A aspiração das oclusivas surdas do inglês - L2 por aprendizes soteropolitanos: efeitos da instrução explícita

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the aspiration of the English-L2 voiceless stops /p, t, k/ by learners from Salvador, Brazil, in the light of Experimental Phonetics, the construct of intelligibility, pronunciation teaching, and English as lingua franca. In order to do so, 16 participants, native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, volunteers from Salvador, undergraduate students of the Modern Foreign Languages (English) at the Federal University of Bahia were recruited. Participants were divided into two groups (experimental and control groups), and only the experimental group received explicit instruction on the production of voiceless English stops between the pre and post-test data collections, periods before and after the pronunciation teaching, respectively. For data collection, participants were recorded individually, in a silent room, in a production task in which they had to read the following sentence: “I would say (target word)”. 24 English target words initiated by the stops were used. Data from all participants, both groups, were collected in the pre and post -test phases. The collected data were acoustically analyzed by the software Praat, responsible for measuring the VOT duration values for the collected items. The study revealed that, in the pretest phase, both groups did not aspirated the English stops, using the expected VOT values for Brazilian Portuguese. The groups showed no statistical differences between themselves. After the explicit instruction on aspiration in English-L2, the experimental group began to aspirate, even with values well above those presented in the literature for an English speaker, also presenting statistical differences when compared to pretest production and to the controls. Thus, it is noticed that, although students still cannot control the fine gesture of aspiration, the long VOT is present in the appropriate phonetic -phonological contexts. As the development of speech sounds is gradual, the values are expected to be adequate through future experiences with the target language. By developing aspiration, as a consequence, they increase the intelligibility arising from phonetic -phonological features in the use of English-L2. Keywords: VOT; Stops; Explicit instruction; Intelligibility.