Predicting Primary Stress of English Words

This study aims to equip Asian college students with information on how to predict primary stress of English words. Six principles were found to influence English word stress patterns, including Kreidler's synthesis based on lexical category, the pre-suffix stress rule, Dickerson's V/VC weak stress rule, the special endings rule, the word origin, and the word root stress rule. An experimental study was conducted to see if teaching these principles is effective. A pretest and a posttest of these principles were developed. 184 college students were asked to participate in the pretest, which required them to mark the primary stress of English words. After receiving one hour of instruction in these principles, the participants took a posttest similar to the pretest. The participants' answers were 57% correct in the pretest and 67% correct in the posttest. A subsequent t-test indicates a significant difference between the pretest and the posttest scores (p＜.001). These findings suggest that one hour of instruction is effective and also point out the need to incorporate the teaching of word stress patterns into the curriculum.

並列關鍵字

English word stress ； experimental study ； syllable structure ； word root ； stress-shifting suffix ； lexical category ； word origin

國際替代計量

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