Examining L1 Brazilian Portuguese speakers' sensitivity to English nuclear stress assignment

Abstract

Abstract: The aim of this paper was to examine whether Brazilian Portuguese learners of English are aware of English nuclear stress assignment and whether this awareness is affected by the utterance type. To the date, little research has been carried out about the acquisition of English suprasegmentals by Brazilian Portuguese speakers. Previous studies indicate that the acquisition of target-like nuclear stress assignment is difficult for EFL learners (ZUBIZARRETA; NAVA, 2011). However, non-target-like nuclear stress assignment is likely to lead into communication breakdowns, making its mastering a priority for L2 learners. The participants were 69 L1 Brazilian Portuguese learners of English and 16 native English speakers. Sensitivity to L2 prosody was measured in a perception task which presented low-pass filtered utterances differing in nuclear stress assignment. The results showed that the L1 Brazilian Portuguese speakers possessed less awareness about English nuclear stress assignment than the native English speakers (F(1, 83) =55.95, p