The influence of writing on the pronunciation of Portuguese spoken by Japanese

Abstract

This study aims to observe the production of complex syllable structures, with a consonant in complex onset or coda, by Japanese learners of Portuguese in the city of Sao Paulo. Among the problems found, there is the insertion of the vowel [ɯ] instead of [i] when the word presents graphically the consonants /d/, /t/, /b/ e /p/ in final syllable position, although it is possible for Japanese to pronounce these consonants with [i]. Furthermore, the consonant /l/ in final syllable position can be pronounced as the glide [w], which is possible in Japanese. However, they rhotacize the consonant and insert the vowel [ɯ] for the CVC syllable to be resyllabified into two CV syllables. The results show that some of the pronunciation problems cannot be explained by the word orthoepy but by the orthography.