The acquisition of English word stress by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the acquisition of English primary stress by Brazilian Portuguese speakers. The aim is to see if non-native speakers can change the notion of heavy syllable in Portuguese, which is equivalent to a branched rhyme, to that of English, which is equivalent to a branched nucleus. The results indicated that the proficiency level is significant, but the segment of the final syllable and the possibility of epenthesis affect the results even more. Our findings allow us to argue that despite the influence of the first language at the beginning of the learning process, reparametrization is possible.

Keywords:
word stress; syllable; phonological acquisition; second language