Abstract
This study investigated the intelligibility of regular verbs in the past produced by eight speakers of English whose first language (L1) were English, German, Spanish, or Brazilian Portuguese. Fourteen Brazilian learners of English participated as listeners and orthographically transcribed sentences produced by the speakers in two intelligibility tests. Acoustic analysis of the productions revealed that some verbs were produced in a non-target like form, but all productions were kept in the intelligibility tests in order to reflect the variability of input received by Brazilian learners of English. The orthographic transcriptions were analyzed and classified as intelligible (when transcriptions matched the form produced by the speaker), other verb forms (when transcriptions matched the verb produced, but in a different tense or form), and breakdowns in communication (when transcriptions mismatched the target verb or when the verb or the entire sentence was not transcribed). Results reveal that the number of intelligible verbs increased from the first to the second intelligibility test. The number of other verb forms decreased, and the number of breakdowns remained quite similar across the two tests. Results also indicate that speakers’ L1, listeners’ lack of familiarity with speakers’ accent and English pronunciation, as well as test conditions possibly influenced the intelligibility of verbs ending in - ed by Brazilian listeners.
Highlights
Many studies have focused on phonological prediction error and analysis of first language (L1) interference, comparison between native and non-native speakers’ production, second language (L2) speech perception and production, and learner variables, which could account for individual differences in the learning process
The -ed pronunciation is neatly presented in textbooks that tend to describe the language based on the standard varieties of English, our experience with English as a tool for communication among speakers from different L1 backgrounds (CRYSTAL, 2003) makes us question whether these three types of pronunciation cover all possible productions of the -ed morpheme input that language learners are exposed to
This study intended to investigate the production of English regular verbs in the past and their intelligibility to Brazilian learners of English as listeners
Summary
Many studies have focused on phonological prediction error and analysis of first language (L1) interference, comparison between native and non-native speakers’ production, second language (L2) speech perception and production, and learner variables (e.g., age of learning, length of residence), which could account for individual differences in the learning process. Considering the growing interest on intelligibility studies and the fact that the production of regular verbs ending in -ed by Brazilians tends to deviate from the target-like patterns (DELATORRE; SILVEIRA; GONÇALVES, 2017), the present study investigates the intelligibility of verbs ending in -ed when these verbs are produced by speakers from different L1 backgrounds, including native and non-native speakers of English. In addition to this introductory section, the present article brings a brief review of literature addressing intelligibility and L2 pronunciation assessment.
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