Acquisition of stressed oral vowels by Chinese learners with intermediate-high proficiency in european portuguese as a second language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/diacritica.4805Keywords:
Second language acquisition, Stressed vowels, Portuguese as a second language, Mandarin Chinese, Pronunciation teachingAbstract
Acquiring European Portuguese (EP) implies some phonetic and phonological challenges for native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (MC), one of them being the acquisition of contrasts /e/-/ɛ/, /o/-/ɔ/. In order to contribute for the understanding on how Chinese learners deal with the aforementioned EP vowels, this pilot study investigates the production of target words containing the vowels /e/, /ɛ/, /o/ and /ɔ/ in different experimental conditions (naming task, description task, repetition task and reading task) by three Chinese participants who study EP as second language (L2) with intermediate-high proficiency level. The results show the problematic acquisition of the vowel contrasts /e/-/ɛ/ and /o/-/ɔ/, especially of mid vowels ([e], [o]), Vowel Height being the most problematic property. We also found higher rates of target-like productions of labial vowels [o, ɔ] than of coronal ones [e, ɛ]. Better performances were attested in the repetition task, reading task and naming task, when compared to the description task. Transfer from the first language (MC), universal principles and the phonological properties of the target language (EP) are explored as conditions affecting the performance of the subjects. Based on the subjects’ performance and the on the conditions constraining their acquisition path, we defend the importance of a specific explicit instruction on the pronunciation of vowels /e/, /ɛ/, /o/ and /ɔ/ in the EP L2 advanced classroom environments, the use of acoustic analysis as a tool for learning pronunciation and the performance of tasks of both controlled and spontaneous speech.
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