Comparison of American English vowel production and identification by native speakers of Luso-Portuguese

Abstract

Learning 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 identification of American English vowels by speakers of Luso-Portuguese and the identification of those speakers’ productions by native speakers of American English were explored. Four adult bilingual Luso-Portuguese/English speakers (two women and two men) participated in this study. The subjects performed two tasks. First, they identified ten English words (ten repetitions of each, presented in random order, of: heed, hid, head, had, hod, hawed, hood, who’d, hud, heard) produced by a native speaker of American English. Then recordings were made of the subjects as they produced four repetitions each, in random order, of these ten English words. These recordings were digitized using SoundDesigner II software with an audiomedia board on a Macintosh Quadra 800 computer. Listening tapes will be prepared, using SoundDesigner II software, for identification of the Luso-Portuguese speakers’ vowels by native American English speakers. The results of the identification of the Luso-Portuguese speakers’ vowels will be compared with the identification of American English vowels by the native Luso-Portuguese speakers. [Work supported by St. John’s University.]