Времетраенето на гласните в португалския и българския език

The acoustic parameter of duration has no linguistic value in both Bulgarian and Portuguese. The study of this phenomenon is motivated by the significant differences across the two languages. It would be a contribution both to theoretical and to applied linguistics to establish these differences. The paper discusses the results obtained from a study of duration which depends on the specific nature of the segment and on the location of the segment in relation to word stress. The duration of Bulgarian and Portuguese vowels was compared according to numerical duration values. Some of the reasons underlying differences in duration are analysed. The contrastive analysis offers a reliable theoretical foundation for further work in corrective Portuguese phonetics for Bulgarian learners.