Intonational interference in English-L2 Brazilian speakers: production and perception

Abstract

We investigate the phenomenon of intonational contour interference, in both production and perception, in the Brazilian Portuguese/English (BP/EN) language pair. Brazilian learners and English natives were tested. We analysed polar questions as their final contour patterns differ – rise-fall in BP and rise in US English. A production task was conducted which revealed the typical BP yes/no question contours, approximately 33% when Brazilians uttered English questions. Regarding perception, a forced decision task was conducted in which EN native participants had to choose whether they heard a question or a statement. This task was to investigate (a) the perception of EN-L1 listeners to EN questions with BP intonational interference, and (b) the perception of BP-L1 listeners to (i) the same questions with interference, and (ii) the interrogatives produced by English-L1 speakers. Results show that EN-L1 listeners tend to perceive questions with the BP contour as statements. Conversely, Brazilians do not have significant problems recognizing their own question contour, or the US English characteristic rising contour as proper questions. In perceptual terms, BP-L1 listeners do recognize the English typical interrogative contour. When there is BP interference, they also display a high rate of question recognition, although with a delayed reaction time.