THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VOICE ONSET TIME PATTERN OF INITIAL VOICELESS STOPS OF ENGLISH BY BRAZILIAN LEARNERS FROM SALVADOR, BRAZIL: EFFECTS OF EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the effect of explicit pronunciation instruction on the development of the Voice Onset Time (VOT) pattern of initial voiceless English stops by learners from Salvador, Brazil. The study included three data collections, a pre-test, an immediate post-test and a postponed post-test, from 16 learners, divided into control and experimental groups, and with an explicit instruction session on the production of the English stops. Acoustic analyses of VOT are reported. The results revealed that the control group, which received no instruction, did not produce the expected VOT pattern for English at any time of the study. On the other hand, in the experimental group, which received explicit instruction, we could perceive a considerable increase in the duration of the L2 stops. Our data reveal positive effects of explicit pronunciation instruction for the development of English VOT and are in line with Sancier and Fowler (1997) and Kupske (2016), who state that BP speakers are able to achieve productions that are statistically close to what is expected for English, at least as far as VOT is concerned.

Keywords
VOT; Word-initial Plosives; Explicit Instruction