Comprehensibility and Brazilians' Perceptions on Pronunciation Instruction

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating students’ perceptions about the study of pronunciation and the comprehensibility of their speech. Twenty-four English-speaking Brazilians at the advanced level or higher had audio recordings of their sentences judged by four English speakers from different nationalities representing the three circles in Kachru’s World Englishes Model (1985). Comprehensibility, accentedness, number of mispronunciations at the segmental level (such as palatalization, voicing, devoicing, epenthesis), native language of the judge, and perceptions about the study of pronunciation were tabulated and compared quantitatively and qualitatively. Results indicated positive correlations among better compreensibility, less accentedness and fewer mispronunciations at the segmental level; and, between comprehensibility and the desire for specific knowledge regarding pronunciation.

Key-words:
Intelligibility; Comprehensibility; Pronunciation Instruction; Brazilian Portuguese/English Interphonology