Production of English Lexical Stress in Polysyllabic Words by ESL Learners of Predictable and Non-predictable Stress Languages

Lexical stress production in a second language creates difficulty for most learners of a particular language. The present study aims at investigating the differences in the performance of two different language backgrounds (the Iraqi Arabic (predictable stress) and Chinese Malaysian (non-predictable stress) L2 learners). Previous studies revealed that the accurate production and assignment of lexical stress could be more essential for the comprehensibility of non-native verbal communication than the grammatical correctness, and researchers specify that improper stress placement in a second language is mostly caused by transference from learners first language. Even so, L2 speakers, who do not have a stress system in their L1 (tone languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai), may not acquire rules of stress in the same way as native speakers do. Most studies emphasized the acquisition of segmental phonology such as Fleges (1995) Speech Learning Model and Bests (1995). However, very little research has focused on L2 suprasegmental phonology and on issues related to the production of lexical stress in disyllabic and trisyllabic words and this is the focus of this study. The results revealed somehow predictions made in Stress Typology Model (STM) the poor performance for a predictable stress language and different predictions of non-stress system language. Although Iraqi Arabic speakers were not better than the Chinese language group, they were not completely stressed deafness speakers.