An investigation of primary stress in spontaneous speech for pedagogical purposes
Hahn, Mary Katherine
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Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125887
Description
Title
An investigation of primary stress in spontaneous speech for pedagogical purposes
Author(s)
Hahn, Mary Katherine
Issue Date
2000
Department of Study
Linguistics
Discipline
Teaching English as a Second Language
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Level
Thesis
Keyword(s)
Teaching English as Second Language
Language
eng
Abstract
The accurate placement of primary stress in spoken English is an important pronunciation skill for non-native speakers to master. The purpose of the study was to contribute to the understanding of native-speaker primary stress placement, and to discuss the pedagogical implications. Two random segments from a collection of spontaneous, native-speaker conversations were analyzed to identify the location of the primary stresses. W. B. Dickerson's (1995) Primary Phrase Stress (PPS) System, a predictive tool for advanced non-native speakers to use in their practice, was applied to the data to determine areas where the PPS system failed to predict a primary stress, or predicted a primary stress that would be unacceptable to listeners. The anomalous areas were investigated to determine patterns for the stress placements and to propose modifications to the PPS system to account for those stress areas. The findings constitute proposed modifications in the areas of stress on else, pointing proforms, and stress placement for emphasis. The findings also include proposed modifications to the PPS system with regard to types of stressable and unstressable information. The pedagogical implications of the study include a proposal for a different approach to the teaching of primary stress based on the concepts of stressable and unstressable versus new and old information.
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