Acoustic and Perceptual Characteristics of Reduced Vowels Produced by Speakers of English as a Foreign Language

This article analyzes the process of vowel reduction in function words by Brazilian speakers of English as a Foreign Language. It compares information obtained by perceptual verification with those obtained by acoustic verification. The sample is composed by sixteen female speakers of English as a FL and one native speaker of English. Data collection was accomplished through an instrument composed by sixty affirmative sentences containing the function words at, for, from, of and to. The data were analyzed both perceptually and acoustically. It was found that speech rate, measured by the duration of each sentence, vowel duration and speech register were relevant linguistic factors for the perception and production of reduced vowels.