Acoustic analysis of American English vowels by native speakers of Luso-Portuguese

Abstract

The ability of individuals to learn a new language requires mastering the phonetic as well as lexical and syntactical aspects of the new language. As part of a larger study of second-language learning, the acoustical characteristics of American English vowel production by native speakers of Luso-Portuguese were explored, and these characteristics were compared with the identification of these speakers’ English vowels by native speakers of American English. Four adult bilingual Luso-Portuguese/English speakers (two women and two men) participated in this study. Recordings were made of the subjects as they produced four repetitions each, in random order, of 10 English words (heed, hid, head, had, hod, hawed, hood, who’d, hud, heard). The recordings were digitized using SoundDesigner II software with an audiomedia board; formant frequency analyses will be carried out using Signalyze 2.0 software implemented on a Macintosh Quadra 800 computer. The acoustical analyses will be examined in light of the identification of the Luso-Portuguese speakers’ English vowels by native speakers of American English (reported in another paper at this meeting). [Work supported by St. John’s University.]