A study of the production of

aspiration by Brazilian learners of

English
Tufi Neder Neto
Ufla
 What it is
• Aspiration is a quick projection of air released after
voiceless stops /p/, /k/ and /t/ when they are found
in stressed syllables and before vowel sounds (Alves &
Magro, 2011).
• The minimum limits of the duration of aspiration are,
in miliseconds: /p/ - 58, /t/ - 70, /k/ - 80 (Lisker &
Abramson, 1964).
 Why it is important
• It contributes decisively to intelligibility,
which is the ability to understand and
make oneself understood, according to
Jenkins (2000).
 How we studied it
• Recordings of 11 students of Letters, at the intermediate
and advanced levels of English.
• Semi-structured interviews, with total freedom to explore
a variety of themes, producing authentic language.
• Approximately 15 minutes per interview – total of 165
minutes of conversation analysed.
 The software
• PRAAT
 Results
Phoneme Correct Absent Inconsistent Correct Incorrect Inconsistent
mandatory mandatory mandatory non - production non –
aspiration aspiration aspiration aspiration of aspiration mandatory
aspiration

/p/ 19,7% 72,4% 7,9% 90,4% 4% 5,6%

/t/ 34,7% 58,7% 6,6% 76,3% 19,1% 4,6%
/k/ 17,5% 69,8% 12,7% 82,4% 12,7% 4,9%
 Results analysis
• Like other phenomena pertaining to students’ interlanguage, aspiration can
be produced in an inconsistent way. The aspiration of the phoneme /k/
exhibited a smaller percentage of correct items than that of the phoneme
/p/, but a bigger percentage of inconsistencies.
• The phoneme /t/ was aspirated in contexts where it should not in 19% of
the cases, perhaps because of intralinguistic influences.
• The informants who lived abroad and/or were at more advanced levels of
command of the language exhibit higher percentages of use of aspiration.
 Results analysis
• Syllable length and speed of speech were found to exert an influence over
the duration of aspiration: the longer they were, the longer the aspirations.
• Similar to what Eskildsem (2008) suggests, lexical items which students
usually learn in the basic level of study tend to exhibit higher levels of
absence of aspiration due to fossilization.
• At the suprassegmental level of speech, the words can and could were
pronounced with aspiration in affirmative sentences, but they are weak forms
and, so, should not be aspirated.
 Conclusion
• Despite the limited size of the sample, our results indicate that
there are aspects regarding Brazilian learners’ production of
aspiration which had not been detected in similar studies and can
provide teachers and textbook authors with new data about this
phenomenon.
• More studies are needed with bigger samples and students from
basic levels of command of the language in order to give a more
accurate picture of it.
 References
• ALVES, U. K., MAGRO, V. Raising awareness of L2 phonology: explicit instruction
and the acquisition of aspirated /p/ by Brazilian portuguese speakers. Letras de
Hoje, v. 46, n. 3, p. 71-80, jul./set, 2011.
• ESKILDSEN, S. W. Constructing another Language - Usage-Based Linguistics in
Second Language Acquisition. Applied Linguistics, v.30, n.3, p. 335-337, 2008.
• JENKINS, J. The phonology of english as an international language. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
• LISKER, L. & ABRAMSON, A. (1964) Cross-language study of voicing in initial
stops: acoustical measurements. Word, 20, p. 384-422.