. Th us, we tested the participants’ perceptual ability to discriminate vowels in terms of (i) duration, in the contrast /a-a:/; (ii) duration+quality, in the contrasts /ɪ-i:/ and /ʊ-u:/; and (ii) quality, in the contrasts /i-ʏ/, /ʊ-ʏ/, /i:-y:/ and /u:-y:/ by means of a categorical discrimination test. Th e results reveal that the returnees were able to make vowel duration and quality perceptual distinctions in the attrited language. Th is indicates that although they seem unable to reactivate the grammar and lexicon of the non-used language, their ability to discriminate German sounds seems to have remained stable.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Bilinguismo luso-alemão: a percepção de vogais alemãs por remigrantes portugueses

This study investigates the perception of German vowels by a group of eight Portuguese adolescents and young adults who were raised bilingually in Germany and returned to Portugal in early childhood. All the participants reported that they never use German in Portugal and that they are unable to formulate accurate sentences in that language. Our aim was to test whether their perceptual ability to discriminate German sounds had undergone attrition or remained invulnerable to the lack of language use. Unlike German vowels, Portuguese vowels are not distinctive in duration and the Portuguese inventory does not contain front rounded vowels. Thus, we tested the participants’ perceptual ability to discriminate vowels in terms of duration and quality by means of a categorical discrimination test. The results reveal that the returnees were able to make vowel duration and quality perceptual distinctions in the attrited language. This indicates that their ability to discriminate German sounds seems to remain stable.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) - “O Bilinguismo lusoalemão no Contexto Europeu” (POCI/LIN/59780/2004

Abnormal processing of emotional prosody in Williams syndrome: an event-related potentials study

Williams syndrome (WS), a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder due to a microdeletion in chromosome 7, is described as displaying an intriguing socio-cognitive phenotype. Deficits in prosody production and comprehension have been consistently reported in behavioral studies. It remains, however, to be clarified the neurobiological processes underlying prosody processing in WS. This study aimed at characterizing the electrophysiological response to neutral, happy, and angry prosody in WS, and examining if this response was dependent on the semantic content of the utterance. A group of 12 participants (5 female and 7male), diagnosed with WS, with age range between 9 and 31 years, was compared with a group of typically developing participants, individually matched for chronological age, gender and laterality. After inspection of EEG artifacts, data from 9 participants with WS and 10 controls were included in ERP analyses. Participants were presented with neutral, positive and negative sentences, in two conditions: (1) with intelligible semantic and syntactic information; (2) with unintelligible semantic and syntactic information (‘pure prosody’ condition). They were asked to decide which emotion was underlying the auditory sentence. Atypical event-related potentials (ERP) components were related with prosodic processing (N100, P200, N300) in WS. In particular, reduced N100 was observed for prosody sentences with semantic content; more positive P200 for sentences with semantic content, in particular for happy and angry intonations; and reduced N300 for both types of sentence conditions. These findings suggest abnormalities in early auditory processing, indicating a bottomup contribution to the impairment in emotional prosody processing and comprehension. Also, at least for N100 and P200, they suggest the top-down contributions of semantic processes in the sensory processing of speech. This study showed, for the first time, that abnormalities in ERP measures of early auditory processing in WS are also present during the processing of emotional vocal information. This may represent a physiological signature of underlying impaired on-line language and socio-emotional processing.This work was supported by a Doctoral Grant (SFRH/BD/35882/2007) awarded to APP, as well as by the grant PIC/IC/83290/2007Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

The interplay of phonology and orthography in visual cognate word recognition: an ERP study

This study examined the role of phonological and orthographic overlap in the recognition of cognate words by recording electrophysiological and behavioral data. One hundred and ninety-two words were selected: 96 cognate words listed according to their phonological and orthographic overlap vs. 96 noncognate words. Twenty-four proficient European Portuguese-English bilinguals performed a silent reading task with a masked priming paradigm. The results showed that phonology interacts with semantic activation at N400 modulations. Phonological priming effects were dependent on the orthographic overlap of cognate words. Thus, the distinctive processing of cognate words seems to be due to their cross-linguistic similarity, which is consistent with a localist connectionist account on cognate representation and processing.The research reported in this paper wasfunded by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology), by NSRF (National Strategic Reference Framework), by COMPETE (Operational Agenda for Competitiveness Factors), a program created by the EU as part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), (PTDC/PSI-PCO/104671/2008) and by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (PSI2009–12616) and Plan E

Perception of german vowels by bilingual portuguese-german returnees: a case of phonological attrition?

This study investigates the perception of German vowels by a group of eight Portuguese adolescents and young adults who were raised bilingually in Germany and returned to Portugal in early childhood (between the ages of 5 and 10 years). All the participants reported that they never use German in Portugal and that they are unable to formulate accurate sentences in that language. Our aim was to test whether their perceptual ability to discriminate German sounds had undergone attrition or remained invulnerable to the lack of language use. Unlike German vowels, Portuguese vowels are not distinctive in duration and the Portuguese inventory does not contain the rounded vowels /y/ and /y:/ or the lax vowels /i/ and /~/. Thus, we tested the participants’ perceptual ability to discriminate vowels in terms of (i) duration, in the contrast /a-a:/; (ii) quality+duration, in the contrasts /i-i:/ and /~-u:/; and (iii) quality in the contrasts /i-y/, /~-Y/, /i:-y:/ and /u:-y:/ by means of a categorical discrimination test. The results reveal that the returnees were able to make vowel duration and quality perceptual distinctions in the attrited language. This indicates that their ability to discriminate German sounds seems to remain stable

ACCURATE PRONUNCIATION FOR EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION

An efficient executive secretary needs to devote special attention to communication skills, and intelligible pronunciation is essential for communicating effectively. While in the office or on the phone, this professional is constantly exposed to situations in which a word incorrectly used or pronounced may result in embarrassing situations or even damage an important business transaction. In this article, we will discuss about some frequently mispronounced English sounds by Brazilian English as a foreign language speakers that could be avoided if some attention be given to these pronunciation aspects. The sounds to be dealt with in this article are (1) the consonants in word-final position, (2) the /s/ clusters, (3) the final /l/, (4) the nasals, and (5) the unstressed h words.An efficient executive secretary needs to devote special attention to communication skills, and intelligible pronunciation is essential for communicating effectively. While in the office or on the phone, this professional is constantly exposed to situations in which a word incorrectly used or pronounced may result in embarrassing situations or even damage an important business transaction. In this article, we will discuss about some frequently mispronounced English sounds by Brazilian English as a foreign language speakers that could be avoided if some attention be given to these pronunciation aspects. The sounds to be dealt with in this article are (1) the consonants in word-final position, (2) the /s/ clusters, (3) the final /l/, (4) the nasals, and (5) the unstressed h words

DESCRIÇÃO ACÚSTICA DAS VOGAIS DE MONTEVIDÉU

Este trabalho apresenta uma descrição das características acústicas das vogais do espanhol americano, especificamente de uma variedade denominada Rioplatense, do Uruguai. Essa descrição acústica reportará valores de duração, frequência fundamental e dos dois primeiros formantes das vogais do Uruguai, fornecendo, assim, informações para pesquisas em fonética e fonologia do espanhol. Vários são os estudos que descrevem características acústicas de diferentes variedades dialetais do espanhol na Espanha: e.g., Godínez (1978), Álvarez González (1981), Quilis e Esgueva (1983), Martínez Celdrán (1995), Bradlow (1995), como também na América: e.g., Guirao (1975), Godínez (1978), Aronson, Furmanski, Rufiner e Estienne (2000), Guion (2003). Entretanto, não há registro na literatura de descrições acústicas de vogais de Montevidéu, Uruguai. A coleta de dados foi realizada em Montevidéu com um grupo de 16 universitários (8 homens e 8 mulheres), todos falantes nativos de espanhol do Uruguai e com pouco conhecimento de línguas estrangeiras. A segmentação e etiquetação das vogais foi feita manualmente e os valores de duração, da frequência fundamental e dos dois primeiros formantes foram medidos automaticamente, sempre utilizando o software Praat