VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

AN THị NGà

An analysis on word stress errors commonly made by
12
TH
grade students in LÊ Quý ĐÔn High school,
HảI Phòng and some solutions
( Phân tích các lỗi th-ờng gặp về trọng âm từ của học sinh lớp
12 tr-ờng THPT Lê Quý Đôn Hải Phòng và một số giải pháp )

-m.a. minor thesis-

Field : English teaching methodology
Code : 601410 Field : English teaching methodology
Code : 601410
Supervisor : Trần Thị Thu Hiền

Hanoi, 2010
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART A : INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale …………………………………………………………………………… 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Scope of the study. 2
4. Significance of the study .2
5. Research questions. 3
6. Organization of the study 3
PART B : DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature review
1. Role of errors in language learning 5
2. Role of stress in language learning 8
2.1 Stress and learners’ intelligibility 8
2.2 Some theoretical background to the concept stress 9
2.2.1 Nature of a syllable. 9

4.2.2 Stress on the wrong syllables of multi-syllabic words 25
4.2.3 Stress on the wrong syllable bi-syllabic words 25
4.2.4 Students' failure to produce weak forms of words and schwa sound 26
4.3 Causes of the errors. 26
4.3.1 Influence of mother tongue 26
4.3.2 Inequality between the course book and the curriculum. .27
4.3.3 Lack of teaching and learning facilities 27
4.3.4 Students’ different learning styles and phonetic ability 28
4.3.5 Students’ lack of motivation and concern. 28
Chapter 3: Possible solutions
1 To the teachers 29
2 To the students . .33
3 To the school 's managers 34
4 To the course book designers 34
PART C: Conclusion 36
1 Summary of the study. 36
2. Conclusion 36
3 Limitation of the study. 37
4 Suggestions for further study 37
References 39
Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for students I
Appendix 2: The spelling of the schwa in English III
Appendix 3: Weak forms of words IV
Appendix 4: Production test and stress pattern key VII

vi vii
LIST OF FIGURES

Pages

Figure 1: Students’ attitude towards learning word stress

Figure 2: Students’ awareness of the difficulty in word stress lessons

Figure 3 : Students’ degree of certainty when marking stress pattern for a word

Figure 4: The frequency of students’ errors in word stress

Figure 5: Students’ common errors in learning word stress

Figure 6 : Students’ expectation towards the teaching of word stress

Figure 7: Students ‘errors from the production test

20 21 21


and Burt M.K.(1974). However, the errors analyzed in those studies come from their
learners and may be the characteristics of those learners rather than Vietnamese students‟.
In Vietnam, there is a number of studies on errors such as the one conducted by Pham
Dang Binh (2003), which focused on the most common errors made by Vietnamese adult
learners and some others by M.A candidates focusing on students‟ common errors in
grammar (Trinh Phan Thi Phong Lan-2005) and students‟ errors on stress at sentence level
(Luu Thi Kim Nhung- 2003), etc. Unfortunately, little concern is paid to errors on word
stress.
It is undeniable that stress plays a very important role in learning a foreign language and
its pronunciation. It helps improve the learners‟ speaking as well as listening skill. A
learner with correct rhythm, intonation and stress usually makes himself understood with
ease.
Despite the importance of stress, especially word stress in English pronunciation,
Vietnamese students can not acquire it adequately. In fact, high school students
commonly fail to use them correctly.

2
With the experience of more than ten years working as a teacher of English in Le Quy
Don High School, the researcher realizes that whenever her students speak English or do
tests on phonetics, they seem to confront with a lot of difficulties in using English word
stress, consequently, a lot of errors occur. There errors are also committed by many of 12th
grade students who have learnt English in their high school for 3 years and have had a
chance to deal with English word stress in a few lessons. Being aware of the problem and
with the intention of helping students to overcome these difficulties and to perfect their
knowledge of English word stress, the researcher decides to choose the title:
An analysis on word stress errors commonly made by 12
th
grade students in Le Quy
Don High school, Hai Phong and some solutions for her M.A thesis.
It is hoped that the study, to some extent, will contribute to improving the teaching and

arranging target language items in text books in such a way that helps prevent error
occurrence as much as possible.
5. Research questions
To achieve the aims mentioned above, the following research questions are addressed:
 What are the most common word stress errors made by 12
th
grade students in Le
Quy Don High School?
 What are the causes of these errors?
 What should be done to reduce the students‟ errors?
6. Organization of the study
The study is organized into 3 parts, which are presented as follows:
PART A - INTRODUCTION
Includes the rationale and the aim of the study. It also specifies
the scope, the significance and provides the research questions as
well as the organization of the study.
PART B – Development
Chapter 1- Literature review:
Mentions theoretical background of errors and word stress
In errors, this deals with notion of error, distinction among
errors, mistakes, slips and attempts, error analysis and the
importance of learners‟ errors. In word stress, it discusses
some definitions such as syllable and its structure, schwa
sound, nature of stress; the marking and levels of stress
including mono-syllabic, bi-syllabic and multi-syllabic
words as well as weak forms of words.
Chapter 2- The study

4
This is the core part of the research, which describes the


5
Part B: Development
Chapter 1: Literature review
1. Errors in language learning
1.1 Notion of errors
Learning a foreign language is really a sophisticated process in which errors are
unavoidable. No one can master a language without making any error. When saying this or
that is an error, one has to base himself on a certain norm. This norm is naturally not
universal but depends upon different considerations, i.e. it depends on how language is
approached. An analysis of errors is extremely important for teachers as they directly work
with students and seem to have great influence on their student‟s effectiveness in learning
because teachers do not only present new language items, but also have to take into
consideration of what errors should be corrected as well as what should be ignored. In A
study of the statistical foundations of group conversation tests in spoken English, Liski E.
and Puntanen S. (1983: 227) argued that “an error occurs where the speaker fails to follow
the pattern or manner of speech of educated people in English speaking countries today”
while Lennon P. (1991: 182) defined that: “error is a linguistic form or combination of
forms which in the same context would in all likelihood not be produced by the learner‟s
native speaker counterpart”. His view is supported by James C. (1998:1) who defined error
as an unsuccessful bit of language. However, this is not reliable all the time because of the
fact that a variety of dialects may be used by the native speakers in their country. The
linguistic form may be deviated from one dialect but not another one. Thus, deciding
whether a linguistic form is an error depends on what norm or standard should be taken
into account.
For some reasons, the following contentions will lay a foundation for the research thesis:
 First, errors in this study are understood as “the flawed side of learner speech and
writing, those parts of conversation or composition that deviate from some selected
norm” (Dulay H.C., Burt M.K. and Krashen S.D. 1982:138).
 Second, in a foreign setting like Vietnam, where English is taught and learned as a

 Errors are mistakes caused by the incomplete understanding of language
competence.
 Mistakes are caused by the inappropriate use of language in terms of social
acceptability or language performance.
 Slips (lapses) are the consequence of carelessness (tiny mistake) in language use

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 Attempts are mistakes where students have no ideas to structure what they want to
mean.
The problem of determining what is a learner‟s mistake and what is a learner‟s error is
rather difficult. In order to have a clear point of view on errors, it is better to pay attention
to the significance of learners‟ errors.
1.3 Significance of learners’ errors
Discussion on the significance of learners‟ errors can be found in Richards‟s study (1992),
in which he stated that errors are significant in three different ways:
 To the teacher, in that they tell him, if he understates a systematic analysis, how far
towards the goal his learners have progressed and consequently, what remains for
them to learn.
 They provide the teacher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what
strategies or procedures his learners are employing in their discovery of the
language.
 To the learners themselves, they are indispensable, because the making of errors is
regarded as a device learners use in order to learn. It is a way learners have to test
their hypothesis about the nature of the language they are learning.
1.4 Error Analysis
As discussed above, in the process of teaching and learning a foreign language, errors tell
teachers how much progress learners have made toward the target language and assist in
adjusting teaching techniques. In order to help teachers assess their learners‟ learning,
researchers have offered an approach called Error Analysis (EA), which is understood as
the study and analysis of the errors made by language learners. Talking about its functions,

remembered. Those parts are usually the beginning and the end of the word together with
its number of syllables and the location of the primary stress. In Slip of the Tongue, Cutler
A. (1987) also indicated that speakers only slip on those words with similarities in stress
patterns with the same number of syllables, and with the same syllable carrying primary
stress.
In terms of language perception, it would seem that heavy reliance on information about
stress pattern and the nature of the stressed syllables is a common and an efficient way of
speech comprehension. When listeners mishear a word, it is usually stress pattern and the
nature of the stressed syllable which decide what listeners think they hear. The stressed
syllable information is very important for the listeners to reconstruct the whole massage.
Not surprisingly, when the stress pattern is incorrect, errors in interpretation occur. Basal
R.K. in The Intelligibility of Indian English (1966) gave many interesting examples of

9
misinterpretation when words with initial stress were uttered with second-syllable stress:
“atmosphere” was heard as “must fear”, “yesterday” as “or study”, “character” as
“director” and so on. That is the reason why students‟ intelligibility is a matter that all
teachers of English should pay much attention to.
Concerning intelligibility, Kenworthy J. (1987:13) defined: “Intelligibility is being
understood by a listener at a given time in a given situation.”. Consequently, it is the same
as understandability. The more words a listener is able to identify accurately when said by
a particular speaker, the more intelligible that speaker is. She also added that “If the
foreign speaker substitutes one sound or feature of pronunciation for another, and the result
is that the listener hears a different word or phrase from the one the speaker was aiming to
say, it can be said that the foreigner's speech is unintelligible. Likewise, if the foreign
speaker substitutes a sound in a particular word, but that work is nonetheless understood,
then the speech is intelligible”. Undoubtedly, stress especially word stress is of great
importance to one phonetic ability. Hence, “Incorrect stress placement is the major cause if
intelligibility problems for foreign learners” (Roach. P. 1983:73)
As mentioned in 1.3, the scope of this study is to analyze errors in English word stress

in VC pin CVC
ink VCC pint CVCC
inks VCCC pints CVCCC
prom CCVC split CCCVC
proms CCVCC splint CCCVCC
prompt CCVCCC splints CCCVCCC
prompts CCVCCCC strength CCCVCCCC
All of the sounds of a syllable are planned together and pronounced together as an
unbroken unit. For this reason, the length of a syllable remains fairly constant, no matter
how many phonemes it includes. The longest part of a syllable is its vowel. The vowel is
longest when being unsurrounded by any additional consonants. With every consonant
added before or after it, the vowel shortens a bit to compensate for the added elements of
the syllable. (Pennington M.C 1996: 129)
2.2.3 Characteristics of stressed and unstressed words
As is discussed in section 2.2.2.1, English words can be made up of one, two or many
syllables. In all words of two or more syllables, one syllable is more prominent, louder, or
more noticeable than the other syllables in that word. This strong syllable is stressed
(accented), and the other weaker syllables are unstressed (unaccented) (Dauer: 1983).
Thus,
Stressed syllables sound louder, are usually longer, and have clearer vowels and
stronger consonants. In a word said in isolation, stressed syllables are higher pitched; in
sentences, a pitch change (a change in melody from high to low or low to high) often
occurs on stressed syllables.

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Unstressed syllables sound softer, are usually shorter, and are frequently reduced
or centralized. This means that the vowels tend to become / ә / , / I /, or / ﮞ /, and the
consonants are weaker . The pitch does not change direction on unstressed syllables.
2.2.4 Nature of stress
In English Phonetics and Phonology, Roach P. (1983:72, 73) held the view that “all

lengthened intensively, there is quite a strong tendency for that syllable to be heard as
stressed.
2.2.4.3 Pitch
Roach P. (1983:163) also discussed: Every syllable is pronounced on some pitch, it might
vary from low pitch to and high pitch. Within a word, if one syllable is noticeably said
differently from the others, it will be recognized as prominent, and of course a stressed
syllable. Therefore, to place some movement of pitch (e.g. rising or falling pitch) on a
syllable is an effective way to produce a syllable with prominence. It is closely related to
the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds and to the musical notion of low- and high-
pitched notes. He also emphasized: “If one syllable of a „nonsense word‟ (e.g. ba:ba:ba:ba
) is said with a pitch that is noticeably different from that of the others, this will have a
strong tendency to produce the effect of prominence. If all syllables are said with low pitch
except for one said with high pitch, then the high-pitch syllable will be heard as stressed
and the others as unstressed”
2.2.4.4 Vowel quality
A syllable will be considered as a prominence if it includes a vowel that has different
quality from neighboring vowels (Roach P.1983:163). If a nonsense word “ ba:ba:ba:ba ”
is changed as “ ba:bi:ba:ba”, then the “ bi” syllable will usually be heard as stressed.
In short, a stressed syllable can be recognized thanks to the combination of those above
four factors, among which the strongest effect is produced by pitch and length respectively,
and then, loudness and vowel quality.
2.2.5 Schwa sound
According to Kenworthy J. (1987:51):“There is English one sound that all learners must be
made aware of at a very early stage- the neutral vowel used in unstressed syllable and weak
form- the schwa vowel”. Schwa is represented by the phonetic symbol / Ә /. In quality, it is
mid (that is, half-way between close and open) and central (that is, half-way between front
and back), it is generally described as lax, that is, not articulated with much energy. It is
noteworthy that this vowel / Ә / only occurs in unstressed syllables, never in stressed ones.
Appendix 2 gives more examples indicating the spelling of the schwa in English.


of the sentence, monosyllabic content words are pronounced with full forms of vowels
whereas monosyllabic function words are normally pronounced with the weak form of
vowels (i.e., with /ә / or / I /).