A epêntese vocálica inicial em clusters sC por aprendentes brasileiros de inglês como LDE

Abstract

This study aims to describe the variable process of inserting the epenthetic vowel [ɪ] in words beginning with clusters at onset position in English by Brazilian, from Paraíba, learners of English so called foreign language. Based on research conducted regarding this phenomenon as: Escartín (2005) with Hispanic learners of English so called foreign language and similar phenomena Cardoso (2004, 2008, 2009). The objective of this research is, then, to identify the incidence frequency of the insertion of vowel epenthesis at onset position of words in English that begin with one of the following clusters /sp/, /st/, /sk/, /sl/, /sm/, and /sn/ by Brazilian learners of English so called foreign language. This work aims to answer the following guiding questions: what is the incidence frequency of the onset vowel epenthesis in sC cluster in English by Brazilian learners of English so called foreign language?; what is the role of the sonority of the second consonant of the cluster and the preceding phonological context on the occurrence of onset vowel epenthesis in sC cluster?; what is the role of the learner's proficiency, and level of output formality in the occurrence of onset vowel epenthesis in sC cluster? and what is the role of the English so called foreign language learner phonological awareness in the occurrence of onset vowel epenthesis in sC cluster? The hypothesis are that obstruent and liquid consonants can promote vowel epenthesis, whereas nasal ones do not favor it; that preceding consonantal and pause environments favor initial vowel epenthesis while preceding vowel epenthesis do not favor such occurrence; that the more proficient is the informant in the target language, the less use of initial vowel epenthesis in sC clusters; and the more formal is the data collection style less initial vowel epenthesis in sC clusters happens. The research corpus is composed of 18 informants from Paraiba, learners of English so called foreign language, distributed in basic, intermediate and advanced levels of proficiency. For speech data collection was recorded twenty-eight sentences and text in English read by the participants. The collected material was quantitatively analyzed by the computer program GOLDVARB X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte and Smith, 2005). The independent variables are learner s level of proficiency and phonological awareness in the so called foreign language, sonority of the second element of the cluster, preceding phonological context and instrument type of data collection. The statistical analysis shows, in decreasing order of significance, that the sonority of the cluster, the learner s level of proficiency, the learner s phonological awareness, and the preceding context of the cluster are the variables more relevant to the realization of onset vowel epenthesis in sC cluster. The achieved results contribute not only to understand how English so called foreign language learning occurs by Brazilian learners, but also promotes pedagogical implications for teaching English so called foreign language.