Vowel Quality and Direction of Stress Shift in a Predictive Model Explaining the Varying Impact of Misplaced Word Stress: Evidence From English

Abstract

The use of suprasegmental cues to word stress occurs across many languages. Nevertheless, L1 English listeners' pay little attention to suprasegmental word stress cues and evidence shows that segmental cues are more important to L1 English listeners in how words are identified in speech. L1 English listeners assume strong syllables with full vowels mark the beginning of a new word, attempting alternative resegmentations only when this heuristic fails to identify a viable word string. English word stress errors have been shown to severely disrupt processing for both L1 and L2 listeners, but not all word stress errors are equally damaging. Vowel quality and direction of stress shift are thought to be predictors of the intelligibility of non-standard stress pronunciations—but most research so far on this topic has been limited to two-syllable words. The current study uses auditory lexical decision and delayed word identification tasks to test a hypothesized English Word Stress Error Gravity Hierarchy for words of two to five syllables. Results indicate that English word stress errors affect intelligibility most when they introduce concomitant vowel errors, an effect that is somewhat mediated by the direction of stress shift. As a consequence, the relative intelligibility impact of any particular lexical stress error can be predicted by the Hierarchy for both L1 and L2 English listeners. These findings have implications for L1 and L2 English pronunciation research and teaching. For research, our results demonstrate that varied findings about loss of intelligibility are connected to vowel quality changes of word stress errors and that these factors must be accounted for in intelligibility research. For teaching, the results indicate that not all word stress errors are equally important, and that only word stress errors that affect vowel quality should be prioritized.

What English language in‐service teachers think, know, and do about writing instruction: Iranian teachers' stated attitudes vs. actual practice

“…Given that the focus of this study was to investigate the relationships among the four skills, the time allocated to vocabulary was given to speaking and reading skills. Moreover, because pronunciation has a crucial role in identifying word boundaries in connected speech (Cross, 2009) and in enhancing intelligibility and comprehensibility (Ghosh & Levis, 2021) in speaking, the time assigned to this subskill was given to both speaking and listening skills. Furthermore, Richards (2015) has referred to the pivotal role of grammar in writing proficiency and speaking accuracy; therefore, the time spent on grammar activities was given to both writing and speaking.…”

“…(10 of 19) | and in enhancing intelligibility and comprehensibility (Ghosh & Levis, 2021) in speaking, the time assigned to this subskill was given to both speaking and listening skills. Furthermore, Richards (2015) has referred to the pivotal role of grammar in writing proficiency and speaking accuracy; therefore, the time spent on grammar activities was given to both writing and speaking.…”

Arab learners’ stress perception and production of English multisyllable items

“…Researchers have shown that effective communication may not be intelligible without correct stress (Kang et al, 2010;Kenworthy, 1987). Incorrect stress sometimes hinders intelligibility and comprehensibility at word and sentence levels (Gallego, 1990;Ghosh & Levis, 2021;Jenkins, 2002). Grosjean & Gee (1987) aver that lack of intelligibility occurs because of listeners' overreliance on word stress to decode unfamiliar words.…”

Commentary: “Vowel Quality and Direction of Stress Shift in a Predictive Model Explaining the Varying Impact of Misplaced Word Stress: Evidence From English” and “Exploring the Complexity of the L2 Intonation System: An Acoustic and Eye-Tracking Study”

“…Both Ghosh and Levis (2021) and Liu and Reed (2021) found L1 and L2 differences. The former identified a lower baseline and greater variation related to lexical stress errors in L2 listeners compared to L1 listeners.…”