Portuguese Speakers Research Articles

Types e tokens na aquisição típica de linguagem por sujeitos de 18 a 32 meses falantes do português brasileiro

OBJETIVO: analisar comparativamente a mudança em types e tokens e na taxa de type/token em crianças, de ambos os sexos, entre 18 e 36 meses, falantes nativos do português brasileiro, quanto à classe gramatical e à medida total e segmentar. MÉTODO: foram gravadas e transcritas as falas de 60 crianças com desenvolvimento típico de linguagem em atividades lúdicas com as mães ou professora. A seguir, efetuaram-se os cálculos da taxa de type/token (TTR) e de types e tokens (ty/to), na forma total e segmentar, com sua distribuição em classes gramaticais. Os resultados foram analisados estatisticamente, por meio dos testes t-student e análise de variância (ANOVA). RESULTADOS: o número de types e tokens totais apresentou vantagens sobre o segmentar em termos de descrição de classes gramaticais e na diferenciação estatística das faixas etárias de 18, 24 e 32 meses. Evolutivamente substantivos surgem primeiro do que verbos, advérbios e adjetivos e demais classes gramaticais que se completam até 32 meses. CONCLUSÃO: não houve diferença estatística quanto ao gênero. A análise isolada dos types e tokens é mais efetiva do que a divisão dos mesmos (TTR), tendo validade estatística na diferenciação das faixas etárias de 18, 24 e 32 meses. O número de types e tokens segmentar é menos efetivo na descrição gramatical considerando faixa etária e gênero.

Irregular plurals in Brazilian Portuguese: An exemplar model approach

AbstractThis paper discusses a group of Brazilian Portuguese plurals that end with the nasal diphthong [–ão] in their singular form. When pluralized, these words can take three plural forms: [–ões], [–ãos], or [–ães]. Each of these words has an etymological source that defines which morpheme should be applied to the plural form. However, in some cases, a different plural form is used instead of the etymological one. A set of psycholinguistic experiments was carried out with Brazilian Portuguese speakers. The goal was to analyze whether token or type frequency affects the choice of plural form for these words. The results show an interaction between type and token frequency, in the sense that type frequency serves as the basis for analogy, and token frequency can determine which words will be affected by the variation.

Reading in English as a First or Second Language: The Case of Grade 3 Spanish, Portuguese, and English Speakers

This study compared variables related to reading ability in Grade 3 students learning English as a first language (L1) and second language (L2). The students learning English as an L2 came from diverse backgrounds, with different levels of bilingualism in Spanish and English or Portuguese and English before they entered school. Both within‐group and between‐group differences emerged in comparing Spanish children from two cohorts, and in comparing the Spanish group to the Portuguese and English groups. Models predicting reading comprehension found differences with respect to the contribution of receptive vocabulary, decoding, and print exposure in the L1 and L2 groups, depending on the L2 students’ bilingual language status and language acquisition experiences. Additionally, print exposure was more highly related to comprehension in the lowest performing L2 groups. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Influencia del sexo y el nivel educativo en la fluidez del habla en personas adultas

The aim of the study was to verify the influence of gender and educational status on fluent adults’ speech fluency. The sample comprised 136 fluent adult Brazilian Portuguese speakers of both genders, whose ages ranged between 18 and < 60, distributed in the following groups, according to the educational status: elementary school, high school and higher education. A 200-fluent-syllable sample, elicited by visual stimulus was collected from each subject. The speech samples were analyzed considering the variables proposed in the Speech Fluency Profile, namely, typology of disruptions (stuttering-like disfluencies and other disfluencies), speech rate (in words/syllables per minute) and frequency of disruptions (percentage of speech discontinuity). Considering the variables analyzed, a lack of statistically significant difference between genders was found. Concerning the influence of educational status, a statistically significant difference in occurrence of interjections, revisions and prolongations was observed. Participants with higher education produced less interjections and revisions than participants with elementary school, but more prolongations than those with high school. Gender and educational status may not be regarded as decisive factors in fluent adults’ speech fluency. It seems that the educational status determines the presence of difficulties in leading with semantic-lexical and syntactical structures, as well as the strategies used for overcoming these difficulties.

An experimental investigation of the expression of genericity in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

This study examines NPs in generic environments cross-linguistically. According to the semantic literature, NPs obtain generic readings from two sources: characterizing sentences ( Lions are dangerous) and kind-reference ( Dodo birds are extinct). English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese are known to differ in the types of NPs (definite vs. indefinite; singular vs. plural) that are allowed in the two types of environments, but there is disagreement in the literature concerning (i) the status of bare (article-less) NPs in generic environments in Brazilian Portuguese; and (ii) whether singular and/or plural generics are restricted to canonical kinds cross-linguistically. The broader goal of this paper is to use experimental methodology to resolve these disagreements; the more specific goal is to test the theoretical proposal of Dayal (2004), which makes testable predictions for the distribution of generic NPs cross-linguistically. The results of Acceptability Judgment Tasks with native speakers of English, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese provide support for Dayal's proposal that plural generics cross-linguistically denote kinds, while definite singular generics denote taxonomic entities. These findings highlight the value of experimentally testing the predictions of semantic theories, and pose questions for further research.

Where do illusory vowels come from?

Listeners of various languages tend to perceive an illusory vowel inside consonant clusters that are illegal in their native language. Here, we test whether this phenomenon arises after phoneme categorization or rather interacts with it. We assess the perception of illegal consonant clusters in native speakers of Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese, three languages that have similar phonological properties, but that differ with respect to both segmental categories and segmental transition probabilities. We manipulate the coarticulatory information present in the consonant clusters, and use a forced choice vowel labeling task (Experiment 1) and an ABX discrimination task (Experiment 2). We find that only Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese listeners show a perceptual epenthesis effect, and, furthermore, that within these participant groups the nature of the perceived epenthetic vowel varies according to the coarticulation cues. These results are consistent with models that integrate phonotactic probabilities within perceptual categorization, and are problematic for two-step models in which the repair of illegal sequences follows that of categorization.

Friends or foes? Communicating feelings through language in cross-cultural interactions

This study examines cross-cultural communication in English between Americans and Brazilians through the lens of intercultural pragmatics. Three groups of speakers participated: native speakers of American English, native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, and English learners who spoke Brazilian Portuguese as a first language. Using a mixed design including role plays and interviews and both quantitative and qualitative data, the study identified pragmatic transfer among the ESL learners, who also showed evidence of developing awareness of the sociolinguistic norms of the target language and its speakers.

Variants of intervocalic /d/ as markers of sociolinguistic identity among Spanish-Portuguese bilinguals

The border shared by Brazil and Uruguay represents a situation of sustained, intimate cultural and linguistic contact between Spanish and Portuguese speakers. Previous research on the bilingualism of this region has focused primarily on Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay ‘Portuguese Dialects of Uruguay’ (DPU) (Carvalho 1998, 2003a, 2003b; Elizaincín 1976, 1992a, 1992b; Elizaincín, Behares &amp;amp; Barrios 1987; Hensey 1971, 1972; Rona 1965). Surprisingly, however, the Spanish of Uruguay spoken along this border has never been extensively studied. The current research focuses on the role of sociolinguistic identity in the conditioning of language-specific variants of intervocalic /d/ in the Spanish of 63 bilinguals living in Rivera, Uruguay. Unlike in monolingual varieties of Spanish, in which intervocalic /d/ is realized as either a fricative or a phonetic zero, this phoneme is also variably realized as an occlusive in the bilingual Spanish of Rivera in accordance with Portuguese phonological norms. Perceptions of sociolinguistic identity within this speech community are based on four independent factor groups. These are: (1) frequency of language use, (2) language preference, (3) attitudes toward local Portuguese and (4) attitudes toward language mixing. Results from multivariate analysis reveal that Portuguese-dominant speakers tend to incorporate occlusive variants of intervocalic /d/ into their Spanish to a much greater extent than Spanish-dominant speakers. Conversely, the deletion of this consonant, which has garnered covert prestige within the community due to its association with non-border varieties of Spanish, is statistically favored among speakers who prefer this language. These results provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that the ease of access of phonological exemplars from stored memory is greater for those encoding frequent, recent experiences (Pierrehumbert 2001). With regards to sociolinguistic attitudes, statistical analysis shows that speakers who have positive attitudes toward local Portuguese favor the use of occlusive variants, which serve as markers of Brazilian identity. Somewhat counter intuitively, speakers who have positive attitudes toward language mixing favor deletion. When these attitudes are cross-tabulated with speakers’ occupation, however, it becomes clear that only students have overwhelmingly positive attitudes toward language mixing. Not surprisingly, they are also the least conservative group in the community and lead the way for phonological change (Waltermire 2008).

Aquisição dos encontros consonantais por crianças falantes do português não padrão da região metropolitana do Recife

OBJETIVO: investigar a aquisição dos encontros consonantais em crianças falantes do português não padrão da Região Metropolitana do Recife, considerando variáveis linguísticas e sociais. MÉTODOS: participaram do estudo 100 crianças de creches/escolas públicas, sendo 50 meninos e 50 meninas, na faixa etária de 2:0-6:11 anos, divididas em 10 grupos etários com intervalos de seis meses. Foi aplicado um questionário sócio-econômico e uma prova de avaliação fonológica. RESULTADOS: foram encontradas diferenças discretas no início de produção e domínio do onset complexo entre os sexos, havendo uma tendência a uma aquisição mais precoce pelas meninas. Quanto às idades de início de produção e domínio, observou-se o início de produção aos 2:0-2:5 anos e o domínio aos 4:0-4:5 anos, faixa etária mais precoce que a descrita na maioria da literatura pesquisada. Também se observou que os encontros constituídos por obstruinte + /r/ foram adquiridos antes dos constituídos por obstruinte + /l/. Quanto às variáveis linguísticas, verificou-se a influência da tonicidade, da estrutura silábica e dos contextos linguísticos precedente e consequente na aquisição fonológica. Quanto às variáveis sociais, não foram observadas correlações importantes entre escolaridade materna ou renda familiar com a aquisição fonológica. CONCLUSÃO: diferenças regionais são observadas na aquisição fonológica do português brasileiro e essas diferenças necessitam ser consideradas durante a avaliação fonológica, sobretudo se essa avaliação tiver fins de diagnóstico de desvios fonológicos, sob pena de se cometer diagnósticos incorretos e preconceituosos do ponto de vista sociolinguístico.

Entremeio español/ portugués – errar, deseo, devenir

Continuing the studies of the relations between Spanish and Portuguese in the South Cone, this work explores the idea that each of these languages would itself keep one another´s memory as a result of a separation process. Such definition makes us think of the images which imply a kind of joy projection towards each other´s language in Spanish and Portuguese speakers; this way, we focus on those images present in the Argentinian´s forethoughts in relation with the Portuguese language. After detecting certain enunciation moments in the discursive memory about Brazil and the Brazilian, we analyse a Perlongher´s poem in that the referred projection of joy takes place in the symbolic. This makes evident the (dis)continuity which characterizes the Spanish-Portuguese relation and , in the opposite direction, the specific reification such languages are submitted in the contemporary world.

Características da fonetografia em mulheres com equilíbrio dentofacial

OBJETIVO: Caracterizar o perfil da extensão vocal de mulheres com equilíbrio dentofacial, por meio da fonetografia. MÉTODOS: Fizeram parte desse estudo 22 estudantes do gênero feminino, com idades entre 18 e 29 anos (x = 20±2 anos), falantes do Português Brasileiro, sem alteração ou treino vocal, que apresentaram tipo de face padrão I e harmonia dento-oclusal. Foi aplicado um formulário específico de auto-resposta e também foi realizada avaliação antropométrica da face, avaliação dento-oclusal, exame da fonetografia e análise acústica da frequência fundamental habitual da voz das participantes, realizados no período pós-menstrual. RESULTADOS: Os valores encontrados para os diferentes parâmetros analisados foram: frequência fundamental mínima: x= 167,32±22,27 Hz ou x= 40,09±2,37 st, frequência fundamental máxima: x= 908,45±210,93 Hz ou x= 69,09±4,13 st, extensão vocal: x= 29,00±3,85 st, intensidade mínima: x= 69,32±4,07 dB, intensidade máxima: x= 113,14±6,10 dB, extensão dinâmica máxima: x= 3,91±5,71 dB, área do fonetograma: x=709,50±182,92 dB.st ou x=31,93±8,23 cm², frequência fundamental habitual da vogal "a": x= 211,00±22,55 Hz. CONCLUSÃO: No presente estudo foram obtidas as intensidades mínimas e máximas para as distintas frequências alcançadas pelas participantes, bem como a frequência fundamental habitual, estabelecendo os valores de referência quanto ao perfil da extensão vocal de mulheres brasileiras sem alterações vocais e com equilíbrio dentofacial.

Temporal acoustic correlates of the voicing contrast in European Portuguese stops

This study focuses on the temporal analysis of stops /p b t d k ɡ/ and devoicing analysis of voiced stops /b d ɡ/ produced in different word positions by six native speakers of European Portuguese. The study explores acoustic properties related to voicing. The following acoustic properties were measured: voice onset time (VOT), stop duration, closure duration, release duration, voicing into closure duration, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of the following vowel. Results suggested that when [b d ɡ] were devoiced, the acoustic properties stop duration, closure duration, duration of the following vowel, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of voicing into closure were relevant for the voicing distinction. Implications for research and practice in speech and language therapy are discussed. Further investigation is needed to find how the productions analysed in the present study were perceived by listeners, specifically productions of devoiced stops.

Ensino da Língua Inglesa: contribuições da fonética, fonologia e do processamento auditivo

interrelation of phonetics, phonology and auditory processing in English Language Teaching. to determine whether prior contact with English phonetics favors general learning of this language (L2), i.e. second language, in Portuguese speakers; to verify performance of these individuals in an auditory processing test prior to and after being taught L2. participants of the study were eight college students who had only studied English in high school. These participants were divided into two groups: control group - were only enrolled in English classes; experimental group - were enrolled in English phonetic classes prior to their enrollment in English classes. Participants were submitted to an auditory processing test and to an oral test in English (Oral Test) prior to and after the classes. Data were analyzed in the same way, i.e. prior to and after the classes. these were expressed statistically by T-Student's test. Analyses indicated no difference in performance between groups. Scores indicated better performance of the control group for answering questions in English in the Oral Test. The experimental group had better performance in the auditory processing test after being enrolled to English phonetic classes and English course. prior basic knowledge of English did not enhance general learning (improvement in pronunciation) of the second language, however, it improved the ability of temporal processing in the used test.

Academic formation and conceptions of accident and injury among non-English speaking students: a geometric data analysis hard look at terminologisation and injury notions

ObjectiveTo assess how the passage of Portuguese speakers through selected undergraduate university courses relates to conceptions of the words accident and injury.MethodsWeb-based survey of first and last-year students of medical,...

Analysis of error type and frequency in apraxia of speech among Portuguese speakers.

Most studies characterizing errors in the speech of patients with apraxia involve English language.ObjectivesTo analyze the types and frequency of errors produced by patients with apraxia of speech whose mother tongue was Brazilian Portuguese.Methods20 adults with apraxia of speech caused by stroke were assessed. The types of error committed by patients were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, and frequencies compared.ResultsWe observed the presence of substitution, omission, trial-and-error, repetition, self-correction, anticipation, addition, reiteration and metathesis, in descending order of frequency, respectively. Omission type errors were one of the most commonly occurring whereas addition errors were infrequent. These findings differed to those reported in English speaking patients, probably owing to differences in the methodologies used for classifying error types; the inclusion of speakers with apraxia secondary to aphasia; and the difference in the structure of Portuguese language to English in terms of syllable onset complexity and effect on motor control.ConclusionsThe frequency of omission and addition errors observed differed to the frequency reported for speakers of English.

Development of an adapted version of the Boston Naming Test for Portuguese speakers

To present the development of an adapted version of the Boston Naming Test for Portuguese speakers, and to investigate the effects of age, education and gender on both the original and the adapted Boston Naming Test in respect of Brazilian Portuguese speakers. Eighty items, including the 60 original ones and 20 adapted items were administered to 739 healthy Brazilian subjects aged between 6 and 77 years who received 0 to 17 years of education. The coefficients of the General Linear Model estimation suggested that both age and education were statistically significant to predict total scores. In addition, score variances, justified by such predictors, were 41.20% in the original Boston Naming Test against 25.84% in the adapted Boston Naming Test. These results suggest that the scores from the original BNT are more dependent on age and education than those from the adapted Boston Naming Test. These findings demonstrated the suitability of the adapted Boston Naming Test version for the Brazilian population and described provisional norms for the original and adapted Boston Naming Test for Portuguese speakers.

Effect of age on tongue strength and endurance scores of healthy Portuguese speakers

In order to diagnose abnormality in tongue strength and endurance and to obtain more precise rehabilitation planning, the aims of this study were to examine typical tongue strength and endurance of 75 healthy Portuguese speakers. The tongue strength and endurance scores were obtained using the Iowa Oral Performance Instrument (IOPI Model 2.0). The participants ranged in age from 20 to 77 years of age. To assess whether there were differences across age and gender, the participants were divided into three age categories (20–40; 41–60; 61–80) and both genders to establish a total of 6 groups. The results revealed that there were no significant differences across age and gender and that the healthy speakers of Portuguese were able to maintain 50% maximum pressure for a shorter period of time than those documented in English speakers. The data collected will provide an important database for speech-language pathologists with the purpose of diagnosis of tongue dysfunction.

Recognizing emotions in spoken language: A validated set of Portuguese sentences and pseudosentences for research on emotional prosody

A set of semantically neutral sentences and derived pseudosentences was produced by two native European Portuguese speakers varying emotional prosody in order to portray anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and neutrality. Accuracy rates and reaction times in a forced-choice identification of these emotions as well as intensity judgments were collected from 80 participants, and a database was constructed with the utterances reaching satisfactory accuracy (190 sentences and 178 pseudosentences). High accuracy (mean correct of 75% for sentences and 71% for pseudosentences), rapid recognition, and high-intensity judgments were obtained for all the portrayed emotional qualities. Sentences and pseudosentences elicited similar accuracy and intensity rates, but participants responded to pseudosentences faster than they did to sentences. This database is a useful tool for research on emotional prosody, including cross-language studies and studies involving Portuguese-speaking participants, and it may be useful for clinical purposes in the assessment of brain-damaged patients. The database is available for download from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Habilidades linguística e metalingüística diferenciadas no aprendizado em currículo bilíngue

The present paper adds to the bilingualism research by presenting data from an investigation involving Brazilian children who have learned English at a bilingual school, from the age of six onwards. The main goal was to investigate whether the linguistic and metalinguistic benefits normally attested for bilinguals with advanced proficiency would also be identified in a group of children that is only exposed to a second language in a formal context, for a total of 10 hours a week. In order to do that, we compared the production of passive sentences in Portuguese between the bilingual children and a group of monolingual speakers of Portuguese using a production task, in which children were required to create sentences by looking at pictures. Results indicate that the bilingual children produced a larger number of passive structures than the monolingual children, thus revealing differentiated metalinguistic skills as well as more cognitive control of linguistic processes. These data also corroborate the view that metalinguistic awareness and selective attention, which are skills normally more developed in individuals from bilingual families/ communities also apply to the children that use two linguistic codes to build knowledge, that is, children studying in bilingual curricula.

O debate Chomsky-Piaget revisitado: um estudo a favor da estrutura relativa como uma estratégia cognitiva na SLA

This work deals with the concept of relativization. My focus is on the acquisition of restrictive relative clause structure by Brazilian Portuguese speakers learning English as a foreign language. This kind of structure was chosen because it is considered one of the main structural devices used in the languages of the world for encoding recursion; it can vary considerably in terms of its distribution and syntactic form. The present work aims to spot some strategies used by learners to solve specific tasks, here called challenges. These challenges invite the use of structures that alternate subject-subject (SS), subject-object (SO), subject-object (OS), object-object (OO) combinations. It is characterized by a syntactic diversity that happens according to the position of the characters (small ball-shaped faces like the ones in some video games) in the challenges. As alternative for the relativization, participants in the activity used strategies such as use of passive voice in one sentence, use of time adverb (time expressions), use of coordinate clause, independent sentences. The participants were 3rd grade high school students aged between 15 and 17 years old. Aspects like age and experience abroad were taken into account. First of all, it was applied a pre-test with English teachers, holders of college degrees, and students from a so-called post advanced level of an English language school in order to validate the instrument (the challenges). Among the strategies, the additive structure (conjunction ‘and’) was the most recurrent, followed closely by relativization. The results showed that these learners make use of their cognitive background in order to develop alternative ways to fulfill the tasks assigned in each challenge. The theoretical part was principally based in AXT 1994.