41
Figure 4.2 Suffixes and Their Principles Regarding Stress Placement
Although the biggest portion in Figure 4.2 belonged to ‘Agree’ category,
many students in this category did not realize that they misplaced the stress during the oral test. For example, when they had to pronounce the word academic, many
of them stressed the antepenult instead of the penult. This distorted their beliefs completely. Those who believed that all suffixes had their own principles seemed
unaware of their improper way of stressing most words in -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes. Some of the 22 proportion that strongly agreed with the notion also
misplaced the stress of most words during the oral test. Both ‘Disagree’ and ‘Strongly Disagree’ categories gained 4 and 1 proportion respectively. Figure
4.2 proves that the students had yet understood what suffix applied what principle.
Strongly Disagree 1
Disagree 4
Agree 73
Strongly Agree 22
All English suffixes have their own principles regarding the stress placement of a word
Strongly Disagree Disagree
Agree Strongly Agree
42
Figure 4.3 Stress-shifting Attribute of -eous, -ic, -ity and -ion Suffixes
From Figure 4.3, it is apparent that there was a slight difference between ‘Agree’ and ‘Disagree’ options since each of them stayed at 45 and 41
respectively. On the contrary, only 11 of the sample really believed that -eous, - ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes did not change the stress and 3 of the sample were very
sure that those suffixes changed the position of the stress. As seen from the percentage, there was a tendency not to appear extreme by not
choosing ‘Strongly Disagree’ or ‘Strongly Agree.’ They knew little or none about the stress-shifting
attribute of -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes so that they had to assume by looking at the examples given by the researcher in the questionnaire. This conclusion was
made after the researcher compared their questionnaire response with their oral performance.
Eight students who gave positive attitude towards the first and the second questionnaire items stated that different stress made for different meaning or lexical
Strongly Disagree 11
Disagree 41
Agree 45
Strongly Agree 3
-eous, -ic, -ity and -ion suffixes do not shift
the stress from the root
Strongly Disagree Disagree
Agree Strongly Agree
43 category. They all emphasized how important word stress was. However, these
eight students had different perspectives on the influence of English suffixes over stress placement. Four of them believed that -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes did
not shift the stress. Four others believed that those suffixes could shift the stress. Four students who believed that -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes shifted the
stress, stressed the words under the suffix -ion properly, although there were minor slips. These students also did rather well when they had to stress words under the -
ity category. Nevertheless, they did not stress the words under the -eous and -ic categories very well because they were less familiar with the stress pattern both
suffixes had. In comparison, four students that believed that -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion
suffixes did not shift the stress performed equally well when they stressed the words under -ity and -ion categories. Although they stated that such suffixes did not shift
the stress, they knew the stress pattern of words under -ity and -ion categories. This proves that they were unaware of the interplay between suffix and word stress.
What they did – stressing appropriately – was due to years of encountering such
suffixed words so that they developed automatic response when they saw the words. This is what Kreidler 2004 implies, stating that many English speakers know how
to stress words with -tion and -ity endings, even though not consciously p. 180. These four students were rather troubled when they stressed words under the -ic
category, just as the four previous ones were.
44 Most students, in response to the fourth questionnaire item, chose to agree
with the notion of their increased awareness of English word stress, as shown by the 65 proportion. Around 27 of the sample also appeared to be positive
regarding their increased awareness of English word stress while 7 suggested that their awareness remained stagnant. Being in an extreme position, one student
strongly disbelieved that his awareness had much improved. Many of the students who ch
ose ‘Strongly Disagree’ or ‘Agree’ showed a rather delusive opinion about their own awareness, for they either mispronounced the word or misplaced the
stress when they sat the oral test. It means that they were unaware that they were mispronouncing.
An interesting phenomenon occurred in the fifth questionnaire item because 65 of the sample argued that it was rather easy for them to pronounce words that
ended in -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes. Reality shows that many of the 65 proportion mispronounced some words that belonged to those suffixes.
Interestingly, a few students who agreed that pronouncing words with -eous, -ic, - ity, and -ion suffixes was difficult 21 performed slightly better because they
were cautious while the others were not. Those who were less cautious pronounced the words too quickly, as indicated by their haste in pronouncing most of the words
in the oral test, which resulted in stress misplacement or mispronunciation. The twelve percent of the ‘Strongly Disagree’ students were confident of pronouncing
the words appropriately although evidence shows that they mispronounced some vowels and misplaced the stress. The smallest part of the figure 2 admitted that
it was very hard to pronounce English words with -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes.
45 In response to the sixth item of the questionnaire, a few students felt that
pronouncing English words with -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes was difficult. Thus, they were doubtful in pronouncing them. However, these students performed
well on the test because they rarely mispronounced most of the words. Even though some students stated that they were not doubtful 54 in pronouncing English
words with -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes, their recorded pronunciations showed that their performance was not in accordance with their confidence. Therefore, their
confidence was not related to their ability. Those who chose ‘Disagree’ in the
previous item but chose ‘Agree’ in this item tried to believe that they were able to predict word stress but they were doubtful in pronouncing words with -eous, -ic, -
ity and -ion suffixes . Interestingly, a small part of ‘Agree’ proportion also chose
‘Agree’ in the previous item about difficulty in pronouncing English words. These students, although they did not show enough confidence in responding to the
questionnaire item, performed better during the oral test compared to those who chose ‘Strongly Disagree’ or ‘Disagree’ in both previous item and this item.
Seventy-nine percent students felt that their pronunciation of English words with -eous, -ic, -ity, and -ion suffixes improved. This number, nevertheless, had
little to do with the actual performance because some students that belonged to the ‘Agree’ proportion mispronounced some words during the oral test. This proves
that they had been unaware about what they were going to do with their less intelligible pronunciation. Further evidence showed
that those of ‘Strongly Agree’ group simply reassured themselves that they had better pronunciation while in fact
they did not know to what extent their pronunciation really improved since they
46 could not stress many ic-suffixed words properly. Students who disagreed with the
notion 9 were unsatisfied with their own pronunciation although a small part of this category performed really well on the test.
2. Experience Related to Word Stress and English Suffixed Words
