Frequency Effects on the Intelligibility of English Words With High Front Vowels

Gonçalves, Alison Roberto; Silveira, Rosane

doi:10.22456/2238-8915.52584

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…This is because, by producing the alveolar stops as affricates, the speakers ended up pronouncing other words with a different meaning in English. As reported in previous studies (DERWING; MUNRO, 1997;KENNEDY;TROFIMOVICH, 2008;GONÇALVES;SILVEIRA, 2015), when presented with more semantic information, the listeners improved their performance, but some continued to transcribe the words with the affricate codas. This runs in line with Jenkins' (2002) claim that even when relevant semantic information is present, listeners are likely to be so tuned to the speech signal that miscommunication is likely to happen quite often due to mispronunciation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Some of these studies rely on questionnaires or interviews to gain insights about the informants' background and attempt to examine how intelligibility is affected by or related to informants' traits. Among these traits, studies have focused on proficiency level (e.g., BENT;BRADLOW, 2003;GONÇALVES, 2014;SCHADECH, 2013), familiarity with the speakers' L1 or L2 accent (CRUZ, 2008;MUNRO, 1997;GASS;VARONIS, 1984;SCHADECH, 2013), speech rate (DERWING; MUNRO, 2001), word familiarity or lexical frequency (BENT;BRADLOW, 2003;BECKER, 2013;BRADLOW;PISONI, 1999;GONÇALVES;SILVEIRA, 2015), topic familiarity (GASS; VAONIS, 1984), and listeners' L1 (BENT;BRADLOW, 2003;CRUZ, 2006a/b;SCHADECH, 2013;GONÇALVES, 2014). Some important findings in these studies, which are relevant for the present study, are summarized below.…”

Section: Intelligibility Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At least one study investigating the intelligibility of Brazilian English has addressed the role played by the context. Gonçalves and Silveira (2015) operationalized the context as all the elements that make up a carrier sentence containing a target word that had to be transcribed by the listeners. A group of 32 listeners from different L1 backgrounds listened to nine sentences produced by nine Brazilian learners of English.…”

Section: Intelligibility Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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L2 Speech Intelligibility: Effects of Coda Modification, Degree of Semantic Information and Listeners’ Background

Silveira

Silva

2018

Rev. bras. linguist. apl.

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The present study aims to investigate how the intelligibility of non-target word-final codas is affected by the type of coda modification, the degree of semantic information, and the listeners’ first language (L1). Furthermore, a correlational approach is adopted to examine possible relations between intelligibility and the listeners’ second language (L2) proficiency level, familiarity with speakers’ L1, and length of residence in the speakers’ country. For this purpose, an Intelligibility Test was designed containing utterances with word-final codas that were produced with phonetic characteristics typically found in the English spoken by Brazilians (e.g., palatalization and vowel insertion). This test and a background questionnaire were completed by 38 listeners from different nationalities. The results indicate that certain types of coda modification hinder intelligibility, and that semantic information improves intelligibility in some cases. Furthermore, listeners whose L1 is not typologically similar to Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and who reported being highly familiar with the English spoken by Brazilians tend to perform better on the Intelligibility Test. Overall, this study highlights the importance of bringing to the classroom different varieties of the target language, as a way to boost L2 users’ familiarity with different accents. Contact with different accents should benefit listeners, who are more likely to understand pronunciation patterns that are frequent in the language spoken by a particular group of L2 users. Moreover, accent familiarity is also expected to benefit speakers by bringing awareness about the pronunciation patterns that hinder intelligibility more often and that could be modified to improve communication.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Intelligibility Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Intelligibility Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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L2 Speech Intelligibility: Effects of Coda Modification, Degree of Semantic Information and Listeners’ Background

Silveira

Silva

2018

Rev. bras. linguist. apl.

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“…Ronaldo Mangueira LIMA JR. | Ubiratã Kickhöfel ALVES |• the listener. In a recent study, Becker and Kluge (2015) and Gonçalves and Silveira (2015) showed that word frequency is also a factor that plays a role in intelligibility. Dutra (2014) considers intelligibility to be a dynamic construct with an emergent property.…”

Section: L2 Pronunciation Research In Brazil: a Dynamic Accountmentioning

confidence: 99%

A dynamic perspective on L2 pronunciation development: bridging research and communicative teaching practice

Lima

Alves

2019

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The main goal of this paper is to raise language teachers' awareness of the need to incorporate research-based pronunciation teaching into their communicative language classes in an ongoing and integrated manner. To do so, we begin by characterizing language and its learning process as dynamic systems, which develop over time through the constant interaction of their agents. Then we review current studies on L2 sound production and perception as well as on the explicit teaching of L2 pronunciation under a dynamic perspective in the Brazilian scenario. Finally, we suggest a few general directions and guiding principles for pronunciation teaching, showing that it is possible to include pronunciation instruction in communicative language teaching.

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“…No que tange ao aspecto comparativo das vogais anteriores existentes entre o inglês e o português, o repertório vocálico é diferente em quantidade de vogais e, essas vogais, também apresentam qualidade acústicas distintas (Silva, 2003;Katz, 2013). Nas últimas décadas, alguns estudos, como o de Baptista (2000), Rauber (2006), Gonçalves (2014), Dias Jr. (2018, Lima (2022) dentre outros, têm abordado a produção de vogais anteriores do inglês como língua estrangeira (L2) e as dificuldades dos falantes da L2-alvo em produzir (e perceber) esses sons vocálicos. Os estudos acima citados, que utilizaram em seus experimentos as vogais do inglês americano produzidas por falantes brasileiros de inglês como L2, observaram que os participantes tendiam a não fazer distinção entre determinados pares, como em /ɛ/-/ae/, por exemplo.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Vogais Anteriores do Inglês como Língua Estrangeira Produzidas por Falantes Brasileiros Proficientes

De Castro Lima,

José da Silva Jr.

2023

Signum: Estud. Ling.

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O objetivo da presente pesquisa foi realizar uma investigação da produção das vogais anteriores do inglês como língua estrangeira por falantes do português brasileiro proficientes. A Metodologia consistiu em analisar a produção dessas vogais a partir de dois grupos: falantes nativos e estrangeiros (brasileiros proficientes) de inglês. Em seguida, foi realizada uma análise acústica a partir dos parâmetros acústicos dos três primeiros formantes vocálicos, além da duração vocálica. Um total de onze parâmetros acústicos foi computado. Para os procedimentos estatísticos, realizou-se uma Análise de Variância (ANOVA) de dois fatores. Os resultados apontaram que os grupos apresentaram diferenças significativas quanto às médias referentes ao terceiro formante, inclinação do primeiro formante e à duração das vogais. Concluiu-se, ainda que de modo preliminar, que, mesmo para falantes proficientes na língua estrangeira, o esforço cognitivo imputado ao produzir as vogais da língua-alvo é afetado pela língua materna do falante no que tange à protrusão labial, mantimento da excursão mandibular e duração intrínseca de elementos vocálicos. Ademais, é possível inferir que os parâmetros estudados podem trazer contribuições para a área de ensino de pronúncia de língua estrangeira.

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Frequency Effects on the Intelligibility of English Words With High Front Vowels

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

L2 Speech Intelligibility: Effects of Coda Modification, Degree of Semantic Information and Listeners’ Background

L2 Speech Intelligibility: Effects of Coda Modification, Degree of Semantic Information and Listeners’ Background

A dynamic perspective on L2 pronunciation development: bridging research and communicative teaching practice

Vogais Anteriores do Inglês como Língua Estrangeira Produzidas por Falantes Brasileiros Proficientes

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