This paper examines the role of orthography in the production of English (stop+sibilant) sequences in plural forms produced by Brazilian Portuguese learners. Results showed that an epenthetic vowel is more prone to occur when the orthographic pattern is , as in grapes, than , as in cups. It was also observed an alternation between [Cis] and [Cs] which reflects an ongoing sound change in BP that is adopted in L2 English. Experimental results offered evidence that [Cs] sequences consist of a robust pattern in both languages and that phonetic detail plays an important role in shaping phonological representations.
This study examines the role of orthography in the production of plural formation in English by Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speakers. Two orthographic patterns were examined for English nouns whose plural is pronounced as a (stop + sibilant) sequence: [ps, ts, ks, bz, dz, gz]. One of the patterns presents two letters word-finally - cups, cats, marks - whereas the other one presents a silent between two consonants: grapes, plates, cakes. The question we posited is whether these different orthographic patterns would trigger different pronunciations for Brazilian L2 learners of English. An ongoing sound change involving [Cs] ~ [Cis] in regular plural forms in BP was also considered. An experiment was designed to test the production of regular plural forms in English and Brazilian Portuguese to examine (stop + sibilant) sequences. Results showed that English learners are more likely to pronounce a vowel when the orthographic pattern is rather than . These results are discussed in the light of proposals which suggest that phonological and orthographic representations are activated in L2 production (Bassetti 2017, Hamann and Colombo 2017, Rastle et al. 2011). The role played by an ongoing sound change from the L1 into L2 English is also addressed. It was shown that [Cs] sequences consist of a robust pattern in Brazilian Portuguese, which is adopted in L2 English. The [Cs] ~ [Cis] alternation observed in BP and adopted in L2 English offers evidence that subphonemic properties are part of phonological representations. The emergence of [z] is a challenge for BP speakers learning English, as this pattern does not occur in BP. Finally, some suggestions for the pronunciation teaching of regular plural nouns in English are presented.
