The variable development of English word-final stops by Brazilian Portuguese speakers: A stochastic optimality theoretic account

Abstract

AbstractOne of the core problems in second language acquisition theory is how to describe and explain the highly variable (yet rule-governed) speech of second language learners. Is such variation simply random and most likely due to the first language's interference, or is it governed (at least in part) by general rules that reflect language universals? Within a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of variability in second language acquisition, this article addresses these questions in the context of a cross-sectional study involving the acquisition of word-final stops by Brazilian Portuguese speakers learning English in a classroom environment. The study follows a sociolinguistic approach for data collection and the analysis is couched within a stochastic version of Optimality Theory.