Os erros de pronúncia encontrados na produção de agrupamentos consonantais (consonant clusters) por alunos brasileiros aprendizes de inglês

Abstract

This thesis aims at: (1) seeking to understand the motivations for the phonetic-phonological errors produced by Brazilian university students, English learners, mainly in what concerns the difficulty of those students in producing words which contain consonant clusters; and (2) contributing a pedagogical and linguistic analysis, trying to show the need for paradigm shifting in the teaching of English on the basis of recent historical, political, and social changes, caused by the spreading of the English language as a world phenomenon, so that there can be a revision of the parameters and consequent restructuring of the curricula presently adopted in English language teaching, mainly in Brazil. For the execution of this work, we made use of ethnographically-oriented research and carried out a comparative study of Portuguese and English. In general lines, we conclude that, as non-native speakers of English, Brazilians are likely to pronounce words which contain consonant clusters by splitting them, mainly through the use of an epenthetic [+ syllabic] element, in general the vowel [i], because of the existing phonetic-phonological differences between Portuguese and English.