Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items

Mastering word stress is a crucial part of learning the English language because it is a vital part and parcel of word recognition and intelligibility. Arab EFL learners complain about the mystifying and elusive English stress patterns. This research examines their stress production and perception...

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Main Author: Safi Eldeen Alzi’abi
Format: Article
Language:Catalan
Published: Universitat de Barcelona 2023-09-01
Series:Estudios de Fonética Experimental
Subjects:
Online Access:http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/44484
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author Safi Eldeen Alzi’abi
author_facet Safi Eldeen Alzi’abi
author_sort Safi Eldeen Alzi’abi
collection DOAJ
description Mastering word stress is a crucial part of learning the English language because it is a vital part and parcel of word recognition and intelligibility. Arab EFL learners complain about the mystifying and elusive English stress patterns. This research examines their stress production and perception of di-, tri- and polysyllabic English words. Arab learners initially produced 90 infrequent English words with various syllable structures and word classes. They then identified the stressed syllables when hearing the words from native speakers. Analysis of the data showed that Arabs had a serious problem producing English word stress correctly owing to their tendency to mainly stress ultimate heavy syllables — a strategy usually employed in Arabic. Their performance on the stress identification task was much better than the production task but still gave problems, especially with tri- and tetrasyllabic utterances. Syllabi have to comprise stress drills in conjunction with their L1 stress patterns to help them overcome their difficulties in stressing English words.
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spelling doaj.art-d3d3deef3f874ac29f9eb5c0f11536742023-12-21T11:49:20ZcatUniversitat de BarcelonaEstudios de Fonética Experimental1575-55332385-35732023-09-013210.1344/efe-2023-32-111-130Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable itemsSafi Eldeen Alzi’abi Mastering word stress is a crucial part of learning the English language because it is a vital part and parcel of word recognition and intelligibility. Arab EFL learners complain about the mystifying and elusive English stress patterns. This research examines their stress production and perception of di-, tri- and polysyllabic English words. Arab learners initially produced 90 infrequent English words with various syllable structures and word classes. They then identified the stressed syllables when hearing the words from native speakers. Analysis of the data showed that Arabs had a serious problem producing English word stress correctly owing to their tendency to mainly stress ultimate heavy syllables — a strategy usually employed in Arabic. Their performance on the stress identification task was much better than the production task but still gave problems, especially with tri- and tetrasyllabic utterances. Syllabi have to comprise stress drills in conjunction with their L1 stress patterns to help them overcome their difficulties in stressing English words. http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/44484stress productionstress perceptionEnglish word stressArabic word stressArab EFL learners
spellingShingle Safi Eldeen Alzi’abi
Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items
Estudios de Fonética Experimental
stress production
stress perception
English word stress
Arabic word stress
Arab EFL learners
title Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items
title_full Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items
title_fullStr Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items
title_full_unstemmed Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items
title_short Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items
title_sort arab learners stress perception and production of english multisyllable items
topic stress production
stress perception
English word stress
Arabic word stress
Arab EFL learners
url http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/44484
work_keys_str_mv AT safieldeenalziabi arablearnersstressperceptionandproductionofenglishmultisyllableitems