Percepção e produção das consoantes interdentais /θ/ e /ð/ do inglês (l2) por aprendizes uberlandenses

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate linguistic contexts that influence the perception and production of the interdental fricative consonants [-voice] and [+voice], respectively, /θ/ and /ð/, present in the English phonological framework. The perception and production of these consonants were observed from data from six Brazilian Portuguese speakers (L1), born and raised in Uberlândia (MG), elementary learners (A1, A2, according to the CEFR) of English as a second language. Data were obtained from two perception tests, conducted through the software TP (version 3.1), and one production test, in which each participant recorded the reading of 20 sentences containing /θ/ and /ð/. From the results obtained by the TP software and the acoustic sentence analysis in the software PRAAT (version 6.1.03), the perception results indicated /f/ as the main substitute for /θ/ in both onset and coda, and /d/ as a replacement for /ð/ in onset and /z/ in coda. The production results indicated that the segment /θ/ is often replaced by [f], 53.3% of occurrences, and by [t], 30% of occurrences. As for /ð/, it is mainly replaced by voiced coronal plosive [d], 65% of occurrence, and by the voiceless fricative [f], with 20% of occurrence. Data also prove that it is easier to produce /θ/ than it is to produce /ð/, due to the feature [-voice] since consonants [-voice] are less marked than consonants [+voice].