رسائل ماجيستير
Arabic
2015
Factors Affecting the Assignment of English Word Stress by Syrian EFL Learners
Israa Khazneh, Marwan Radwan
كلية الآداب والعلوم الإنسانية -جامعة حلب-جامعة حلب · سوريا
This study focuses on how Syrian English as a foreign language(EFL)learners acquire different patterns of English primary word stress. Contextualized within the theoretical framework of metical phonology, the present study particularly examines the extent to which Syrian EFL learners are aware of the two linguistic factors governing the assignment of English primary stress, namely, syllable weight and extrametricality. In addition ,this study explores the types of errors made by those learners regarding placement of primary stress and analyzes the source of those errors, whether they are due to first language(L1)transfer or other factors. Furthermore, the study addresses the issue of whether the ability to correctly place stress in English words can improve with an increasing proficiency level and examines whether there is a correlation between knowing the target word and correct placement of stress.Seventy-eight undergraduate and graduate students from the Department of English at Aleppo University participated in the study. The participants formed three different proficiency groups (first-year, third-yearand Master of Arts). The participants read aloud a set of 81 English real and nonsense nouns and verbs belonging to seven different stress patterns .They were then asked to fill out the study-related questionnaire. Afterwards, three raters transcribed the words where each participant placed stress on the syllables. The results showed that participants were sensitive to syllable structure and its interaction with the morpho-syntactic property of the test words(nouns or verbs). Participants preferred initial or penult stress for noun sending
Vin a super heavy CVCC syllable, and final stress for verbs ending in a CVCC syllable. In trisyllabic nouns, penultimate stress was preferred when the syllable was closed by a consonant(CVC). The overall results indicate that Syrian EFL learners of English use syllable weight to determine the position of stress and they are also aware of the systematic difference in the extrametrical properties of nouns and verbs in English. The results also indicate that Syrian EFL learner stransferred the stress patterns of their L1 when producing English words. However, the majority of other errors can be interpreted as overgeneralization of stress rules. Finally, the study provides some evidence that proficiency is a factor in the acquisition of word stress placement by Syrian learners of English.
