Paragoge and degree of foreign accent in Brazilian English

Abstract

This study examined global foreign accent in the English of 53 native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and a specific measure of segmental articulation: errors due to transfer and developmental factors. The findings were: 1) the frequency of total errors was positively correlated with degree of foreign accent, 2) the frequency of developmental errors was greater than transfer errors, 3) as degree of foreign accent decreased, the frequency of transfer errors decreased more rapidly than developmental errors, 4) the frequency of total errors and the ratio of the two types of errors varied with the speaking task. The results of this study pertain to the question of whether transfer processes or developmental processes disappear more rapidly during the course of L2 acquisition.