ARCTELL project -

1. Portuguese
P1.A3: Contrastive Analysis between
Linguistic and Cultural Features
Catherine Bosco
Naugatuck Public Schools
http://languagetsar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Map-Lisbon-Brasilia.jpgublic Schools

2. Background
Portuguese is:
● The official language in Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde,
Guinea-Bissau, São Tome and Principe
● The co-official language in East Timor, Equitorial Guinea and Macau
● Derives from Vulgar Latin with roots in Castillian Spanish and Gaelic
● Called Galician-Portuguese or “Old Portuguese”
● Spoken by almost 220 million people

3. The Portuguese Language and What Makes it Intriguing
A History in the Language and How it Developed
https://youtu.be/Nur6WwpmyBo

4. More Background...
Linguistic affiliation: Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Western Romance,
Ibero-Romance, West Iberian, Galician-Portuguese
Portuguese is a descendent of Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Roman
soldiers, settlers and merchants from 218 BC. The earliest records of a distinctly
Portuguese language appear in administrative documents dating from the 9th century AD.
In 1290 King Denis decreed that Portuguese, then simply called the "Vulgar language"
should be known as the Portuguese language and should be officially used.

5. Writing
First written: 9th century
Writing system: Latin script
A reformed Portuguese orthography (nova ortografia), in which words were
spelled more in accordance with their pronunciation, was adopted is Portugal in
1916. A slightly modified form was adopted in Brazil in 1943 and revised in
1970. A new orthography which aims to unify the written Portuguese of all the
lusophone countries was adopted in Brazil in 2009. Dates have yet to be set for its
adoption in the other Portuguese-speaking countries.

6. Portuguese Alphabet

7. Portuguese (Portugal) Sounds
Portugal - click here to hear the sounds of the alphabet

8. Portuguese (Brazil) Sounds
Brazil - click here to hear the alphabet

9. A comparison of sounds between the two...
Portuguese - click to listen
Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e em direitos. Dotados de razão e de consciência, devem agir uns para com
os outros em espírito de fraternidade.
Brazilian Portuguese - click to listen
Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e direitos. São dotados de razão e consciência e devem agir em relação uns
aos outros com espírito de fraternidade.
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should
act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

10. Analysis and comparison of
linguistic features and
anticipated difficulties
Both Portuguese and English have common roots
(Indo-European). Other languages, like Japanese,
have a different structure when comparing with
romance or other European languages.
The similarities mainly are evident in vocabulary
when written. The phrasal structure and
pronunciation have many contrasts.
comunicacao/communication
natural/natural
velocidade/velocity
Language Family
Portuguese English
Indo-European Indo-European
Italic Germanic
Romance Western Germanic
Western Romance Ingvaeonic
Ibero-Romance Anglo-Frisian
Western Iberian Anglic
Galician-Portuguese English
Portuguese

11. Pronunciation and Spelling
The phonetic interpretation is very different in comparison. Portuguese is clear and
constant, while English is more irregular.
boot/book/blood/brooch/door
make/cat/car/ball/global
check/machine/chaos
bota/livro/broche/porta
fazer/gato/carro/global
chegar/chorar/cachorro/boliche
“The tables of common English spellings found in many unabridged dictionaries show that
as many as 340 to 360 spellings are listed for the 44 phonemes these dictionaries typically
use.” (D’Eugenio, Antonio. Major Problems of English Phonology.)

12. Phonemes
Portuguese has 7 vowel phonemes. English has at least 12 vowel phonemes. This makes
English a complicated language due to hearing accuracy, as well as production of the
speaker.
English Portuguese

13. Vowels and Consonants
● December is the twelfth month of the
year
● This machine has strong springs
● triumph/glimpse/northern/sightseeing
● Eu sou europeu
● Quais são suas músicas preferidas
● Saguão/espião/enxaguei/assembléia
English has rich consonants and the Portuguese has a large number of vowels and vowel
combinations (dipthongs and trithongs). This requires different muscular effort and movement. This
may make it complicated to produce certain sounds when learning to speak the other language.

14. Phonetic Information
Phonetic information can be measured by the average number of syllables in a word. The
syllable is a sound unit. Phonetic information is much higher in the Portuguese language.
air/ar ball/bo-la com-pu-ter/com-pu-ta-dor
I/eu car/car-ro air-plane/a-vi-ão
one/um sleep/dor-mir de-part-ment/de-par-ta-men-to
good/bom tree/ár-vo-re mo-dern/mo-der-no
sky/céu wall/pa-re-de tem-pera-ture/tem-pe-ra-tu-ra
Difficulties in second language speech recognition are strongly influenced by the quantity of
phonetic information of the target language as compared to the learner’s mother tongue. It
may be hard for a Portuguese speaker to understand and speak English.

15. Conclusions
● It is essential for the full learning of English to have contact with the language
in its spoken form;
● The unstable correlation between the written and spoken language makes it
an obstacle to learn English;
● Only learning English based on the written language will be a disservice to the
learner because he will base the phonetic sounds on his mother language
rules;
● Using resources will help when trying to achieve accurate pronunciation of the
spoken language.

16. Implications for Teaching…
● Formulation of interrogative and negative ideas
■ He’s a student - Ele é um aluno.
■ Is he a student? - Ele é um aluno?
● Subjectless sentences and subject positioning
■ Tive um problema. - I had a problem
■ Está chovendo. - It’s raining.
● Verb conjugation
● Gender of nouns
● Adjectives
● Countable and uncountable contrasts with Portuguese
■ Eu quero uma água - I’d like a glass of water.
●

17. Implications for Teaching
● Spelling
● Collocations
■ Vamos dar uma festá. - Let’s have a party.
■ Eu vou fazer a barba. - I’m going to shave the beard.
● Cognates - original term, meaning, mistranslation
■ Actually - na verdade - atualmente
■ Orchard - pomar - orquidário
● Idioms
■ I have cold feet. - Eu estou com medo.
■ Your friends beat up on mine. - Seus amigos bateram no meu.

18. Between Cultures…
Portugal Brazil United States
Facts & Statistics Pop: 10,823,834 (2014)
Ethnic Make-up: homogeneous
Mediterranean stock
Religions: Roman Catholic 94%
Government:: Constitutional
Republic
Pop: 202,656,788 (2014)
Ethnic Make-up: white 55%,
mixed black & white 38%, black
6%, other 1%
Religions: Roman Catholic 80%
Government:: federative
republic
Pop: 318,892,103 (2014)
Ethnic Make-up: white 81.7%, black
12.9%, Asian 4.2%, Alaska/Amerindian
Native 1%, native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
.2%
Religions: Protestant 52%, Roman
Catholic 24%, Mormon 2%, Jewish 1%,
Muslim 1%, other 10%, none 10%
Government:: Constitution-based
federal republic
Communication Formal Formal until relationship made Informal and Friendly
Class/Hierarchy Titles are honored
Handshakes and direct eye
contact
Great disparity between
middle/high and low class
Great disparity between
middle/high and low class
Culture Collective
Traditional and conservative
Collective
Nepotism is +
Individualistic
Nuclear family - typically small

19. Resources
● Boykova, Kirina. "Culture and Social Etiquette in Portugal." About Portugal | Expatica Portugal. Expatica, 25
Aug. 2011. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.
<http://www.expatica.com/pt/about/Culture-and-social-etiquette-in-Portugal_106561.html>.
● Braggio, Evandro. "Portuguese & English Differences." Portuguese & English Differences :: B R A G G I O.
N.p., 10 Oct. 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
<http://braggio.webnode.com.br/news/portuguese-english-differences/>.
● "Home." Portugal - Language, Culture, Customs and Etiquette. Commisceo Global, 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.
<http://www.commisceo-global.com/country-guides/portugal-guide>.
● Manschein, Marcelo, Mario Andre Coelho Da Silva, Heitor De Moreas, and Renato Serdio. "Portuguese
(Português)." Portuguese Language, Alphabet and Pronunciation. N.p., 1998. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.
<http://omniglot.com/writing/portuguese.htm>.
● Wikepedia, "List of Territorial Entities Where Portuguese Is an Official Language." Wikipedia. N.p., 13 Nov.
2016. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_Portuguese_is_an_official_language>.