The interrelation between the perception and production of English vowels by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

This study investigated the relationship between the perception and production of English vowels by highly proficient Brazilian EFL speakers. Two experiments were carried out: A production test to measure the first two formants of the learners’ English and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) vowels, and an oddity discrimination test to investigate the L2 (second language) categorial perception of English vowels. The production results reveal that the learners’ F1 and F2 values for English resembled the F1 and F2 values for BP. The results of the L2 perception test indicate that the learners discriminated different English vowels with different degrees of accuracy. Importantly, some relationship between perception and production was found because the two English (i.e., the learners’ L2) vowel sounds that were poorly discriminated were produced with F1 and F2 values similar to those of a single vowel in the learners’ L1 (first language).