An analysis of lexical stress in English pronunciation of indo-european words loaned to Turkish by Turkish speakers of English

This study intended to investigate lexical stress placement in English pronunciation of Indo-European words loaned to Turkish by Turkish speakers of English. Furthermore, it was aimed to increase awareness on prosodic features since the misusage of primary stress may cause breakdowns in communication. The sample of this study consists of 20 students in the English Language Teaching Department of the Education Faculty at Gaziantep University and 10 native English speakers. Non-native speakers were chosen from among the sophomore and junior students of the department. In order to achieve the aim of this research, participants were asked to read the 30 words in isolation and in sentences while their speech was being taped. The audio files were analyzed through Praat by the researcher to determine where the participants placed the primary stress. The accuracy of primary stress placement for each word was determined according to IPA transcriptions. After acoustic analyses with Praat, statistical analyses were conducted through SPSS. The findings of the study revealed that there is a statistically significant difference in primary stress placement between native speakers and Turkish speakers of English. None of the Turkish speakers could pronounce the selected words without negative L1 transfer or the negative effect of their previous experiences with the words. The non-native speakers were divided into two groups for the purpose of observing the effect of treatment on lexical stress patterns of English. The results showed that the participants who were subjected to the treatment made a significant progress. As a result of analysis, no statistically significant difference between isolated utterances and in-sentence utterances of these words was found.