The influence of sonority on the production of words ending in -ed by Brazilian EFL learners

Autores

  • Fernanda Delatorre UFSC

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2008n55p83

Resumo

 

This study investigated the influence of sonority on the production of vowel epenthesis in verbs ending in -ed by Brazilian learners of English. Participants were twenty-six upper-intermediate Brazilian EFL learners who read and audio-recorded ten paragraphs containing 91 verbs ending in ed. The results demonstrated that sonority influenced mispronunciations since the least sonorous obstruents preceding -ed induced more vowel epenthesis than the more sonorous sonorants, which in turn induced more epenthesis than vowels in the same position. The results also demonstrated that within the class of obstruents, affricates preceding -ed induced more epenthesis than stops, which induced more epenthesis than fricatives, and that, within the class of sonorants, nasals induced more epenthesis than liquids. These results suggest that markedness in terms of sonority affects the production of vowel epenthesis in words ending in -ed.

Biografia do Autor

Fernanda Delatorre, UFSC

Fernanda Delatorre holds an MA degree from the English Graduate Program from UFSC, Brazil, in the area of English language and literatures. Her main interests are English pronunciation teaching and learning, English Phonetics and Phonology as well as English teacher development in Brazil. Her research focuses on the production of regular verbs in the simple past tense and past participle ending in ed by Brazilian EFL learners. She has presented her research in national and international events, such as the seminars from the English teacher association from the state of Santa Catarina, the XVII and XVIII seminars on language and literature studies of the state of Paraná, the first Latin-American conference on language teacher development and the New Sounds 2007 - Fifth International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech.

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Publicado

2008-01-01

Edição

n. 55 (2008)

Seção

Artigos

Licença

A revista Ilha do Desterro publica artigos e resenhas inéditos, referentes as áreas de Inglês, Literaturas em Língua Inglesa e Estudos Culturais. Publica volumes mistos e/ou temáticos, com artigos e resenhas em inglês e português. 

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Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.