Second language perception of english vowels by portuguese learners: the effect of stimulus type

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of stimulus type on L2 English vowel perception and it also examined the relation between subject factors and L2 learners’ performance. Twenty-nine adult Portuguese learners of English were tested on six English vowels (/iːɪ ɛæ ɜː ʌ/) with two tasks, differing in stimulus type: real and pseudo words. The language background data was collected with a questionnaire. Results confirmed the Portuguese learners’ difficulties in accurately categorizing the target vowels, particularly when identifying the L2 vowel sounds embedded in pseudo words, which suggests that L2 phonological categories may be established after lexical forms. Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between L2 language use and accurate perception of four of the target vowels, which indicates that the more frequently learners use the target language, the more accurate is their L2 English vowel perception.