Aquisição das vogais altas anteriores do inglês como L2: o papel da instrução explícita mediada pelo ultrassom

Abstract

This study examines the application of ultrasound in activities of explicit instruction in the process of acquisition of English high front vowels /i/ and /ɪ/, by Brazilian learners. Specific aims of this study are to i) describe the acoustic characteristics of high front vowels produced by the learners before, during and after the process of explicit instruction; ii) investigate whether the contrast between the vowels [i] and [ɪ] is produced distinctively by learners in different stages of acquisition - initial and final; iii) compare whether there were acoustic differences in the pre- and post-explicit instruction productions, and iv) investigate the nature of the appendicular vowels produced by the learners. For such aims, six informants were selected, distributed in: (i) experimental group formed by four university students of the Language course - Portuguese and English, among which three were studying the initial period, and one was studying the final period of the course; (ii) a monolingual Brazilian Portuguese speaker and (iii) a native American English speaker. Each informant in the experimental group participated in three explicit instruction sessions, which took place weekly. The data were collected in three moments: (i) Pre-Test; (ii) Post-Test I and (iii) Post-Test II. The analysis of the formant data - F1 and F2 - was done using the Software Praat, version 6.1.03 (BOERSMA and WEENINK, 2019).. The data revealed that (i) the Ultrasound-Based Instruction contributes to the acquisition process of English high front vowels and (ii) it was also observed that learners use strategies for the production of high front vowels, which appear for the tense vowels as an element that resembles a glide, and, for the lax vowels as a vocalic element of another nature.