International Journal of Education and Pedagogy (IJEAP) eISSN: 2682-8464 [Vol. 4 No. 2 June 2022]
Journal website: http://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijeap
STRESS PERFORMANCE OF POLYSYLLABIC ENGLISH WORDS BY ENGLISH MAJOR VIETNAMESE STUDENTS AT DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES,
VIETNAM
Ho Thi Kieu Oanh1*
1 English Faculty, University of Foreign Language Studies, Danang, VIETNAM
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Article Information:
Article history:
Received date : 11 April 2022 Revised date : 11 June 2022 Accepted date : 21 June 2022 Published date : 27 June 2022
To cite this document:
Oanh, H. T. K. (2022).STRESS
PERFORMANCE OF POLYSYLLABIC ENGLISH WORDS BY ENGLISH MAJOR VIETNAMESE STUDENTS AT DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES, VIETNAM.
International Journal of Education and Pedagogy, 4(2), 94-108.
Abstract: When the demand for international communication increases during the global integration in which English is regarded as an international language;
learning, memorizing and pronouncing English words accurately is an essential requirement. However, one of the greatest problems for Vietnamese learners of English is that they cannot grasp the word stress rules in English which could cause their stress errors/mistakes or problems. Hence, this paper studies the performance of stress of 60 polysyllabic simple and complex English words of various parts of speech such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs given in the stress survey sheet by 60 first-year English major Vietnamese students, Danang University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam. Questionnaire is also used for collecting the additional information from these students.
The findings show that when the number of syllables in polysyllabic English words surges, the number of the students’ stress errors/mistakes and problems increases accordingly due to various reasons. Some implications have hereby been made to help these students improve their performance of English word stress right at the earlier phase of their tertiary education so that they could perform the stress of multi-syllabic English words properly and communicate in English better.
Keywords: stress performance, polysyllabic English words, English major Vietnamese students, Danang University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam.
1. Introduction
Most Vietnamese learners of English have encountered many kinds of English words’ stress errors/mistakes and problems especially for the polysyllabic simple and complex words because of the difference in phonetic features of words in English and Vietnamese. This could hinder their communication in English. As a result, this paper describes, analyzes the performance of stress of these English words belonging to various parts of speech such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs which have from 2 to 6 syllables, performed by 60 English major Vietnamese students, Danang University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam in order to help them perform stress better and communicate in English more confidently.
2. Literature Review
There have been a lot of studies abroad on English learners’ word stress errors. Ronaldi et al (2019) when studying the stress errors made by 19 learners of English at the University of Bengkulu show that almost all students put stress on the first syllable. Nevertheless, the limited number of the participants in the study has not ensured the study validity. Ibrahim and Fadi (2019)’s research on the performance of English word stress by 30 students including 15 first-year students and 15 fourth-year students shows that the former has made more stress errors than the latter and the stress errors are more committed on compound adjectives while fewer students make errors on nouns of two syllables which have stress on the second syllable. The most common cause is students’ lack of practice whereas the least is learners’ motivation. Yet, students’ having 10 minutes to prepare for their reading English words has lost their natural pronunciation of English words.
Sang (2020) examines stress errors on 28 polysyllabic English verbs of 3 to 4 syllables, committed by 30 first-year, 30 second-year, 30 third-year, 10 fourth-year English major Vietnamese students, at Danang University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam and their causes. The findings reveal that students especially the first-year ones have faced more difficulties in their performance of stress for which the major cause is the students’ lack of knowledge of stress rules in English. Still, this study could not be representative for the English words of the main parts of speech with the larger number of syllables because of the limited number of only 28 English verbs having from merely 3 to 4 syllables.
In addition, Trang (2020) researches the common stress errors in English words by 100 non-English major students of high-quality education, through the questionnaire and the interview of 3 Vietnamese lecturers of English teaching at the University of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University. The research uncovers that most of the students encounter stress difficulties and errors for the word groups ending in -cy, -phy, -gy, -ic and those having 3 syllables and compound words as well. Some solutions for the problems have also been put forward.
Different from the above studies, this paper investigates the stress performance of polysyllabic simple and complex English words having from 2 to 6 syllables belonging to different parts of speech namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to help the students of English in general and Vietnamese students of English improve their English pronunciation and communication.
3. Theoretical Background
3.1 Syllables and Syllable Structure
According to Crystal (2008), syllable is a speech sound unit consisting of one or many segments and could form words. A syllable includes 3 elements: onset, peak/nucleus and coda. Vowel often works as the nucleus of a syllable and sonorant. In the following words, the onset is bold and the other components are underlined: read /ri:d/ , flop /flQp/, strap /str&p/.
3.2 Stress Levels of English Words
There are two common stress levels of English words (Roach, 1988):
- Primary stress: is the strongest stress on a certain syllable in a polysyllabic word. For example, in the word around /@"raUnd/, the primary stress belongs to the second syllable /"raUnd/ with the mark " over and right before it.
- Secondary stress: is not as strong as the main stress but stronger than the stress of other syllables in a multi-syllabic word. In the word anthropology /! &nTr@"pQl@Ùi/, the secondary stress falls on the first syllable /! &n/ with the mark ! under and right before it.
3.3 Stress Rules of English Words
The stress position of polysyllabic English words varies according to the number of syllables and affixes. This could bring about many problems to learners of English as a foreign language. According to Roach (1988) and O’ Connor (1999), the placement of stress in English words depends on:
- the morphological structure of words: simple words (without affix), complex words (with one or more affix: prefix before the root morpheme or stem, suffix after the root morpheme or stem) or compound words.
- the part of speech of words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs … - the number of syllables in a word.
- the phonological structure of the syllables in a word.
3.3.1 Stress Rules of Simple Words
a. Stress Rules of Simple Words with Two Syllables
- Stress in Simple Verbs with Two Syllables: If the second syllable of a verb contains a long vowel or a diphthong or ends with many consonants, the syllable often receives stress: assort /@"sO:t/, apply /@"plaI/, attract /@"tr&kt/. Nonetheless, if there is the diphthong /@U/ in the second syllable, that syllable is not stressed: borrow /"bQr@U/, follow /"fQl@U/. If the second syllable has a short vowel and ends with or without a consonant, the first syllable could receive stress: open /"@Up@n/, envy /"envi/.
- Stress in Simple Adjectives with Two Syllables: The stress rule for simple adjectives with two syllables is the same as that for two syllable simple verbs: divine /dI"vaIn/, correct /k@"rekt/, unique /jU"ni:k/, even /"i:v!n/; exception: honest /"QnIst/, perfect /"p3:fIkt/.
- Stress in Simple Nouns with Two Syllables: The stress rule is similar to that for 2- syllable simple verbs and adjectives: money /"mVni/, product /"prQdVkt/, balloon /b@"lu:n/.
- Stress in Simple Adverbs with Two Syllables: The stress rule is the same as that for 2- syllable simple verbs and adjectives: seldom /"seld@m/, again /@"geIn/.
b. Stress Rules of Simple Words with Three Syllables - Stress in Simple Verbs with Three Syllables
+ If the final syllable contains a short vowel and ends with or without a consonant, that syllable does not receive stress but the preceding syllable: encounter /IN"kaUnt@/, determine /dI"t3:mIn/.
+ If the terminal syllable contains a vowel /@/, /I/, the middle syllable receives the primary stress: consider /k@n"sId@r/, remember /rI"memb@r/, inhabit /In"h&bIt/.
+ If the final syllable contains a long vowel or a diphthong or ends with many consonants, the syllable often receives the main stress: resurrect /!rez@"rekt/; exception: If the final syllable contains a diphthong with the ending -ise, that syllable is not often stressed but the first syllable: exercise /"eks@saIz/, compromise /’kQmpr@maIz/.
- Stress in Simple Nouns with Three Syllables
+ If the terminal syllable contains a short vowel or /@U/, that syllable is not often stressed;
and if there is a long vowel or a diphthong in the preceding syllable or if it ends with many consonants, this middle syllable often receives stress: mimosa /mI"m@Uz@/, potato /p@"teIt@U/, disaster /dI"za:st@/.
+ If a short vowel is included in the middle and final syllable, these two syllables are not stressed but the first one: quantity /"kwQntIti/, custody /"kVst@di/.
+ In a 3-syllable simple noun, if the terminal syllable contains a long vowel or a diphthong and/or ends with many consonants; the first syllable often receives stress: intellect /"IntIlekt/, marigold /"m&rIg@Uld/, alkali /"&lk@laI/, absolute /"&bs@lu:t/.
- Stress in Simple Adjectives with Three Syllables
The stress rule is the same as that for 3-syllable simple nouns: opportune /"Qp@tju:n/, insolent /"Ins@l@nt/, anthropoid /"&nTr@pOId/.
c. Stress Rules of Simple Words with Four Syllables
+ The main stress often falls on the first syllable for simple words of four syllables ending with: -ary: military /"mIlIt@ri/, ngoại lệ: centenary /sen"ti:n@ri/.
+ The main stress often falls on the ending of the simple words with: - ography: ge"ography, -ology: bi"ology
d. Stress Rules of Simple Words with Five Syllables
+ The main stress often belongs to the ending of the simple words ending with: -ography:
!bibli"ography, - ology: semi"ology.
+ The main stress often falls on the syllable right before the ending of the simple words with:
-ium:,alu"minium.
3.3.2 Stress Rules of Complex Words
According to Roach (1988), complex words are composed of a root/stem and an affix (either prefix before the root/stem or suffix after it): unpleasant: un - pleasant, goodness: good -ness. An affix often has one of the three following influences on the main stress of a multi-syllabic complex English words:
- Affix receives the main word stress: semicircle /"semIs@kl! /, personality /!p3: s@"n&lItI/.
- Affix does not change the main stress of the root/stem: pleasant /"plezn!t/, unpleasant /Vn"plezn!t/, market /"mA:kIt/, marketing /"mA:kItIN/.
- The main word stress is still on the root, not on the affix but is shifted to another syllable of the root: magnet/"m&gn@t/, magnetic /m&g"netIk/.
a. Affix not Changing the Stress of Root/Stem of Complex English Words - Prefix
Most prefixes like dis-, re-, im-, ex-, in … normally do not change the stress of the root/stem of complex words and do not receive the main stress (Roach, 1988): dis"cover, re"write, im"possible, ex"port, !inex"pensive.
- Suffix
According to Roach (1988), Hornby (2015); when the root or the stem of a complex English word is added with the following suffixes, its main stress remains unchanged though its meaning and part of speech could change or not:
-ment: a"chieve (v.), a"chievement (n.); e"stablish (v.), e"stablishment (n.) -ship: "leader (n.), "leadership (n.); re"lation (n.), re"lationship (n.) -ness: sad (adj.), "sadness (n.); "lucky (adj.), "luckiness (n.)
-let: book (n.),"booklet (n.); star (n..),"starlet (n.) -ory: !circumlo"cution (n.), !circumlo"cutory (adj.) …
b. Affix Changing Stress of Root/Stem of Complex English Words Suffix
Nearly all suffixes change the stress, part of speech and meaning of the root/stem of complex English words.
+ Making stress depending on the ending of complex English words having from 2 syllables or more
b.1. Making main stress on the syllable right before the word’s ending:
-ani: !Azerbai"jan (n.), !Azer"baijani (adj.); excep: ! !Paki"stan (n.), !Paki"stani (adj.) -ian: "Brunei (n.), Bru"neian (adj.); Christ (n.), "Christian (adj.)
-ial: "office (n.), o"fficial (adj.);"artifice (n.), !arti"ficial (adj.)
-ically:"radical (adj.); "radically (adv.); !eco"nomical (adj.) !eco"nomically (adv.) -ify: clear (adj.),"clarify (v.); i"dentity (n.), i"dentify (v.)
-ious: "luxury (n.), lu"xurious (adj.); "injury (n.), in"jurious (adj.) …
b.2. Making main stress on the third syllable from the ending of words with:
-ator: "elevate (v.), "elevator (n.); "escalate (v.), "escalator (n.)
-cy: "private (adj.),"privacy (n.); exception: "accurate (adj.),"accuracy (n.) -ise, ize: "advert (n.), "advertise (v.); modern (adj.), "modernize (v.) … b.3. Making main stress on the syllable of the words’ ending (suffix)
- ade: "lemon (n.), !lemo"nade (n.);
-ee: absent (adj.), !absen"tee (n..); exception: co"mmittee (n.), em"ployee (n.)
-ental: "fundament (n.),!funda"mental (adj.);en"vironment (n.)en!viron"mental (adj.) -itis: a"ppendix/a"ppendice (n.), a!ppendi"citis (n.)
-ival: sur"vive (v.), sur"vival (n.); "adjective (n.), !adjec"tival (adj.) …
3.4 English Word Stress Errors and Causes
Errors reveal the learners’ lack of knowledge and occur when learners do not follow rules (Ellis,1992). Vietnamese students’ errors of English word stress involve misplacing stress, lacking or sparing stress, or even not marking/making stress (An, 2010; Sang, 2020). These kinds of English word stress errors in particular and errors in English language in general could be caused by the negative transference from learners’ mother tongue (Interlingual Errors); the learners’ shortage of knowledge of the target language (Intralingual Errors) related to Overgeneralization, Incomplete Application of Rules, Exploiting Redundancy;Induced Errors (Richard, 1992) and Compound Errors due to two or more of the above causes (Oanh, 2002).
4. Research Methodology 4.1 Research Approach
The research approach is quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative approach is to find out the frequency of English word stress performance by the 4 classes of first-year English major Vietnamese students of Danang University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam. Besides, the qualitative approach is to describe, analyze the causes, effects of this performance on these students’ learning English and hereby some solutions could be put forward.
4.2 Subjects and Sample Population
The subjects participating in the survey are 60 first-year English-major Vietnamese students of 4 classes chosen on a systematic random sample basis. They have additionally learnt English word stress rules from their teacher in the stress lesson of the 30-period English Phonetics and Phonology module in the second semester of their first academic schoolyear. Moreover, 60 simple and complex English words of 2 to 6 syllables for the students to mark stress within 60 minutes (1 minute per word) have been used as the research samples.
5. Findings and Discussion
Table 5.1 shows that when the number of syllables in an English word increases from N=2 to N=4, the number of stress misplacement errors rockets significantly from N=5 to N=254 and the number of errors per word also goes up remarkably from N’=2 to N’=11; the number of stress lacking or sparing errors soars steeply from N=0 to N=113 and the number of errors per word also climbs from N’=0 to N’=5; the number of no stress performance problems surges tremendously from N=4 to N=73 and the number of stress problems per word rises slightly from N’=2 to N’=3.
5.1 Stress Misplacement Errors and Stress Lacking/Sparing Errors
• Stress misplacement errors and stress lacking/sparing errors for 2-syllable simple English words
- For 2-syllable words: Table 5.1 reveals that the number of stress errors caused by stress misplacement is N=5 (# N’=2 errors/per word): coch"clea instead of "cochclea (due to lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress and having no stress
exercise in the English Phonetics and Phonology textbook for students to practice). Meanwhile, the errors from stress lacking/sparing is N= 0 (# N’= 0 error/per word).
Table 5.1:English Polysyllabic Word Stress Performance
by English Major Students, Danang University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam Problems Students’ English Polysyllabic Word Stress Performance
Stress errors No stress
performance Stress misplacement Stress lacking/sparing
Syllable number
N N’ N N’ N N’
2 5 5/2 words
# 2
0 0/2 words
# 0
4 4/2 words
= 2 3 218 218/21 words
# 10
96 96/21 words
# 4
70 70/21 words
# 3 4 254 254/22 words
# 11
113 113/22 words
# 5
73 73/22 words
#3 5 103 103/10 words
# 10
192 192/10 words
# 19
47 47/10 words
# 4 6 64 64/ 5 words
# 13
102 102/5 words
# 20
24 24/5 words
# 5
* N: Number of stress errors/problems made/encountered by students of 4 English-major Vietnamese classes
* N’: Number of stress errors/problems made /encountered per word by students of 4 English-major Vietnamese classes
• Stress misplacement errors and stress lacking/sparing errors for 3-syllable English words
The number of errors for 3-syllable English words constitutes N=218 (# N’=10 errors/per word) caused by stress misplacement, N=96 (# N’= 4 errors/per word) bystress lacking/sparing.
- For 3-syllable simple word: Out of 14 stress misplacement errors (as the highest number) for the 3-syllable simple verbs !"compromise, there are 10 errors for which students put stress on the second syllable com"promise, 1 error for which students mark stress on the third syllable compro"mise, 1 error for which students mark the main stress on the second syllable and the secondary stress on the first syllable !com"promise (due to students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress and having no stress exercise in the English Phonetics and Phonology textbook for students to practice), 2 errors due to students’ misplacing the main stress on the first syllable and the secondary stress on the third syllable "compro"mise (because of students’
lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress, students having applied redundantly the stress rule). Furthermore, students’ errors may be due to having no stress exercise in the textbook for students to practice.
- For 3-syllable complex word: From 40 errors (as the highest number) for the 3-syllable complex verbs !ascer"tain (with the prefix as- before the root adjective cer"tain), there are up to 23 errors because students put the primary stress on the third syllable but they are lacking the subsidiary stress on the first sylllable ascer"tain (because of students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multisyllabic English word stress, students having applied the stress rules incompletely and encountered the negative transference from their Vietnamese mother tongue: there is no main or secondary stress in Vietnamese words but only a single tone for each Vietnamese word; or because of having no stress exercise in the textbook for students to practice). In addition, there are 11 errors for which the students stress the second syllable as"certain (students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress and copying over-generally the stress pattern from the root adjective "certain). Also,the students’ errors may be due to having no stress exercise in the textbook for students to practice. Additionally, there are 5 errors in which the students misplace the main stress on the second syllable and the secondary stress on the first one !as"certain, 1 error for which the students stress the first syllable "ascertain (for students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress or/and having no stress exercise in the textbook for them to practice).
• Stress misplacement errors and stress lacking/sparing errors for 4-syllable English words
The number of errors for 4-syllable English words makes up N=254 (# N’=11 errors/per word) caused by stress misplacement, N=113 (# N’= 5 errors/per word) bystress lacking/sparing.
- For 4-syllable complex word: The highest number of errors (N=40) falls on the complex adjective !adjec"tival (with the suffix -ival after the root noun "adjective). Out of the number, there are 24 errors because the students put the primary stress on the third syllable and do not put the secondary stress on the first one adjec"tival (because of students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multisyllabic English word stress, students having applied the stress rules incompletely and encountered the negative transference from their Vietnamese mother tongue:
students focusing on only a single stress of the English word; or because of having no stress exercise in the textbook for students to practice). Besides, 11 errors occur because the students stress the second syllable a"djectival due to the students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multisyllabic English word stress or/and having no stress exercise in the textbook for them to practice.
Moreover, the students have committed 4 errors due to their stressing the first syllable "adjectival for students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress, they overgeneralize the stress pattern of the root noun "adjective and impose it on the complex adjective "adjectival or/and having no stress exercise in the textbook for them to practice. There is 1 additional error because the students misplace the main stress on the second syllable and the subsidiary stress on the first syllable !a"djectival maybe because of students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multisyllabic English word stress or/and having no stress exercise in the textbook for them to practice.
Table 5.1 also indicates that when the number of syllables in an English word increases from N=5 to N=6, the number of stress misplacement errors decreases tremendously from N=103 to N=64 while the number of errors per word climbs slightly from N’=10 to N’=13; the number of stress lacking or sparing errors goes down steeply from N=192 to N=102 whereas the number of errors per word surges insignificantly from N’=19 to N’=20; the number of no stress performance problems abates gradually from N=47 to N=24 but the number of stress problems per word jumps slowly from N’=4 to N’=5.
• Stress misplacement errors and stress lacking/sparing errors for 5-syllable English words
- For 5-syllable complex word: the highest number of errors (N=44) rests on the complex adjective !Azer"baijani (with the suffix -i in the ending -ani) after the root noun Azerbai"jan. In this case, there are up to 22 errors because of students’ mainly stressing the third syllable but lacking the secondary stress on the first syllable Azer"baijani (because of students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multisyllabic English word stress, students having applied the stress rules incompletely and encountered the negative transference from their Vietnamese mother tongue:
students focusing on only a single stress of the English word; or because of having no stress exercise in the textbook for students to practice). Also, the students have made 8 errors because they put the primary stress on the fourth syllable and the subsidiary stress on the first one !Azerbai"jani (for students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multisyllabic English word stress, they overgeneralize the stress pattern from the root noun !Azerbai"jan and impose it on the complex adjective !Azerbai"jani or/and having no stress exercise in the textbook for them to practice). What’s more, 7 errors occur as the students stress the fourth syllable Azerbai"jani, 3 errors for their mainly stressing the fourth syllable and secondarily stressing the second syllable A!zerbai"jani, 2 errors for their stressing the second syllable A"zerbaijani, 1 error for their stressing the first syllable
"Azerbaijani, 1 error for their stressing the fifth syllable Azerbaija"ni (for students’ lacking the
knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress, or/and having no stress exercise in the textbook for them to practice).
• Stress misplacement errors and stress lacking/sparing errors for 6-syllable English words - For 6-syllable complex word: the highest number of errors (N=38) belongs to the complex adjective
!circumlo"cutory (with the suffix -ory behind the root noun !circumlo"cution). In this case, there are up to 14 errors since the students place the main stress on the fourth syllable but no secondary stress on the first syllable circumlo"cutory (because of students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress, students having applied the stress rules incompletely and encountered the negative transference from their Vietnamese mother tongue: students focusing on only a single stress of the English word; or because of having no stress exercise in the textbook for students to practice). Moreover, 9 errors are committed because the students mainly stress the third syllable and secondarily stress the first syllable !circum"locutory, 7 errors for the third syllable stress circum"locutory, 3 errors for the first syllable stress "circumlocutory, 1 errors for the second syllable stress cir"cumlocutory, 1 error for the fifth syllable stress circumlocu"tory due to students’
lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi-syllabic English word stress or/and having no stress exercise in the textbook for them to practice. Furthermore, there are 3 errors as the
!circum"locu!tory because of students’ lacking the knowledge of or forgetting the rules of the multi- syllabic English word stress, students having applied redundantly the stress rule. Furthermore, students’ errors may be due to having no stress exercise in the textbook for the students to practice.
5.2 No stress performance
Table 5.1 illustrates that after the students have learned in details the stress patterns of English words, the number of no stress performance cases ranges from N= 4 to N= 73 and the number of no stress performance cases per word climbs slightly from N’ = 2 đến N’ = 5 when the number of syllables in a word exacerbates from 2 to 6. This result is in line with Ronaldi’s and some other researcher’s remarks (2019) on the English word stress errors by Bengkulu University students that the students have committed errors or met problems for giving too many main stresses to several syllables in a word and even no stress performance.
* No stress performance for 3-syllable simple English words
Out of 2 simple English words of 3 syllables, there are 6 cases where students give no stress performance for the verb compromise (instead of "compromise), the noun penalty (instead of
"penalty).
* No stress performance for 3-syllable complex English words
As for 19 complex English words of 3-syllables, there are up to 10 cases of no stress performance for the noun triadlet (with the suffix -let after the root noun triad) instead of "triadlet, 9 cases for the complex adjective Bruneian (with the suffix -ian after the root noun "Brunei) instead of Bru"neian.
* No stress performance for 4-syllable complex English words
Out of 22 complex English words of 4 syllables, there are 10 cases (as the highest number) of no stress performance for the complex adjective sacrilegious (with the suffix -ious after the root noun
"sacrilege) instead of !sacri"legious.
* No stress performance for 5-syllable complex English words
From 10 complex English words of 5 syllables, there are 10 cases of no stress performance for the complex adjective Azerbaijani (with the suffix -ani after the root noun !Azerbai"jan) instead of
!Azer"baijani.
* No stress performance for 6-syllable complex English words
Out of 5 complex English words of 6 syllables, there are 7 cases of no stress performance for the complex adjective ambassadorial instead of am!bassa"dorial (with the suffix -ial after the root noun am"bassador).
These findings uncover that after the students have additionally learnt in detail the stress patterns of multisyllabic English words they could proactively perform the stress of a large number of 60 words with nearly half this total number of new words of 27 words/60 words within the average time of 1 minute/per word despite students’ errors of stress misplacement, stress lacking or sparing and even no stress performance problem for various causes such as the negative transference from learners’
mother tongue (Interlingual Errors); the learners’ shortage of knowledge of the target language (Intralingual Errors) related to Overgeneralization, Incomplete Application of Rules, Exploiting Redundancy;Induced Errors as affirmed by Richard (1992) and Compound Errors due to two or more of the above causes like the causes of errors in general confirmed by Oanh (2002) when students learn English as a foreign language. These causes could be generalized as subjective causes and objective causes which could be described below.
5.3 Causes of Errors and Difficulties
5.3.1 Subjective Cause: Stress errors or difficulties could come from students’ forgetting the word stress rule, its exceptions, their unawareness of stress practice and their mother tongue’s negative transference. Among these causes, their unawareness of stress practice counts. In fact, most Vietnamese learners of English pay more attention to those skills they think more important like Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing but the stress of English words. Additionally, the learners’
first language has certain effects on their learning a foreign language (Veronica, 2017), (Hughes and Trudgill, 1996). Truly, Vietnamese words are monosyllabic without stress but single tone for each word of one syllable while English words are polysyllabic with two or three stresses in a word of many syllables. Such differences between Vietnamese and English may cause obstacles for Vietnamese learners of English when they learn how to pronounce polysyllabic words with stress in English.
5.3.2 Objective Cause:
a. Textbook Drawbacks: There is not a detailed content on the stress patterns of the English words especially the multisyllabic words in the English Phonetics and Phonology textbook. Stress patterns and their functions are introduced very briefly. Besides, there is no drill or exercise on English word stress in the textbook for students to practice and no extra exercise outside the textbook for them to do at home to consolidate their knowledge of stress.
b. Shortage of Material Source, Equipment to Support Students’ Stress Practice: The number of drill books on English word stress, records and audio or video cassette recorders in the University library is still limited and the students may find difficult to do further stress practice outside class.
c. Covid 19 Pandemics: Covid 19 Pandemics has caused negative effects on the students’ learning in general and their stress learning in particular. Therefore, they especially those in the far-away areas cannot always go to their university for the off-line but online learning and this could limit their access to the supporting materials from the library for their further stress practice. This could make the students passive and not ready to seek for these extra materials.
5.4 Solutions
5.4.1 Subjective Solutions:
There are normally two types of stress in English words: the primary stress and secondary stress distributed according to certain rules to ensure the rhythm and pitch (or musical accent) of the multisyllabic English words. As a result, the students should have the awareness to memorize these stress rules for words of different parts of speech and the exceptional cases to minimize the risk of stress errors and difficulty. In this way, the students could reduce and even avoid the negative transference from their Vietnamese mother tongue in performing the word stress in English which has caused lots of problems for them and hard to change (Hahn, 2004).
In addition, the students should realize the importance of stress in conveying and perceiving the right information expressed by word as intended. This has been affirmed in Liu (2017)’s research that Mandarin students of English has made many stress errors since they do not pay attention to the English word stress but to the pass of the exam.
5.4.2 Objective Solutions:
a. Textbooks: The textbook of English Phonetics and Phonology should be supplemented with the detailed content of English word stress patterns and exercises so that the students could practice in class and outside class in order to consolidate their knowledge. This has been affirmed by Ibrahim and Fadi (2019) that the shortage of practice is the most common cause of stress errors for English words committed by Zarqa University students.
b. Material Source, Equipment to Support Students’ Stress Practice: The University library should increase the stress supporting material source, equipment and simplify the lending procedure to facilitate students’ stress practice at the University or at home.
c. Covid 19 Pandemics: For Covid 19 pandemic negative effects, the teacher could recommend the students some web sites with some apps on stress drills/exercises to help them have more chance to practice. This could form the students’ proactive habit in learning and the teacher merely works as a facilitator to assist them on learner-centered basis.
d. Stress Exercise Types:
• Exercise Type 1: Syllables and Stress
The teacher could give their students some English words, analyze their syllable number and ask the students to locate the stress and pronounce them. This could help the students get to know how to identify the number of syllables and locate the word stress to pronounce the English words more correctly.
• Exercise Type 2: A Different Word Stress Pattern
The teacher could ask their students to find out the stress pattern of a word which is different from that of the other given words. The students are then asked to listen to the audio or video cassette recorder to check the answer and pronounce along.
• Exercise Type 3: Various Word Stress Patterns
The teachers could ask their students to put the English words of the right stress into the given columns and then ask their students to listen to the audio or video cassette recorder, repeat and check their answer together. In this way, the students could themselves identify the stress patterns of English words of different parts of speech and perform the word stress better.
• Exercise Type 4: Different Stress Patterns of 2-syllable Words of the Same Spelling
The teacher could give the 2 different stress patterns for the words of two different parts of speech (nouns and verbs; adjectives and verbs) then ask their students to pronounce these words, check their pronunciation each other and finally the teacher make correction and analyze the answer. This could help the students reduce or even avoid their stress errors or mistakes due to their negligence when performing the stress of the two words having the same spelling but belonging to 2 dissimilar parts of speech with the two distinctive stress patterns.
6. Conclusion
In conclusion, this article has described and analyzed some stress rules of the polysyllabic simple and complex English words and their exceptions. More importantly, it has made the detailed stress error analysis on the simple and complex polysyllabic English words which could help Vietnamese students of English in general and the English major Vietnamese students at Danang University of Foreign Language Studies, Vietnam limit the risk of errors or mistakes when pronouncing, using English words in communication.
References In English
An, T. N. (2010). An Analysis on Word Stress Errors Commonly Made by 12th Grade Students in Le Quy Don High School and Some Solutions. MA thesis, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Crystal, D. A. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Ellis, R. (1992). Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon.
Hahn, L. (2004). Primary Stress and Intelligibility: Research to Motivate the Teaching of Suprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 201–223.
Hornby, A. S. (2015). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hughes G. A. & Trudgill P. (1996). Accents and Dialects of English (3rd ed.). London: Edward Arnold.
Ibrahim F. H. & Fadi M. A. (2019). The Use of Stress in English among Undergraduate Students at Zarqa University. Academic Research International, 10(3), 43-54.
Liu, D. (2017). The Acquisition of English Word Stress by Mandarin EFL Learners. English Language Teaching, 10(12), 196- 201.
Oanh, Ho Thi Kieu (2002). Making Offers in English and Analysis of Pragmatic Errors Committed by Vietnamese Learners of English. M.A. Thesis, Hanoi University of Foreign Language Studies.
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Richards, J. C. (1992). Error Analysis - Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. Singapore: Longman Singapore Publishers (Pte.) Ltd.
Roach, P. (1988). English Phonetics and Phonology. A Practical Course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ronaldi S. et al. (2019). An Analysis of English Speaking Syllable Words Stress Errors by The Students of English Education Study Program of University of Bengkulu. Journal of English Education and Teaching, 3(1), 106-115.
Sang, H. T. M. (2020). A Study of Stress Errors in Pronouncing English Polysyllabic Verbs by English Major Students at University of Foreign Language Studies. Graduation Paper, The University of Da Nang.
Veronica, S. (2017). An Analysis on English Syllable Stress Placement of the English Study Programs Students. Bengkulu: University of Bengkulu.
In Vietnamese
Trang, N. T. H. (2020). Lỗi trọng âm trong tiếng Anh thường gặp của sinh viên không chuyên hệ chất lượng cao, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội. Tạp chí Ngôn ngữ và Đời sống, 3(295), 70-74.