ELESP STUDENTS’ PROBLEMS IN PLACING VERB STRESS
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Lucia Niken Tyas Utami
Student Number: 081214046
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
i
ELESP STUDENTS’ PROBLEMS IN PLACING VERB STRESS
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Lucia Niken Tyas Utami
Student Number: 081214046
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
vii
ABSTRACT
Utami, L.N.T. (2012). ELESP Students’ Problems in Placing Verb Stress.
Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Department of Language and Arts Education, Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University.
For the English Education Study Program students, mastering English speaking skill is a must. It is very important to create a good communication, especially to conduct a teaching learning process with their students. One aspect which should be mastered in order to acquire a good speaking skill is pronunciation, including stress, rhythm, and intonation.
There were two research questions to answer, namely (1) What are the problems in verb stress which are encountered by the sixth semester students of the English Education Study Program? and (2) What are the causes of the problems in verb stress which are encountered by the sixth semester students of the English Language Education Study Program? In answering the first research question, the researcher used the data obtained from the recording of the students’ presentations in their Sociolinguistics classes. Meanwhile, the researcher conducted an interview to answer the second research question. Therefore, it was a qualitative content analysis research.
The participants of this research were the sixth semester students of the ELESP who joined Sociolinguistics course classes C and D in the 2011/2012 academic year. They were chosen because in their sixth semester studying in the ELESP, it was assumed that they had had a good speaking skill. There were fourteen groups of presentation from those two classes. The data were obtained by recording the participants’ presentations in their classes and conducting an interview involving six participants.
From the data, it could be concluded that there were two kinds of problems in placing verb stress which are encountered by the sixth semester students of the ELESP, namely the students misplaced the stress and the students put double stresses on a verb. Most students put the stress on syllables which could not obtain any stresses, such as suffixes. Meanwhile, some students put double stresses on trisyllabic verbs or verbs with four or more syllables whereas double stresses could only be obtained by disyllabic verbs. From the interview results, it was concluded that there were four factors which became the causes of the problems, namely the students’ laziness in searching any information or theories about stress placement and to correct their inappropriate stress placement, the students’ lack of awareness about the importance of verb stress placement, the students’ lack of theories and information about stress placement, and the students’ friends’ attitude toward verb stress.
viii
ABSTRAK
Utami, L.N.T. (2012). ELESP Students’ Problems in Placing Verb Stress.
Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Mahasiswa Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris sangat perlu untuk menguasai keahlian berbicara Bahasa Inggris. Hal ini dikarenakan agar komunikasi dalam Bahasa Inggris berjalan lancar, terutama ketika mengadakan pembelajaran dengan para siswa. Salah satu aspek berbicara yang harus dikuasai adalah pelafalan kata dengan benar, termasuk penempatan tekanan, ritme, dan intonasi pada kata.
Ada dua pertanyaan yang perlu dijawab dalam penelitian ini, yaitu (1) Apa permasalahan dalam penempatan tekanan pada kata kerja yang dialami oleh mahasiswa Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris semester enam? dan (2) Apa penyebab terjadinya permasalahan tersebut? Untuk menjawab pertanyaan pertama peneliti menggunakan data dari rekaman presentasi siswa di kelas Sociolinguistics. Sementara pertanyaan kedua dijawab dengan menganalisis hasil wawancara dengan beberapa siswa. Maka dari itu, penelitian ini adalah penelitian dengan metode konten analisis yang bersifat kualitatif.
Partisipan penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa PBI semester enam yang berada di kelas C dan D mata kuliah Sociolinguistics tahun ajaran 2011/2012. Hal ini dikarenakan bahwa dalam semester keenam mereka di PBI, mahasiswa semester enam diasumsikan telah mempunyai kemampuan berbicara Bahasa Inggris yang bagus. Ada empat belas kelompok presentasi dari kedua kelas tersebut. Data penelitian diperoleh dengan cara merekam presentasi para partisipan di kelas mereka serta melakukan wawancara dengan enam partisipan. Dari data yang diperoleh dapat disimpulkan bahwa ada dua masalah dalam penempatan tekanan pada kata kerja yang dialami oleh mahasiswa Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris semester enam, yakni penempatan tekanan pada suku kata yang tidak tepat dan penempatan dua tekanan pada sebuah kata kerja. Sebagian siswa menempatkan tekanan pada suku kata yang seharusnya tidak bisa memperoleh tekanan, seperti imbuhan. Sementara itu, beberapa siswa memberikan dua tekanan pada kata bersuku tiga atau empat padaha tekanan ganda hanya bisa diberikan kepada kata bersuku dua dengan kriteria tertentu. Berdasarkan hasil wawancara, dapat disimpulkan pula bahwa ada empat faktor yang menjadi penyebab masalah dalam penempatan tekanan pada kata kerja tersebut, yakni siswa malas untuk mencari informasi atau memperdalam teori tentang penempatan tekanan serta untuk membenarkan tekanan yang kurang tepat, siswa kurang menyadari akan pentingnya penempatan tekanan yang benar pada kata kerja, siswa kurang memiliki informasi dan teori yang cukup, serta sikap teman-teman di sekitar para siswa yang kurang menyadari pentingnya penempatan tekanan yang benar pada kata kerja, yang menyebabkan mereka bersikap acuh pula terhadap hal ini.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to Jesus Christ, who makes everything easier and worth it for me. I believe that whatever happens to me is the
best thing and He has provided beautiful plans for my future. Hopefully, at the
end I could say “I have used all He gave to me.” I thank my beloved advisor, Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd, M.Pd. for her patience, time, attention, suggestion, motivation, and guidance in finishing this thesis. Her smiles could comfort me
whenever I had no idea of what to do with this thesis and was magically able to
wake me up every time I started to “fall asleep.” I also thank Drs. Barli Bram, M.Ed., Ph.D. for letting me interrupt his time and for giving me useful advice to improve my thesis.
My thanks are also for all PBI lecturers and staff who have given me great times during my study and great experiences dealing with so many tasks and
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me for the last six years, Ignatius Respati Adi Pamungkas. I thank him for being my fussy boyfriend, my loyal friend, and my ‘tireless reminder.’
I would like to say thank also to my best friends Didil, Sili, Cepci, Tiyen,
and Miyu for our great times together and also to Mas Marshel, Mas Sisak, and
Mas Asoy for every ‘adventure’ we have had. They are really my good friends, my mood boosters, and my partners in crime. My thanks also go to someone who
helped me to deal with the sophisticated media I used to analyze the data, Made Desya, and my comrades in finishing this thesis, Pita and Nora. I would like to thank Dita for the time we have shared together and for the stories we have told each other. I would like to thank Yohannes Jatmiko Yuwono, S.Pd. and
Stefanus Eko Ardiyanto as well for letting me interrupt their leisure time to read this thesis and to share their experiences dealing with this stuff.
My special thanks go to my play performance team ‘Rendezvous,’ my SPD team ‘Blossom,’ my KKN team ‘Banaran’ and my big family ‘XV.’ I have learned so many things from them, such as friendship, courage, cooperation,
communication, loyalty, commitment, and many more. They have made me
become a better me.
Last but not least, I thank everyone who asked about my thesis. Although
sometimes it was annoying, without their questions I would not have extra spirit
and energy to finish this thesis as soon as possible. I cannot write down all names
on this paper, but I believe that God will write down all beautiful kindness which
they have made.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ... i
APPROVAL PAGES ... ii
DEDICATION PAGE ... iv
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ... v
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ... vi
ABSTRACT ... vii
ABSTRAK ... viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... xi
LIST OF TABLES ... xiii
LIST OF FIGURES ... xiv
LIST OF APPENDICES ... xv
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A. Research Background ... 1
B. Research Problems ... 4
C. Problem Limitation ... 5
D. Research Objectives ... 6
E. Research Benefits ... 6
F. Definition of Terms ... 7
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. Theoretical Description ... 9
1. English Word Stress ... 9
a. Definition of English Word Stress ... 10
b. Stress Placement in English Word ... 10
c. The Importance of Word Stress ... 15
2. English Verbs ... 16
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b. Stress Placement in Verbs ... 18
3. Overview of Problems in English Stress Placement ... 21
B. Theoretical Framework ... 22
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A. Research Methods ... 26
B. Research Setting ... 27
C. Research Participants ... 27
D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique ... 28
E. Data Analysis Technique ... 30
F. Research Procedure ... 31
CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION A. Students’ Problems in Placing Verbs Stress ... 32
B. The Causes of the Problems in Placing Verbs Stress ... 48
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Conclusions ... 57
B. Recommendations ... 58
REFERENCES ... 61
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LIST OF TABLE
Page
xiv
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 4.1 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘differ’ ... 34
Figure 4.2 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘persuade’ ... 35
Figure 4.3 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘deliver’ ... 36
Figure 4.4 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘introduce’ ... 37
Figure 4.5 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘analyze’ ... 37
Figure 4.6 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘emphasize’ ... 38
Figure 4.7 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘identify’ ... 39
Figure 4.8 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘categorize’ ... 40
Figure 4.9 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘differentiate’ ... 41
Figure 4.10 : The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘dominated’ ... 42
Figure 4.11 : The Speaker’s Misplacing Stress in Disyllabic Verbs ... 43
Figure 4.12 : The Speaker’s Misplacing Stress in Trisyllabic Verbs ... 44
Figure 4.13 : The Speaker’s Misplacing Stress in Tetrasyllabic Verbs ... 45
Figure 4.14 : The Speaker’s Misplacing Stress in Verbs with more than 4 Syllables ... 46
xv
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix 1: The List of Errors in Disyllabic Verbs ... 64
Appendix 2: The List of Errors in Trisyllabic Verbs ... 66
Appendix 3: The List of Errors in Tetrasyllabic Verbs ... 68
Appendix 4: The Blueprint of Interview Protocol ... 69
1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter provides the introduction of the research. It consists of six
parts. The first part is research background. It deals with the explanation of the
underlying reasons of choosing verb stress as the topic of the research. The second
part is research problem. In this part, it can be seen the research questions of this
research. The third part is problem limitation. It limits the scope of the research
related to the research questions which have been formulated. The fourth part
presents the research objectives. This part answers the research questions of this
research. The fifth part is research benefits, which explains the benefits and the
contributions of the research for people or parties which have relationship with the
topic. The last part of this chapter is definition of terms. In this part, there are
definitions and explanations given for some terms which are important to
understand this research.
A. Research Background
Students of the English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) are
expected to have four skills of English proficiencies; they are Listening, Speaking,
Reading, and Writing. These four skills are very important for communicating
with other people, especially for conducting a teaching learning process with their
future students. The teacher candidates have to be able to not only recognize
English language, but also produce a good English language because they have to
2
One of the productive skills that should be mastered well by ELESP
students is speaking skill. According to Brown (2004), speaking and listening are
skills that have close relationship. Speaking is a productive skill in which the
product of someone’s language can be seen and heard clearly by other people.
People’s mastery on language can be seen directly from their speech. In writing,
the errors are more on grammar and the choice of words, while in speaking there
are more aspects to focus, such as the expression, body language, and intonation.
In acquiring speaking skill, ELESP students have obtained many theories
and they have been given chances to practice their speaking skills. Based on the
2006 curriculum, speaking courses are given at the first five semesters of studying
at English Language Education Study Program. An important aspect of acquiring
speaking skill is the mastery of pronouncing English words correctly.
Pronunciation courses are given to ELESP students in the first two semesters in
the beginning of the study. According to Prasetyo, Herawati, Prihatin, Budiraharjo
and Adji (2007), there are many aspects of English pronunciation which are
taught during the course, such as stress, rhythm, and intonation of words (p.73).
Although the students have obtained what they need to be a good English
speaker, the errors in their speeches are still visible. The most common error they
do is in stressing words. Non-native speakers have a tendency not to pay attention
to the word stress as long as they choose the right words to express their intention.
However, errors in stressing English words can give a different meaning. For
example, the stress of the word desert as a noun should be given on the
the ultimate syllable, it changes the meaning into dessert (dessERT /dɪ'zɜ:t/), which is also a noun. Their meanings are very different. Desert means an arid land
with little or no vegetation, while dessert means a dish served as the last course of
the meal. Besides, putting the stress on the ultimate syllable causes the change of
the part of speech into verb. Desert (desERT /dɪ'zɜ:t/) is a verb which means run away or leave behind. There is also deserts which means getting what you
deserve and functions as plural noun. This word obtains stress on the ultimate
syllable and is pronounced as /dɪ'zɜ:ts/. Another common error is pronouncing
some words which have two parts of speech. Present as a noun has a stress in the
penultimate syllable, so it becomes /'prez nt/. While present as a verb has the
stress in the ultimate syllable and is pronounced as /prɪ'zent/.
As teacher candidates, English Language Education Study Program
students should know how to pronounce a word correctly, including to place
where the stress is. Some mispronounced words will be very dangerous,
especially when they are teaching their future students since teacher is the role
model for the students. Instead of placing the stress on the penultimate syllable of
the word /dɪ'vel p/, many students still pronounce it as /dev 'lɒp/. Later on, when they are teaching, that kind of error could lead their students astray.
A good mastery of word stress will also be helpful for English as Foreign
Language (EFL) students to listen to what a native speaker is saying. It helps them
to understand English words in spoken form easier. When students have to listen
to a native speaker who is speaking fast, they still can catch the words said by the
4
speech, the speaker says the word photograph, but the students are confused
whether they hear the word photograph or photographer. By listening to where
the stress is given to those words, students can know what word the speaker said.
The stress of the word photograph is given in the antepenultimate syllable
/'f ʊt .../, while the stress of the word photographer is given in the penultimate
syllable /f 'tɒ.../.
Not all English words should have a stress. Stress is given only for content
words. Content words are verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. This research
focuses on observing students’ problem in placing stress for English verbs. Verb
is chosen because the existence of the verb in a sentence is very important. A
good sentence must have a subject and a verb, so the use of verb is easily found in
a speech.
The participants of this research are Sociolinguistic class students. In this
class, the students have to make presentations about certain topics. Since they are
in the sixth semester of the ELESP, it is assumed that they have been fluent in
English because they have learned all the theories and even they have practiced
how to pronounce English words well, how to put the stress of the words, or how
to put the words correctly into a sentence. They must have a good speaking ability
because they have to be a good model for their future students. However, there are
some errors which are done by those teacher candidates in their presentations,
especially in placing the stress of the words. That problem encourages the
the sixth semester students of the English Language Education Study Program and
what the causes of the problems are.
B. Research Problem
Based on the background, this research addresses two problems. They are:
1. What are the problems in verb stress which are encountered by the sixth
semester students of the English Language Education Study Program?
2. What are the causes of the problems in verb stress which are encountered
by the sixth semester students of the English Language Education Study
Program?
C. Problem Limitation
This research focuses on the problems in verb stress which are
encountered by the sixth semester students of the English Language Education
Study Program. Accordingly, the other types of content words such as noun,
adjective, or adverb will be ignored. It will not discuss the problems in word stress
in general.
Verb is chosen because its existence in a sentence is very essential.
According to Brewton (1962), a sentence normally contains a subject and a
predicate. This group of words also conveys one idea (p. 193). Furthermore, he
states that the most important element in a sentence is the predicate verb (1962, p.
6
Sociolinguistics course is chosen because the sixth semester students are
expected to have good ability to speak in front of the class. In this course, every
student should speak in their presentations. Therefore the researcher could obtain
the data from the recordings of the presentations. The researcher will only include
2009 students in the 2011/2012 academic year since the similarity of the
background of the participants is needed, so those who are not 2009 students will
be ignored. Furthermore, the participants are categorized as having the same
background if they have taken Pronunciation Practice 1 and 2 courses and they
have finished all Speaking courses in ELESP, namely Interactional Speech I,
Interactional Speech II, Transactional Speech, Public Speaking I, and Public
Speaking II.
D. Research Objectives
This research aims to find out the problems in stressing verb which are
encountered by the sixth semester students of English Language Education Study
Program and what the causes of the problems are.
E. Research Benefits
This research is conducted in order to give contributions to the students and
the lecturers of the English Language Education Study Program, and future
researchers.
1. The Sixth Semester Students
This research shows the students’ problems in verb stress which are
By knowing their problems, the students are expected to be more aware of their
speech by encouraging themselves to improve their understanding on verb stress.
Hopefully, this research also helps them to develop their knowledge about word
stress, especially verb stress, so that they will not be confused anymore in placing
the stress of the words and they will not make the same problems.
2. The Lecturers of the English Language Education Study Program
This research provides information for the lecturers, especially the
lecturers who teach speaking and pronunciation, about students’ problems in
learning stress placement of English words, especially verb. Besides, the lecturers
can also know about the causes of the problems. As a result, they can help the
students to overcome their problems in stress placement.
3. Future Researchers
This research also gives benefits to those who want to conduct further
researches related to students’ problems in word stress. The researcher hopes this
research could become a good reference for them. Future researchers could
conduct an analysis on students’ problems in noun stress, adjective stress, or
adverb stress. They can also analyze the sentence stress which is used by the
students.
F. Definition of Terms
This part explains the terms which are frequently used in this research in
order to avoid misunderstanding. There are some terms which are considered as
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1. Verb Stress
According to Jones in An Outline of English Phonetics, stress “may be
described as the degree of force with which a sound or syllable is uttered” (1987:
245). This force includes the energetic action of the speaker and supported by the
gestures as well. According to McMahon, stress “is a culminative property,
signaled by a number of subsidiary phonetic factors, which work together to pick
out a stressed syllable from the unstressed ones which surround it” (2002: 118).
Stress is only given to content words, such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, and
adverbs, while articles, determiners, or prepositions are usually unstressed. In this
research, the researcher only focuses on polysyllabic verbs in sentences which are
uttered by the students of Sociolinguistics course while they are doing their
presentations.
2. The ELESP Students
The participants of this research are the sixth semester students in
Sociolinguistics course of the English Language Education Study Program. They
are 2009 students in academic year 2011/2012. The sixth semester students are
chosen because they have had enough knowledge of word stress and in this
semester, they are doing their first teaching practice as a professional teacher.
They have accomplished certain courses which support them to speak well in
front of many people, namely Pronunciation Practice I and II, Interactional
Speech I and II, Transactional Speech, and Public Speaking I and II. Considering
their length of the study and their experiences which are not the same, those who
9
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter is divided into two parts: theoretical description and
theoretical framework. Theoretical description deals with many theories which
support this research. Meanwhile, theoretical framework synthesizes the theories
mentioned in the previous part and tries to give a frame of how the two research
questions will be answered.
A. Theoretical Description
In this part, the researcher tries to obtain theories which support the
research. The theories are used to answer the two research questions. This part has
three subtopics, namely English word stress, English verbs, and overview of
problems in English stress placement. English word stress discusses stress in
general, English verbs discusses types of verbs in English and their rules of stress,
and overview of problems in stress placement discusses problems in stress
placement according to some experts.
1. English Word Stress
This subtopic gives an overview of theories related to English word stress.
This part discusses the stress in general and it has not focused on English verbs
stress yet. It consists of three parts, namely definition of English word stress,
stress placement system in English words, and the importance of English word
10
a. Definition of English Word Stress
Stress can be described as the energy put on an uttered sound or syllable
which is usually greater than the others (Jones, 1972, p. 245). Furthermore,
Giegerich (1992) states that syllables which are uttered in sequences have
different “degrees of prominence, or stress” (p. 179). Stress and prominence are
not the same, although sometimes it is confusing to differentiate between those
two terms. According to Jones (1972), “the prominence of a syllable is its degree
of general distinctness, this being the combined effect of the tamber, length,
stress, and (if voiced) intonation of the syllabic sound” (p. 246). Meanwhile, Jones
(1972) explains that stress is not a combination of those three aspects but it only
refers to “the degree of force of utterance” (p. 246). It does not have any
relationship with length and intonation although sometimes they are combined.
Most English words have one or more than one stressed syllables. When an
English word – noun, verb, adjective or adverb – has more than one stressed
syllables, there will be one “main stress” and the others are “subordinated”
(Giegerich, 1992, p. 179).
b. Stress Placement System in English Word
Giegerich (1992) states that English stressed syllable is produced by
giving more energy in pronouncing the words where the stress is given (p. 179).
The energy is produced greater than in unstressed syllables. Furthermore,
Giegerich (1992) also notes that “stress in English is phonemic” (p. 180). There
are some words which are “segmentally identical” but actually different in nature
there are three factors to predict stress, namely (1) stressed syllable is produced
with higher frequency so that it produces higher pitch than the other syllables, (2)
stressed syllable is uttered with longer time than the other syllables, and (3)
stressed syllable is produced with greater intensity so it is louder than the other
syllables (p. 118).
Some English words only have one stressed and one unstressed syllables.
However, in the word entertainment there are two stresses in the first and the third
syllable. Both of them are pronounced with full vowels [ ] and [ei]. In that case,
the third syllable of the word entertainment has the primary stress, while the first
syllable has the secondary stress. The syllable where the primary stress is taken
place obtains the main stress. The secondary stress is a lesser degree of stress
elsewhere. Giegerich (1992) states that “secondary stress is stress that is weaker
than the main (or ‘primary’) stress but stronger than that of an unstressed syllable”
(p. 179).
According to McMahon (2002), there are some general rules to make
stress placement in English words become predicted, they are noun rule and verb
rule (p. 180). Nouns are usually stressed in the penultimate syllable if the syllable
is heavy. However, if the penultimate syllable is light, stress the antepenult. The
examples are a'roma, a'genda, and 'discipline. The second rule is verb rule. Verbs
are usually stressed on the ultimate syllable if the syllable is heavy. If the ultimate
syllable is light, stress the penultimate syllable. The examples are o'bey, u'surp,
'tally, and 'hurry. According to Carr (1993), there are some structures of the
12
Those structures usually attract stress. Meanwhile, syllables which structures are
V or VC are called as light syllables. Some light syllables must obtain stress if no
heavy syllable exists. According to Giegerich (1992), when a light syllable take
the stress, it becomes heavy through ambisyllabicity. Furthermore, he explains
that ambisyllabicity is a device to make a light syllable become a heavy syllable if
there is no heavy syllable available to take the stress (p.188). The examples of
ambisyllabicity occur in the word de'velop, 'camera, 'discipline, and A'merica.
According to Giegerich (1992), there are two possibilities of stress
placement in English word, namely final stress and non-final stress (p. 183).
There are predictions related to the final stress of English words. The first one is
that all of final-stressed words do not end in a light syllable. The word ca'det,
ca'nal, ca'noe, la'ment, and e'llipse have stress in the final syllable and all of them
end in heavy syllables. There is a possibility when two-syllable words have two
stresses. It means that there are stresses in every syllable. It happens only where
the first syllable is also heavy, for example, compare bam'boo and ar'tiste with
Ju'ly and ba'lloon (Giegerich, 1992, p. 183). Meanwhile, verbs and adjectives are
more common with final stress, for examples o'bey, a'tone, bap'tise, ob'scene,
di'vine, and se'cure (Giegerich, 1992, p. 184).
Kenworthy (1987) states five rules of English word stress. Rule 1 is about
placing stress in the first syllable when the first syllable is heavy (p. 63). This rule
is applied in most nouns and adjective. Rule 2 talks about words which have two
or three syllables and have a prefix. Most prefixes are never stressed, so that the
majority of these words are verbs, e.g. infer, invite, understand, exhaust, and so
on.
Rule 3 says that suffixes are never stressed, the same as prefixes. In this
part, Kenworthy (1987) also draws a conclusion that in words with four, five, or
six syllables, the stress tends to fall in the middle of the words rather than in the
first or the last syllable (p. 64). There are three points which are noted in Rule 3.
First point is that there are many suffixes which cause the stress falls on the
syllable before the suffix, they are –ive, -ient, -iant, -ial, -ion, -ic, -ian, -ious, -ical,
-ity, iate, -iary, -iable, -ish, -ify, -ium, -ior, -io, -iar, and –ible. Second point is
about the suffix ‘-able’which does not change the position of the stress from the
base word. For example in the word ‘adapt’ the stress falls on the second syllable.
When it becomes ‘adaptable’, stress will also be obtained by the second syllable.
Third point occurs for words with four or more syllables. There are some suffixes
which cause the stress falls on the fourth syllable from the end of the word. The
suffixes are -ary (vocabulary), -ator (investigator), -mony (alimony), -acy
(intimacy), and -ory (category).
Rule 4 deals with compound words. Most compound words have stress on
the first element, for example a newspaper, a grandfather, and a crossword.
However, when the two words are used separately in a sentence, both obtain the
same level of stress. For example, compare these two sentences:
What a beautiful blackbird!
14
Rule 5 talks about words whose parts of speech are distinguished by the stress
placement. Most of these words can function as a noun or a verb and, in only few
cases, as a noun or an adjective. In this case, Rules 1 and 2 are applied. Most
nouns will have stress on the first syllable and most verbs will have stress on the
second syllable. The examples of the words are content, increase, import, export,
and insult.
Stress usually appears in spoken form of the words and it needs symbol to
represent it in written text. Kenworthy (1987) mentions some notations which are
usually used to symbolize the word stress (p. 29). There are some notations which
are commonly used, they are (a) MENtion, (b) 'mention, (c) m ntion, (d) mention,
and (e) O o. mention
The notations above have their own advantages and disadvantages in the
usage. The first notation (a) is difficult to use since the users should know the
boundary of the syllable of each word so he can write in capital or not. Besides, it
is not suitable for learners who are not accustomed to Roman alphabet, for
example Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. The second notation (b) is widely used
in many dictionaries and it is easy to use. However, some dictionaries define it
differently. Some of them put it before stressed syllable while some others put it
after. They who are not aware of this difference may be confused (Kenworthy,
1987, p. 29). The mark (ˇ) is also simple, but the users have to be careful to write
it when there are two vowels in a syllable. In some other languages, putting that
The underline mark is also easy to be used, but it has the same problem as
the capitalization in (a). The user has to know the boundary of the syllable. The
last notation is easily added and it can show the stress pattern whether the syllable
is stressed or unstressed, for example o O, O o, and O o o. There is another
notation to define a secondary stress. Most dictionaries use mark ( ) to note that a
syllable has a secondary stress so that it acquires less energy than the main stress
but greater energy than the rest.
c. The Importance of English Word Stress
English is a language which has stress placement rules both for words and
for sentences. In learning English, it is important to master word stress in order to
acquire a good English skill, especially speaking skill. English listeners will need
more efforts to understand the meaning of a sentence or even a word uttered by a
non-native speaker if he pronounces it with the wrong stress pattern (Kenworthy,
1987, p. 28).
In 1991, Sabater states that “stress and rhythm are suprasegmental aspects
that give the overall shape to the word or sequence” (p. 146). Mastering word
stress gives many advantages in learning English. Although some other languages
do not put stress as a significant factor in learning language, English does not
allow learners to give stress as they like (Giegerich, 1992, p. 180). Different
16
to stress placement, people can still understand the word although they do not hear
it completely.
Another consideration is that in mastering a language, learners cannot only
master one aspect. Knowing how to pronounce a word is not enough. Learners
have to concern also to various components of pronunciation such as sounds,
stress, and variation in pitch (Kenworthy, 1987, p. 270). Those components help
the learners to understand the function of the language in order to convey
meanings.
2. English Verbs
This subtopic consists of explanation about English verbs which is divided
into two parts. The first part is types of verbs which tell about many types of verbs
in English. The second part is stress placement in English verbs which gives
explanation about how to put stress in English verbs.
a. Types of Verbs
This part describes about many types of English verbs according to
Bergman and Senn (1987). They divide verbs into four categories. The first
category is action verbs, such as has, holds, and thought. The second is linking
verbs, such as be, feel, and look. The third category is helping verbs or auxiliary
verbs, such as be, have, and do. The fourth is verb phrase, such as are talking and
1) Action Verbs
A verb is important in a sentence because without a verb, words cannot be
united into a sentence (Bergman and Senn, 1987, p. 39). An action verb is a verb
which tells about what is performed by the subject. To make sure whether the
verb is an action verb or not, there is a question to ask, What is the subject doing?
According to Bergman and Senn (1987), there are three things which can
be seen in the use of action verbs, namely physical action, mental action, and
ownership (p. 39). In the sentence “John holds his mother’s hand” there is an activity which is done by the subject. The activity is holds. The example of a
sentence with mental action is “I thought about the physics test last night.”
Thought shows a mental action of the subject. While the word has in the sentence
“My little sister has a new bag” shows an ownership of the subject.
2) Linking Verbs
When there are verbs which show actions of the subject, there are also
verbs which do not show actions. Those verbs are called state-of-being verbs.
According to Bergman and Senn (1987), state-of-being verbs are often used as
linking verbs (p. 41). Those verbs are used to make statements about or to
describe the subjects, for instance in the sentence “The movie is interesting” the word interesting describes the subject. Some examples of linking verbs are be,
18
3) Helping Verbs or Auxiliary Verbs
Bergman and Senn (1987) state that there is a possibility for an action verb
or a linking verb to be used as a part of a verb phrase (p. 46). In that situation,
those kinds of verbs are usually called helping verbs or auxiliary verbs. The
example of most common helping verbs according to Bergman and Senn (1987)
are be, namely am, is, are, was, were, be, being, and been, have, namely has, have, and had, do, namely do, does, and did, and others, for example may, might, must, can, could, shall, should, will, and would (p. 46).
4) Verb Phrases
According to Bergman and Senn (1987), “a verb phrase is a main verb
plus one or more helping verbs” (p. 46). In the sentence “We are talking about you” and “The acrobats have been performing for two hours”, the verb of those two sentences are not only a word. The first sentence has a main verb, talking, and
a helping verb, are, while the second sentence has a main verb, performing, and
two helping verbs, have and been.
b. Stress Placement in Verbs
This part discusses stress placement in disyllabic verbs, trisyllabic verbs,
and verbs with four or more syllables. Disyllabic verbs are verbs with two
syllables. Trisyllabic verbs are verbs which have three syllables. Meanwhile,
1) Disyllabic Verbs
Most disyllabic verbs have stress on the ultimate syllable (Avery and
Ehrlich, 1992, p. 67). However, there are some verbs which have stress on the
penultimate syllable. Giegerich (1992) states that the final syllable will be stressed
if the word ends with (a) a heavy vowel (/æ/ and /e/) + a consonant, for example
the word distract /dɪ'strækt/, (b) a long vowel or a diphthong, for example the
word rely /rɪ'laɪ/, (c) a long vowel + a consonant, for example the word assert
/ 'sɜ:t/, or (d) a vowel + a cluster of two consonants, for example the word
resist /rɪ'zɪst/ (p. 184).
In line with Giegerich, Roach also explains two rules about disyllabic
verbs. He notes that the penultimate syllable of the verbs will be stressed if (a) the
final syllable contains a short vowel and has only one (or no) final consonant, for
example the word gather /'gæð / and happen /'hæp n/, or (b) the final
syllable contains / ʊ/ like in the word follow /'fɒl ʊ/ and borrow /'bɒr ʊ/.
The second rule is the ultimate syllable will be stressed if (a) the second syllable
of the verbs contains a long vowel or diphthong like in the word abhor / 'bɔ:r/
and imply /ɪm'plaɪ/, or (b) the word ends with more than one consonant, for
example the word assist / 'sɪst/ and attract / 'trækt/.
2) Trisyllabic Verbs
According to Chomsky and Halle (1968), a verb which ends in a non-tense
20
For example abandon / 'bænd n/ and consider /k n'sɪd r/. The second rule
stated by Chomsky and Halle (1968) is that a trisyllabic verb can have an ultimate
stress if its last syllable contains a long and tense vowel or diphthongs and ends
with more than one consonant (p. 70). For example resurrect /rez r'ekt/ and
correspond /kɒrɪ'spɒnd/ (Roach, 1991, p. 89). Meanwhile, Levante (1869)
states that stress in trisyllabic verbs can fall on the first syllable or antepenultimate
if the verbs are formed by adding affixes –ed or –ing in a disyllabic verbs, for
example borrowed, watering, and comforted (p. 88). The roots of those verbs have
stress on the first syllable so that the adding of affixes –ed and –ing do not change
the stress.
The same condition also happens in trisyllabic verbs which obtain stress in
the antepenultimate syllable. The roots of some trisyllabic verbs are disyllabic
verbs which have stress on the ultimate syllable, for example import, convict,
remind, deceive, and review. According to Levante (1869), when those verbs are
added by affixes –ed or – ing, the stress is still in the same place (p. 91). So, the
words imported, convicting, reminding, deceived, and reviewed still have stress in
the second syllable like the stress in the root words. Levante (1869) also states
that most verbs end in –ish have penultimate stress, for example accomplish,
distinguish, and astonish (p. 91).
3) Verbs with Four Syllables or More
According to Kenworthy (1987), words with four, five, or six syllables
syllable (p. 61). This rule also depends on the suffixes in every word because
different suffixes have different rules of stress placement. Levante (1869) has
previously stated that tetrasyllabic verbs, verbs with four syllables, can have stress
in the antepenultimate syllable if the verbs are terminated by the suffix –ate, for
example abbreviate, accumulate, consolidate, and investigate (p. 97). Another
characteristic of verbs which obtain stress in the antepenultimate syllable is they
end in –ify, for example diversify and exemplify. Furthermore, Giegerich (1992)
also mentions about pre-antepenultimate syllable which is the fourth syllable from
the end (p. 183). Some nouns with four syllables obtain stress on the first syllable
or on the pre-antepenultimate syllables, such as 'application, 'evolution, and
'manufacture. However, the stress for verbs with four syllables usually falls on the
antepenultimate, such as an'ticipate, co'operate, ac'company, and e'liminate (Fu,
1963, 144).
3. Overview of Problems in English Stress Placement
The difficulty of learning English, especially for Indonesian, is mainly
because there is no word stress rule in Indonesian language. Wrong stress
placement will cause misunderstanding since it can refer to another word with
totally different meaning or even different parts of speech. For example, 'record
(N) and re'cord (V). Native speakers will find it difficult to understand non-native
speakers’ utterance if the stress placement is wrong. Meanwhile, it is difficult for
22
for example, the stress falls regularly on certain syllable, to learn word stress rule
in English where stress can fall on any syllable (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992, p. 106).
Such kinds of problems may lead to inappropriate stress placement of English
words.
Another problem is that lack of awareness from the learners about the
importance of stress pattern in English words. According to Kenworthy (1987),
pronouncing English words in slightly different way could help the speaker to
convey meaning so that the addressee knows what the speaker wants to say. Stress
placement rules in English actually can be predicted (McMahon, 2002, p. 121).
However, there are many exceptions which should be understood by learners,
especially in determining stress on borrowed words or loan words because
sometimes they have their own rules of stress placement.
B. Theoretical Framework
This research summarizes many theories related to stress placement in
English words, especially in verbs. In English, uttering words with correct stress
placement is very helpful in order to understand a speech. Moreover, as teacher
candidates, sixth semester students have to be able to utter words correctly,
including avoid wrong stress pattern, because they must teach good English to
their students.
According to Jones (1972), stress can be described as the greater energy
or more than one stressed syllable (p. 245). Giegerich (1992) states that when an
English word has more than one stressed syllable, there will be one ‘main stress’
and the others are ‘subordinated’ (p. 179). McMahon (2002) explains that there
are three characteristics of stressed syllable, namely (1) stressed syllable has
higher pitch, (2) stressed syllable is uttered with longer time, and (3) stressed
syllable is louder than the others. Related to stressed syllables, Giegerich (1992)
states that “secondary stress is stress that is weaker than the main (or ‘primary’)
stress, but stronger than that of an unstressed syllable” (p.179).
According to McMahon (2002), stress placement rule can be predicted (p.
180). Noun words are usually stressed on the penultimate syllable. However, if
the penultimate is light, stress the antepenult. Meanwhile, verbs usually have
stress on the final syllable. If the final syllable is light, stress the penultimate
syllable. For words which have four syllables or more, there is also a rule stated
by Giegerich (1992) about pre-antepenultimate stress which is stress on the fourth
syllable from the end (p.188).
Avery and Erlich (1992) state that most disyllabic verbs have stress on the
second syllable (p. 67). However, verbs which have three syllables have two rules
of stress placement. According to Chomsky and Halle (1968), verbs which end in
a non-tense vowel and followed by single consonant have a penultimate stress (p.
69). The second rule is a trisyllabic verb which contains a long and tense vowel or
diphthongs and ends with more than one consonant can have a final stress.
24
predicted, the researcher keeps consulting the dictionary to make sure the correct
stress placement for every verb (p. 121). The dictionary which is used is Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 5th ed. (Hornby, 1995).
According to Kenworthy (1987), there are five notations which are
commonly used to symbolize the stressed syllable (p. 29). In this research, the
researcher uses notation (') to indicate the primary stress because this research will
focus on the primary stress placement on verbs. Besides, Kenworthy (1987) also
states five rules of English word stress (p.63). This research will focus on Rule 2,
Rule 3, and Rule 5. Rule 2 is about prefixes which are never stressed. It means
that words with prefixes will have stress on the second or third syllable. Rule 3
tells that suffixes are never stressed. It can be inferred that polysyllabic words
tend to have stress on the middle syllable rather than on the first or last syllable.
Meanwhile, Rule 5 is about set of words which have two parts of speech and they
are distinguished by the stress placement.
The researcher categorizes the verbs according to their syllables. Bergman
and Senn (1987) state that there are four types of English verbs, namely action
verbs, linking verbs, helping verbs or auxiliary verbs, and verb phrase (p. 39).
Action verbs, linking verbs and helping verbs are categorized based on the
number of the syllables in every word, whether they have two syllables
(disyllabic), three syllables (trisyllabic), or four or more syllables. Meanwhile,
verb phrases are categorized based on the number of the syllables in main verbs.
one or more helping verbs (p. 46). In this research, the researcher ignores the
26
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the methods of the research. It also explains steps
done to obtain and analyze the data. It consists of six parts, namely research
methods, research setting, research participants, instruments and data gathering,
data analysis technique, and research procedure.
A. Research Method
This research was a qualitative research. According to Ary, Jacobs, and
Razavieh (2002), “Qualitative research focuses on understanding social
phenomena from the perspective of the human participants in the study” (p.22).
Moreover, qualitative research gives depth understanding of the phenomenon
rather than only shows numerical data (Ary et al., 2002, p. 22). In conducting the
research, the researcher did not make any treatment to the participants since the
purpose of qualitative research was to obtain data as natural as possible.
The researcher conducted a content analysis in this research. Ary et al.
(2002) mention that “Content analysis is a technique that enables writers to study
human behavior in an indirect way, though an analysis of their communications”
(p. 472). The documents are usually written documents, namely books, magazines
articles, newspapers, novels, official documents, or pictures. However, songs,
videos, films, gestures, or speeches can also be analyzed. In this research, the
presentation in Sociolinguistics course classes C and D. The data were used to
answer the first research question.
Furthermore, to support the data which were obtained from recording the
students’ presentations, the researcher also conducted an interview. Rummel
(1964) states that, “Certain facts and opinion can, of course, be obtained by mail
or telephone, but some information can only be secured in a face-to-face
interview” (p. 99). The interview was carried out to find out the answer of the
second research question.
B. Research Setting
This research was conducted in Sanata Dharma University. The
populations of this research were students of the sixth semester of English
Language Education Study Program who were joining Sociolinguistic classes in
2011/2012 academic year. The data were obtained in class C on May 21st and 28th
2012 and in class D on May 25th and June 1st 2012. The data analysis itself was
done during June-July 2012. On May 28th and 29th 2012 and on June 12th 2012,
the researcher also conducted the interview to obtain data to answer the second
research question.
C. Research Participants
The participants of this research were the sixth semester students of
English Language Education Study Program who were joining Sociolinguistic
course classes C and D in the 2011/2012 academic year. They were chosen
28
ability. They have obtained many theories of speaking and they have been given
enough practice to speak.
There were four classes of Sociolinguistic in the 2011/2012 academic year
and there were about thirty five students in each class. There were seven groups of
presentation in every class consisting of five to six persons. The researcher
recorded the presentations of Sociolinguistic classes in class C and class D and
simply chose three persons from those two classes to be interviewed. Every
student in both classes has the same possibility of being chosen and they were
considered as equal.
This research was conducted to find out problems which were encountered
by the sixth semester students’ in placing verb stress during their presentations.
To answer the first research question, the researcher analyzed the recordings of
the fourteen groups. Then, the researcher conducted an interview involving six
participants to answer the second research question.
D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique
In order to acquire the data to answer the research questions, the
researcher used four instruments, namely human instrument, documents, and
interview protocol.
1. Human Instrument
An instrument is a tool or a device which is used to obtain the data. In this
research, the researcher was the instrument of the research which was called
instrument because it was the key instrument of the research. According to
Poggenpoel and Myburgh (2003), the key in obtaining the data in a qualitative
research is the researcher. Moreover, the researcher becomes the facilitator of the
researcher. He or she facilitates the communication in order to gather rich data. In
this research, the researcher did not only obtain the data, but also analyzed the
data. By using interview protocol, the researcher interviewed the participants in
order to obtain supporting data. Besides, the researcher was also the one who
constructed the interview protocol and made the transcripts of the recordings of
the students. Hence, human instrument was very important and the researcher, as
human instrument, was the data collector to answer the first and the second
research questions.
2. Documents
The first instruments used by the researcher were documents. In this
research, the documents were the recordings of the students’ presentations. The
recordings were used to make a list of verbs and to decide whether they had
produced correct verb stresses or not. By listening to the recordings, the
researcher could know which syllables were stressed and which were not.
Meanwhile, the researcher also used documents to answer the second research
question. The documents were the transcripts of the interview results.
3. Interview Protocol
The researcher used an interview protocol to obtain more data in order to
30
June involving six participants. There were three points of data which were gained
from the interview, the first was the importance of word stress, especially verb
stress, the second was the experiences in dealing with the practice of placing verb
stress, and the third was the efforts which were made to minimize the problems.
The interview was in the form of open interview. It was chosen because open
interview gives the participants chance to answer the questions freely.
E. Data Analysis Technique
In order to analyze the data, the researcher followed several steps. Firstly,
she listened to the recordings and made the transcripts of the recordings. It was
needed to make the researcher easier to identify verbs which were used by the
participants. After that, the researcher used Audacity 1.3 Beta to analyze the verbs.
It is a free and user-friendly audio editor to record, slice, or mix audio. By using
this software, the researcher could visualize the pronunciation of the verbs and see
the length of each syllable, the volume, and also the pitch. Then, the researcher
classified the errors in a table with the frequency of occurrence and the errors.
From that data, the researcher could draw conclusions about the problems of verb
stress encountered by the students during their presentations.
In order to answer the second research question, the researcher conducted
an interview. There were six participants who were interviewed in order to
acquire the data about the causes of the problems in placing verb stress. The
researcher chose three students from class C and three other from class D of
English Language Education Study Program in the 2011/2012 academic year.
After interviewing, the researcher transcribed the results of the interview. Then,
the transcripts were analyzed and the conclusions of the analysis were reported to
answer the second research question.
F. Research Procedure
Conducting research needed to follow the rule. There were some steps
which should be followed by the researcher in order to create a successful
research. First, the researcher asked permission from the lecturers who supervised
the Sociolinguistics classes since the researcher needed to join the class and
record the presentations. The data which were obtained from the students’
presentations were used to find out the problems on verb stress which are
encountered by the sixth semester students of the English Language Education
Study Program. Second, the researcher conducted an interview with six
participants from Sociolinguistics course classes C and D. There were three
participants from each class. Then the data which had been obtained from the
interview were analyzed in order that the researcher could answer the second
research question, namely the causes of the problems on verb stress which were
encountered by the sixth semester students of the English Language Education
Study Program. After that, the researcher reported the result of the analysis and
32
CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter consists of two parts. In the first part, the researcher answers
the first research question namely students’ problems in placing verb stress
according to the data from the recording of the students’ presentations.
Meanwhile, the second research question, which asks about the causes of the
problems in placing verb stress, is answered in the second part. The data to answer
the second question are obtained from the interview.
A. Students’ Problems in Placing Verb Stress
This research aimed at finding the answer to the problems in placing stress
in verbs which were encountered by the sixth semester students of the English
Language Education Study Program and the causes of the problems. The
participants of this research were the sixth semester students who joined
Sociolinguistics course classes C and D. The researcher recorded the presentations
of the participants in each class.
The recordings were transcribed so that the researcher could examine the
verbs which were uttered by the students easier. After that, the researcher used
Audacity 1.3 Beta to recheck the stress placement of the verbs and compared the
stress which was given by the students for each verb to stress placement in Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 5th ed. (Hornby, 1995). The results of the
After all verbs were listed, the researcher divided them into three
categories, namely disyllabic verbs, trisyllabic verbs, and verbs with four syllables
or more. The researcher then made lists of verbs which were uttered with wrong
stress placements. In this part, the researcher presented the summary of the data of
each class and group.
Table 4.1: Summary of the Data
C
Disyllabic Trisyllabic Tetrasyllabic or
more
times during the presentations of the sixth semester students in Sociolinguistics
course classes C and D, while trisyllabic verbs only occurred 178 times. Verbs
which had four syllables or more occurred 36 times. It showed that disyllabic
verbs were more frequently uttered than trisyllabic verbs or verbs with four
34
In class C disyllabic verbs occurred 192 times with 35 times of wrong
occurrences. It meant that there was one error every six words uttered.
Meanwhile, trisyllabic verbs only occurred 81 times with 31 wrong occurrences.
There was one error in uttering the verb in every two or three trisyllabic verbs.
Verbs with four syllables or more occurred twelve times in class C with five
wrong occurrences.
In class D, there were 218 disyllabic verbs which were uttered by the
students. The errors of placing stress only occurred eighteen times. It was a
smaller number comparing to errors in disyllabic verbs in class C. There was only
one error in every twelve verbs. Trisyllabic words were uttered 97 times and the
students uttered 29 of them with inappropriate stress placement. Meanwhile, for
verbs with four syllables or more, there were sixteen errors among 24 verbs
uttered. There were only eight verbs uttered correctly.
The total errors for disyllabic verbs in class C and class D were 53 errors
among 410 verbs. It meant that there was one error in every nine disyllabic verbs
uttered by the students. Trisyllabic verbs occurred 178 times and the students
encountered 60 errors. There was one error in every three trisyllabic verbs. Verbs
with four syllables or more were uttered fewest than the other two kinds of verbs.
There were only 36 verbs in this category and 21 errors. The errors were more
than half of the total verbs which were uttered.
1. Disyllabic Verbs
Some disyllabic words could have different meaning when the speakers
placement which was utt
uttered by a student during his presentation. The w
he penultimate syllable. If the stress is given on th
to the word defer which has a completely different
: The Speaker’s Pronunciation on the Word ‘differ’
1 2
puts the stress on the able (Inappropriate).
The speaker puts the stress on the penultimate syllable (Appropriate).
/dɪ'f (r)/ /'dɪf (r)/
n that in the first graph of Figure 4.1, the speaker
stress on the ultimate syllable, so it became /dɪ'f
y something or to postpone. Meanwhile, accord
ation, the word that he had to mention was differ,
/, which in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Diction
“to be not the same as somebody/something
as the appropriate stress placement for the word
rgy on uttering the penultimate syllable and less
He spoke louder and with higher pitch to create str
Meanwhile, it could be seen clearly that in the f
energy on the ultimate syllable.
