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The aim of this paper was to examine whether Brazilian Portuguese learners of English are aware of English nuclear stress assignment and whether this awareness is affected by the utterance type. To the date, little research has been carried out about the acquisition of English suprasegmentals by Brazilian Portuguese speakers. Previous studies indicate that the acquisition of target-like nuclear stress assignment is difficult for EFL learners (ZUBIZARRETA; NAVA, 2011). However, non-target-like nuclear stress assignment is likely to lead into communication breakdowns, making its mastering a priority for L2 learners. The participants were 69 L1 Brazilian Portuguese learners of English and 16 native English speakers. Sensitivity to L2 prosody was measured in a perception task which presented low-pass filtered utterances differing in nuclear stress assignment. The results showed that the L1 Brazilian Portuguese speakers possessed less awareness about English nuclear stress assignment than the native English speakers (F(1, 83) =55.95, p <.001, η2 =.40). Furthermore, awareness was affected by utterance type so that the only test category manifesting above chancelevel performance was deaccented sentences ending in function words (76%). In unaccusative (40%) and deaccented utterances ending in given information (52%), the performance was at or below chance-level. The findings suggest that L1 Brazilian Portuguese learners would benefit from explicit prosodic instruction even at advanced levels of proficiency. Keywords: phonological awareness; prosody; pronunciation. Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo foi examinar se os aprendizes brasileiros de ingles tem consciencia sobre a alocacao do acento nuclear de ingles, e se esta e afetada pelo tipo de sentenca. Atualmente, poucos estudos tem sido conduzidos sobre a aquisicao suprassegmental do ingles por falantes brasileiros. Os estudos previos mostram que a aquisicao de acento nuclear e dificil para aprendizes de ingles (ZUBIZARRETA; NAVA, 2011). No entanto, o uso adequado do acento nuclear deve ser uma prioridade para aprendizes de LE porque o seu uso inadequado leva a mal-entendidos. Os participantes foram 69 aprendizes brasileiros de ingles e 16 falantes nativos de ingles. A sensibilidade ao acento nuclear na LE foi medida num teste de percepcao que apresentou sentencas com filtro passa-baixa que variavam nos padroes de entoacao. Os resultados mostraram que os aprendizes brasileiros de ingles manifestavam uma sensibilidade mais baixa ao acento nuclear de ingles que os falantes nativos de ingles (F(1, 83) =55.95, p <.001, η2 =.40). Alem do mais, a sensibilidade variava em funcao do tipo de sentenca, de tal maneira que somente as oracoes que terminavam em categorias funcionais (76%) mostravam desempenho acima do nivel estatisticamente esperado ao acaso. Nas oracoes inacusativas (40%) e desacentuadas terminadas em informacao dada (52%), o desempenho estava abaixo ou no nivel estatisticamente esperado ao acaso. Os resultados sugerem que instrucao explicita sobre a prosodia de L2 seria benefica inclusive aos aprendizes brasileiros de ingles com um nivel avancado de proficiencia. Palavras-chave: consciencia fonologica; prosodia; pronuncia.

Examining L1 Brazilian Portuguese speakers' sensitivity to English nuclear stress assignment