Word stress errors in students`oral production.

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vi ABSTRACT

Martha, Ludmila. 2012. Word Stress Errors in Students’ Oral Production. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Department of Language and Arts Education, Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University.

This study investigates the word stress production among fifth semester students of English Language Education Study Program in Sanata Dharma University. Two research questions are addressed: (1) What are the types of word stress errors produced by the students? (2) How do English learners overcome the word stress errors?

Content analysis is employed as the research method because this research uses a video of the play performance titled The Good Woman of Setzuan. The script of the play performance is already available that the writer could listen carefully to the students’ pronunciation while checking the play performance’s script in order to make the process easier. To collect the data, the writer uses some theories to help find the word stress error and compares the students’ word stress productions to the transcriptions in the dictionary. Afterwards, the writer transcribes the students’ word stress by listening carefully to the students’ oral production. How the students place the stress is also observed by the writer in order to analyze the data.

The results of this research show that there are two types of word stress errors. The first type of error produced by the students is misplaced word stress. In this error, the stress falls on the wrong syllable of the word. The second type of error is unnecessary word stress. This error happens to the word which has more than one primary stress, including the placement of stress on the correct syllable. Afterwards, there are some ways which are helpful for the learners to overcome the word stress errors. Firstly, students should master the phonetic transcription in order to understand how to pronunce words based on the dictionaries which use International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Secondly, students need to consult the dictionary for the placement of the word stress. Thirdly, it is important to listen to audio pronunciations and to practice the pronunciation in order to develop the pronunciation skills. The fourth action is to be aware of different stresses of words to avoid misunderstanding in communication.

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vii ABSTRAK

Martha, Ludmila. 2012. Word Stress Errors in Students’ Oral Production. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Studi ini meneliti pengucapan tekanan kata di kalangan mahasiswa semester lima Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris di Universitas Sanata Dharma. Ada dua pertanyaan penelitian yang dibahas: (1) Apa jenis kesalahan tekanan kata yang dihasilkan oleh mahasiswa? (2) Bagaimana pembelajar Bahasa Inggris dapat mengatasi kesalahan-kesalahan tekanan kata tersebut?

Content analysis digunakan sebagai metode penelitian karena penelitian ini menggunakan video play performance berjudul The Good Woman of Setzuan. Naskah play performance sudah tersedia sehingga penulis dapat mendengarkan dengan cermat pengucapan mahasiswa seraya memeriksa naskah untuk membuat proses penelitian lebih mudah. Untuk mengumpulkan data, penulis menggunakan beberapa teori untuk membantu menemukan kesalahan tekanan kata dan membandingkan produksi tekanan kata mahasiswa terhadap transkrip dalam kamus. Setelah itu, penulis menuliskan tekanan kata mahasiswa dengan mendengarkan pengucapan lisan mahasiswa dengan hati-hati. Bagaimana para mahasiswa menempatkan tekanan juga diamati oleh penulis untuk menganalisis data.

Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa ada dua jenis kesalahan tekanan kata. Jenis kesalahan pertama yang dihasilkan oleh mahasiswa yaitu kesalahan penempatan tekanan kata. Dalam kesalahan ini, tekanan ditempatkan pada suku kata yang salah. Jenis kesalahan kedua yaitu tekanan kata yang tidak perlu. Kesalahan ini terjadi pada kata yang memiliki lebih dari satu tekanan, termasuk penempatan tekanan pada suku kata yang benar. Setelah itu, ada beberapa cara yang berguna bagi peserta didik untuk mengatasi kesalahan pada tekanan kata. Pertama, siswa sebaiknya menguasai phonetic transcription untuk memahami bagaimana mengucapkan kata-kata berdasarkan kamus yang menggunakan International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Kedua, siswa perlu memeriksa kamus untuk penempatan tekanan kata. Ketiga, penting bagi siswa untuk mendengarkan audio pengucapan dan berlatih untuk mengembangkan keterampilan pengucapan mereka. Yang keempat yaitu menyadari akan tekanan kata yang berbeda-beda untuk menghindari kesalahpahaman dalam komunikasi.

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WORD STRESS ERRORS IN

STUDENTS’

_ORAL

PRODUCTION

ASARJANA PENDIDIKANTHESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain theSarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By Ludmila Martha Student Number: 081214037

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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WORD STRESS ERRORS IN

STUDENTS’

_ORAL

PRODUCTION

ASARJANA PENDIDIKANTHESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain theSarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By Ludmila Martha Student Number: 081214037

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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vi ABSTRACT

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vii ABSTRAK

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viii

There can be miracles

When you believe

Though hope is frail

It's hard to kill

Who knows what miracles

You can achieve

When you believe, somehow you will

You will when you believe

- Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston –

This thesis is dedicated to my mother, my father, my brother, my close friends, and all who love me with their limitless support, encouragement, and prayer.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, praises and thanks be to Lord Jesus Christ for His abundant blessings, love, and strength that He has given to me. I believe that this thesis could not be finished without His guidance and grace.

My next words go to my major sponsor, Mr. Barli Bram. I deeply thank him for having read, discussed, and commented on my thesis with such careful attention. I also greatly appreciate his valuable time, suggestions, and motivation during the process of completing this thesis and also his constructive input and support to the very end.

My deepest thanks also go to the students who performed the play performanceThe Good Woman of Setzuan for helping me obtain the video of the play performance. Without their help, this study would have been impossible.

I am much indebted to my friend, Sasa. In particular, I am thankful for the support, knowledge transfer, opinions, and productive discussions. I also thank her enthusiasm, comments, and willingness to proofread my thesis. We have shared much of our time together in revising and consulting our thesis.

I would also like to thank the members of my family. I thank my parents as well as my brother for encouraging me to complete my education. I am immensely grateful for the continuous prayers, understanding, support, and patience. In the middle of my struggle, they have loved me and stood by me. I love them forever.

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I also want to express my gratitude to my friends who have shown interest and encouragement, especially Nieza, Liza, Octa, Deby, Pita, Anggi, Levyn, Irine, Sinta, Diah, Tia, Siana, Siwi, Carol, Adi, and Dimas. I thank them for encouraging me and having given me useful information. I also thank Steve, who has reminded me to give my best in finishing this thesis. I thank his motivational support in the toughest moments.

Finally, I have to say that I am happy to have arrived here, to the end of this long path, in which I have learned a lot. To many other names that I could not mention one by one, I now wish to say a profound thank-you for all the prayers and support. God bless all of us.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

HALAMAN JUDUL... i

HALAMAN PENGESAHAN... ii

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY... iv

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI... v

ABSTRACT... vi

ABSTRAK ... vii

DEDICATION PAGE...viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS... xi

LIST OF TABLES ...xiii

LIST OF APPENDICES ...xiv

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A. Research Background ... 1

B. Research Problems ... 4

C. Problem Limitation... 4

D. Research Objectives ... 4

E. Research Benefits ... 5

F. Definition of Terms ... 6

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. Theoretical Description ... 8

1. Overview ofWord... 8

2. Word Stress... 10

a. The Nature of Word Stress ... 10

b. The Importance of Word Stress... 12

3. Word Stress Rules ... 13

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xii

b. Patterns of Word Stress ... 14

4. Errors in Word Stress ... 21

B. Theoretical Framework... 23

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A. Research Method ... 25

B. Research Setting ... 26

C. Research Subjects ... 26

D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique ... 27

E. Data Analysis Technique... 28

F. Research Procedure ... 29

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A. Research Results... 31

B. Discussion... 33

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Conclusions ... 43

B. Recommendations ... 44

REFERENCES... 46

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xiii

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

3.1 Observation of Word Stress Error... 27 4.1 Occurrences of Word Stress Errors... 32

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xiv

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix Page

1. Observation Table ... 50 2. Play Performance Script... 52

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1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter consists of six major sections, namely, the research background, research problems, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and definition of terms.

A. Research Background

Pronunciation plays an indispensable role in intelligibility, as Burns & Seidlhofer (2002, p. 212) say that pronunciation is “responsible for ‘intelligibility’ – whether or not we can get our message across.” Kenworthy (1987, p. 13) defines intelligibility as “being understood by a listener at a given time in a given situation.” If this is the case, the purpose of intelligible pronunciation itself is to understand and to be understood. Connectedly, Morley (1991, p. 488) claims that “intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communication competence.”Therefore,a speaker’s pronunciationis important in communication since it can determine whether the speaker’s remark is comprehensible to the listener or not.

In teaching and learning process, pronunciation cannot be underestimated because it is one of some important components which English learners need to master. Accordingly, Harmer (2001, p. 183) argues that “concentrating on sounds, showing where they are made in the mouth, making students aware of where words should be stressed – all these things give them extra information about

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spoken English and help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility.” Thus, pronunciation is a crucial component in English and either teachers or students need to pay it close attention.

Pronunciation also cannot be separated from stress. The stress is important because different stress placements on some words might change the words’ meaning, such as in the word desert. When the word is stressed on the first syllable, it means “barren land, waterless and treeless, often sand-covered” (Hornby, 1974, p. 234), but when it is stressed on the second syllable, it means “leave; go a way from” (Hornby, 1974, p. 233). Furthermore, the word stress can also change the word’s part of speech, such as in the word import. When the word is stressed on the first syllable, it is a noun, but when it is stressed on the second syllable, it is a verb.

Gilbert (2005, p. 15) shows a scene that illustrates the kind of confusion which can result from word stress error. Gilbert (2005, p. 15) states that it happened in the United States when a Japanese customer tried to buy an electronic gadget, so he asked the clerk for a “regista.” However, the clerk did not understand what the customer meant. The customer then recognized that there was something wrong with his pronunciation, so this time he tried again by carefully pronouncing the final consonant.

Customer:Register?

Clerk: (looking at the cash register) Excuse me? Customer: (trying a change of vowel)Rahgista? Clerk: Sir?

Customer: (deciding the problem was the/dj/sound)Rahzista! Clerk: (impatiently) I’m sorry, we don’t have anything like that. Customer: (furious) Right here! Look at this picture! Arahzista! Clerk: (suddenly understanding) Oh, you mean a resistor!

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“The above incident illustrates how errors in word stress can create serious barriers to intelligibility, even when the individual sounds in a word are pronounced correctly or near correctly” (Gilbert, 2005, p. 15). Similarly, Kenworthy (1987, p. 28) also explains that correct word stress is very important for English learners because “if a non-native speaker produces a word with the wrong stress pattern, an English listener may have great difficulty in understanding the word, even if most of individual sounds have been well pronounced.”

For learners, “the making of errors can be regarded as a device the learner uses in order to learn” (Selinker, 1992, p. 150). In this case, errors in foreign language teaching are regarded as the cases which are difficult enough to avoid. Therefore, investigation of errors in language learning is important since error is an unavoidable case for learners.

Regarding the explanations above, this research attempts to discuss ESL (English as a Second Language) students’ word stress errors when doing the play performance The Good Woman of Setzuan. Therefore, this research investigates the students’ oral production when uttering the play performance’s script. Play performance is one of some subjects in Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta. There have been many play performances conducted in this university which have been starred by the students themselves. The Good Woman of Setzuanwas one of five play performances which were conducted in 2010. The reason why the writer chooses this play performance is because the script of the students’ play performance uses the original version written by Bertolt Brecht.

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B. Research Problems

There are two research problems which are addressed in this research. They are formulated as follows:

1. What are the types of word stress errors produced by the students? 2. How do English learners overcome the word stress errors?

C. Problem Limitation

This study is going to discuss the word stress errors produced by the students when uttering the dialogue of the play performance. The stress in the discourse can occur in sentence level and word level. In this case, the writer limits this study only on the word level because the error of word stress can be checked through the dictionary. Meanwhile, the misplacing or error of stress on the sentence level “will lead to a change in the sentence's focus, and depending on the context may have considerable pragmatic effects, but it will not produce an anomalous sentence” (Cutler, 1980, p. 74). In other words, the sentence stress is related to the focus or context of the sentence and cannot be checked through the dictionary because it is related to the speaker’s intention.

D. Research Objectives

The objectives of this study are presented as follows:

1. To find out the types of word stress errors which are produced by the students in their oral production.

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E. Research Benefits

The writer expects that the investigation of this research will give beneficial contributions for further education development. Hence, this section discusses some benefits that might be given from this research. The first point is for English teachers who implement teaching word stress to their students. The second point is aimed for other researchers and the last point is for English learners.

1. The English Teachers

By reading this study, the teachers may find some words that are commonly spoken using incorrect word stress. Hopefully, these might become the feedback or useful insights for teachers to overcome the students’ problems in applying word stress and to facilitate their students in acquiring correct word stress.

2. Other Researchers

The researcher hopes that this research could help future researches and further discussions on the topic of word stress. In this case, the future researchers may use this study as the basic knowledge to conduct their research.

3. English Learners

To English learners, especially English Language Education Study Program’s students, pronunciation is one of the important subjects. Moreover, English Language Education Study Program’s students are expected to be English teachers so that they are expected to be good models. The researcher hopes that this research improves the English learners’ knowledge about word stress and

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helps them develop their skill or ability in stressing words correctly. By observing the word stress errors from this research, the English learners may also avoid the same errors and hopefully they could overcome similar errors in their daily practice.

F. Definition of Terms

In order to avoid misunderstanding, in this section the researcher discusses several terms or concepts dealing with what the researcher intends to do throughout this research. The important concepts used in this study are defined below:

1. Error

Norrish (1987, p. 7) defines an error as “a systematic deviation when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong.” Error is different from mistake because “a mistake refers to a performance error that is either random guess or a ‘slip’, in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly” (Brown, 2007, p. 257). Accordingly, it can be inferred that the difference between errors and mistakes can be checked through the consistency. For instance, when sometimes a speaker mispronounces a word and sometimes he/she pronounces the word correctly, it is called a mistake. In contrast, if the speaker always mispronounces the word, it is called an error.

Meanwhile, the term errorin this study refers to the kinds of errors on the word stress placement which are produced by the students. As explained above,

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the error happens consistently. Hence, the researcher carefully seeks the words which have consistent errors.

2. Oral Production

The researcher aims to listen to the students’ oral production in order to get the data. Consequently, oral production in this study refers to the students’ utterances. The utterances are taken from the recorded dialogues spoken by the students in the play performance video.

3. Word Stress

Stress is “a cover term for the combinedeffects of pitch, loudness, and length-the result of which is vowel prominence” (O’Grady & Dobrovolsky, 1987, p. 40). The word stress is done by “saying that syllable slightly louder, holding the vowel a little longer, and pronouncing the consonants veryclearly” (Kenworthy, 1987, p. 10). Moreover, as mentioned in the limitation of this study, the stress discussed is only focused on the primary stress, which is the most prominent or the strongest type of stress. Therefore, the term word stress in this research refers to the perceived prominence of the certain syllable in a word which receives the primary stress.

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8 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In this chapter, the writer attempts to present the theoretical writings that support this study. There are two sections that will be discussed in this chapter, namely theoretical description and theoretical framework. In the theoretical description, the writer presents the theories which are relevant to this research. In the second section, the writer relates the theories to the research in order to obtain a theoretical framework in conducting this study.

A. Theoretical Description 1. Overview ofWord

It is useful to divide words into two broad categories, namely closed and open(Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990, p. 15). Jurafsky & Martin (2000) similarly state that words can be divided into two big categories: closed class types and open class types (p. 3).

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990, p. 15) state that the closed classes, as the name suggests, are words that are finite and often small with a membership that is relatively stable or unchanging in the language. Jurafsky & Martin (2000) also argue that closed classes are the ones that have relatively fixed membership, for example prepositions are closed classes since there is a fixed set of them in English and new prepositions are rarely coined (p. 3). Closed class words “are also generally function words likeof,it,and, or you, which tend to be very short,

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occur frequently, and often have structuring uses in grammar” (Jurafsky & Martin, 2000, p. 3). Furthermore, Greenbaum & Quirk (1990, p. 16) state that the words “play a major part in English grammar, often corresponding to inflections in some other languages, and they are sometimes referred to as grammatical words, function words, orstructure words.”

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990, p. 16) also list some of the important closed classes with a few examples of each; they are pronoun, such as she, they, anybody; determiner, such asthe,a, that,some;primary verb, such as be;modal verb, such as can,might;preposition, such as in,during,round; and conjunction, such asand,or,while,yet.

In contrary, open classes of words are “constantly changing their membership as old words drop out of the language and new ones are coined or adopted to reflect cultural changes in society” (Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990, p. 16). Jurafsky & Martin (2000) also state that open classes are continually coined or borrowed from other languages, e.g. the new verb to fax or the borrowed noun futon (p. 3). The numbers of open classes are vast and are the subject matter of dictionaries and they are often calledlexical words(Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990, p. 16).

Jurafsky & Martin (2000) claim that there are four major open classes; namely nouns,verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (p. 3). Noun is “the name given to the syntactic class in which the words for most people, places, or things occur” (Jurafsky & Martin, 2000, p. 3). Generally, what defines a noun in English are “things like its ability to occur with determiners (a goat, its bandwidth, Plato’s

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Republic), to take possessives (IBM’s annual revenue), and for most but not all nouns, to occur in the plural form (goats, abaci)” (Jurafsky & Martin, 2000, p. 4). Next is verbclass which is the class that “includes most of the words referring to actions and processes, including main verbs like draw, provide, differ, and go” (Jurafsky & Martin, 2000, p. 4). The third open class, adjective, semantically “includes many terms that describe properties or qualities” (p. 4). The examples are sufficient,happy,changeable,round (Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990, p. 16). The final open class form, adverb, “has semantically may be solely that each of these words can be viewed as modifying something (often verbs, hence the name adverb, but also other adverbs and entire verb phrases)” (Jurafsky & Martin, 2000, p. 5). The examples of adverbs aresufficiently,really,afterwards,yet(Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990, p. 16).

2. Word Stress

a. The Nature of Word Stress

Word stress is regarded as one of some pronunciation aspects, as Kenworthy (1987, p. 9) states that several aspects of pronunciation are sounds, combination of sounds, linkage of sounds, word stress, rhythm, weak forms, sentence stress, and intonation. Another linguist, Meyer (2009), proposes that the analysis of English speech sounds is focused on segmental and suprasegmental features (p. 196). In this case, the analysis of speech segments “are focused on the individual sounds in a given word” (Meyer, 2009, p.196), while “the study of suprasegmentals extends the focus of inquiry to units that are larger than

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individual segments – syllables, words, phrases, and clauses– and to the features of sound that describe these units, specifically stress and intonation” (Meyer, 2009, p. 208). Therefore, word stress itself is included as the part of suprasegmental features.

When we talk about stress, generally we talk about prominence or emphasis, as stated by Mateescu (2003):

“It would be difficult maybe even for a specialist to give a very accurate definition of stress, but even a schoolchild will be intuitively aware that when we talk about stress in a word or in more complex structures we talk in fact about prominence, or emphasis, that is parts of that word or structures are perceived as having a higher degree of prominence in comparison to the others.” (p. 2)

Daniel (1994) supports the statement above, stating that stress is “usually perceived as greater loudness by the listener, with which one part of the word or longer utterance is distinguished from the other parts” (p. 2). Moreover, “stress in English words is relatively easy to perceive: stressed syllables are perceived as ‘more prominent’, or louder, or longer, or ‘more complex’, or produced with more apparent effort, than the less stressed or unstressed syllables that might lie adjacent to them” (McCully, 2009, p. 67).

We may say that stressed syllables are recognized as stressed since they are more prominent than the unstressed syllables, as Jones (1958, p. 141) states that “syllables which are pronounced more forcibly than neighboring syllables are generally said to bestressed.” In addition, “stress involves making vowels longer and louder” (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992, p. 63). Thus, to put stress on a syllable in a word, “we pronounce it with such force as to give it more importance than the

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surrounding syllables and to make it stand out among them” (Prator & Robinett, 1972, p. 16).

On the other hand, Kenworthy (2000, p. 51) provides four features involved in the perception of prominence. The first feature is loudness, when the stressed syllables are louder than unstressed ones; the second feature is length, when the vowel in a syllable is held longer than the others; the third feature is pitch, when there is a change of speed, either faster which results in a higher pitch or slower which results in a lower pitch or some fluctuation in speed; and the last one isquality, when a stressed syllable has a vowel that differs in quality from the other syllables. To sum up, there are four important features that produce prominence, namely loudness, length, pitch, and quality.

b. The Importance of Word Stress

It is important to assign the right stress pattern, as Prator & Robinett (1972, p. 16) saythat stress is “the key to the pronunciation of an English word, and the location of the accent should always be learned with the word.”Moreover, Prator & Robinett (1972, p. 16) argue that if the wrong syllable is stressed, “it may be quite impossible for anyone listening to understand what you are trying to say.”In other words, it could make the communication unsuccessful.

Furthermore, “an appropriate stress and rhythmic pattern is more important for intelligibility than the correct pronunciation of isolated segments and, in fact, stress and rhythm determine the pronunciation of segments in English” (Sabater, 1991, p. 145). Sabater (1991, pp. 145-146) further explains that an inappropriate accentual and rhythmic pattern of a word “makes the word

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unintelligible not only because the misplaced main stress distorts the shape of the word, but also because there is no unstressing of the other syllables with the consequent phonetic reductions.”

Accordingly, Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996, p. 1) claim that “successful communication cannot take place without correct pronunciation.” In other words, the correct pronunciation can shape the speaker’s success. Conversely, the speaker’s poor pronunciation could make the listeners get the wrong meaning and the communication can be unsuccessful. Therefore, the pronunciation from the speaker and the recognition from the listener have great influences on the quality of communication for both of the parties.

3. Word Stress Rules

a. Placement of Stress in Words

Word stress tends to happen when an English word has more than one syllable (Kenworthy, p. 10, 1987). Gilbert (2008) says that “a syllable is most simply explained as something with a vowel sound at its center” (p. 4). Poldauf (1984, p. 13) also says that “a monosyllable cannot have word-stress.” Another linguist also claims that “as soon as an utterance is longer than a single syllable, the syllables are arranged in rhythmic patterns comprising a succession of strong-weak-strong-weak, etc; this is true whether the polysyllabic stretch is a sentence, a phrase or a single word” (Quirk et al., 1972, p. 1036). Therefore, only two-syllable words and polysyllabic words−“words of three or more syllables” (James, 2006, p. xiv) which can have stress.

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Zapata (2009) notes that there are two levels of word stress, namely primary stress and secondary stress (p. 1). The syllable that is pronounced with the greatest emphasis in a word receives the primary stress, while the syllable that is pronounced with a little less emphasis than the one which has the primary stress receives the secondary stress (Zapata, 2009, p. 1). For example, the monosyllabic words ‘book’ and ‘speak’ have primary stress; the syllables pa-and-cause of the dissyllabic words ‘paper’ and ‘because’ have primary stress; the syllables -ten-in the word ‘attention’, -a- in the word ‘pronunciation’ and sec- in the word ‘secondary’ (which are polysyllabic words) have primary stress, while the syllables-aryand-nun-have secondary stress (Zapata, 2009, p. 1).

The placement of primary stress is unpredictable because it may fall to any syllable of a word, as Daniel (1994, p. 3) states that:

Although the stresses are normally in a fixed position in a word, their position is unpredictable in the sense that there is no single position where the primary stress of the word can be expected to fall in English. For example, to count from left to right, it may fall on the: 1st syllable:'family 4th syllable:famili'arity 2nd syllable:fa'miliar 5th syllable:nationali'zation 3rd syllable:natio'nality 6th syllable:industriali'zation Urbanczyk & Eady (1989, p. 28) claim that the main or primary stress often occurs on the antepenultimate (3rd to last) syllables and penultimate (2nd to last) syllable.

b. Patterns of Word Stress

In the dictionary, we will find the phonetic transcription of the words since the sounds of English are often displayed in the form of phonetic transcription which is written according to International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is “an

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alphabet developed by the International Phonetic Association to provide suitable symbols for the sounds of any language” (McArthur, 1992, p. 523). In this case, “linguists use a set of symbols from the phonetic alphabet, an alphabet in which each symbol corresponds to one (andonly one) sound” (Meyer, 2009 p. 196). The phonetic alphabet (or usually called phonetic transcription) will tell people the pronunciation of words, while the mere spelling of words cannot do so. The phonetic transcription is also completed with the stress mark which is intended to inform us about the placement of the stress.

Prator & Robinett (1972, p. 18) claim that there are no exact rules to determine the stressed syllable in a word since we will many times need to turn to the dictionary unless we hear the word spoken by someone who is familiar with it. Syafei (1988, p. 23) similarly states that “there is no way of knowing in advance where the different stress levels will occur in English speech.” Moreover, Allen (1954, p. 173) states that “the accentuation of long words is very irregular in English.” Therefore, there is no fixed rule about word stress. However, “certain observations can be of help” (Syafei, 1988, p. 24). In other words, we are still able to recognize the stress pattern although those patterns are only applicable to majority of words since there are some possible rule exceptions. The lists below show the general patterns of word stress that may help recognizing word stress placement:

1) Stress and Part of Speech

“A large group of words, which may be used either as nouns or verbs, have a difference in stress to indicate the difference in usage”

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(Prator & Robinett, 1972, p. 18). Prator & Robinett (1972, p. 18) note that the noun is stressed on the first syllable and the verb on the second, e.g. the word conduct is pronounced [ˈkɒndʌkt] as a noun and pronounced [kənˈdʌkt] as a verb, the wordexportis pronounced [ˈekspɔːt] as a noun and pronounced [ɪkˈspɔːt] as a verb, the wordsurveyis pronounced [ˈsɜːveɪ] as a noun and pronounced [səˈveɪ] as a verb, and many other examples. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the word class or part of speech of the stressed words.

On the other hand, Gimson (1962, p. 229) notes that “several disyllables do not conform to the general noun/verb accentual pattern distinction or exhibit instability”, e.g. comment [ˈkɒment] for both noun and verb, contact [ˈkɒntækt] (noun) and [ˈkɒntækt], [kɒnˈtækt], or [kənˈtækt] (verb),detail[ˈdiːteɪl] (noun) and [ˈdiːteɪl] or [diːˈteɪl] (verb), etc. Therefore, the rule is sometimes unpredictable. Moreover, Gimson (1962, p. 230) also states that “words containing more than two syllables also exhibit distinctive accentual patterns”, e.g.attribute(noun:ˈætrɪbjuːt, verb:

əˈtrɪbjuːt), interchange (noun: ˈɪntətʃeɪndʒ, verb: ˌɪntəˈtʃeɪndʒ), invalid (noun:ˈɪnvəlɪd, adjective:ɪnˈvælɪd, verb:ˈɪnvəlɪd), etc.

2) Stress and Derivation

Generally, when a suffix is added to a word, the new form is stressed on the same syllable as was the basic word, e.g. abandon [əˈbændən], abandonment [əˈbændənmənt]; happy [ˈhæpi], happiness [ˈhæpinəs]; reason [ˈriːzn], reasonable [ˈriːznəbl] (Syafei, 1988, p. 25;

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Prator & Robinett, 1972, p. 19). Words that end in -tion, -sion, -ic, -ical, -ity, and -graphy almost always have primary stress on the syllable preceding the ending (Prator & Robinett, 1972, p. 19), e.g. production [prəˈdʌkʃn], decision [dɪˈsɪʒn], scientific [ˌsaɪənˈtɪfɪk], biological [ˌbaɪəˈlɒdʒɪkl], ability [əˈbɪləti], photography [fəˈtɒɡrəfi] (Syafei, 1988, p. 26). Therefore, the addition of one of those suffixes may result in a shift of accent or stress, e.g. contribute [kənˈtrɪbjuːt], contribution [ˌkɒntrɪˈbjuːʃn]; economy[ɪˈkɒnəmi],economic[ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk]; biology[baɪˈɒlədʒi],biological [ˌbaɪəˈlɒdʒɪkl]; public [ˈpʌblɪk], publicity [pʌbˈlɪsəti] (Prator & Robinett, 1972, p. 19).

Other linguists, Delahunty & Garvey (2003), give some general rules about how suffixes influence the stress placement:

a) Some suffixes do not affect stress placement. These include the syllabic inflections -er, -est, -es [əz], -ed [əd], and the derivational suffixes -ly and -ite: small/smaller, tall/tallest, horse/horses, pat/patted, wife/wifely, Trotsky/Trotskyite, Ludd/Luddite (p. 5).

b) A few suffixes take the word’s main stress: bombardier, engineer, Mouseketeer, musketeer, racketeer, privateer, amputee, devotee, divorcee, employee, refugee(p. 5).

c) However, in most cases the addition of a suffix forces the stress to move, such as: democrat – democratic – democracy, empathy – empathic, empathy – empathetic, sympathy –

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sympathetic, phoneme–phonemic, photograph–photographic –photography, telephone–telephonic–telephony (p. 6). d) The main stress in adjectives formed with the suffix -ic (e.g.,

optic, basic, morphemic, electric) falls on the syllable immediately before that suffix, the penultimate syllable. The main stress in nouns formed with the suffix -y (e.g., misogyny, phylogeny,ontogeny) is on the third syllable from the end, that is, on the antepenultimate syllable. The suffix -tion, which creates abstract nouns, also requires that the main stress be on the syllable immediately before it. Notice that the form of the suffix will ensure that that syllable is heavy. i.e.option, opinion, fragmentation, fermentation, actuation (p. 6).

e) Nouns and adjectives formed with the suffix -ianalso generally take their main stress on the syllable immediately before the suffix, on their antepenults: simian, agrarian, grammarian, latitudinarian, librarian (p. 6).

f) Nouns formed with the suffix -ity take their stress on the antepenultimate syllable, which, because the suffix has two syllables, is the syllable immediately before it. Note that the first syllable of the suffix is light and so cannot be stressed. i.e. probity, necessity, curiosity, sanctity, electricity, adiposity (p. 7).

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g) Words ending in -ate and -ize take their main stress on the second syllable before the suffix, i.e., the antepenultimate, when there are enough syllables: amputate, isolate, insulate, congratulate, coagulate, regulate, hydrogenize, sympathize, weatherize (p. 7).

h) Where only one syllable precedes the suffix, it receives main stress: fixate, dictate (p. 7).

i) Nouns ending in -oid and -ute take their main stress on the syllable immediately before the suffix in one syllable stems, and on the second syllable before the suffix in stems of two syllables:asteroid, planetoid, polaroid, factoid tribute, attribute (p. 8).

Delahunty & Garvey (2003, p. 9) also give some rules about how prefixes can influence the stress placement:

a) Mostly, prefixes do not affect stress placement, but only mostly. The prefixes a- as in awake, be- as in befriend and en- as in enclose never take stress. Many words which begin with what appears to be a prefix (but which probably isn’t now a separate morpheme) also fit this pattern: alive, begin, confer, confront, forget, pretend, remove, withhold.

b) Some prefixes such as step- as in step-mother and counter- in words like counter-culture take primary stress. This pattern of stressed prefix is particularly obvious when the prefix has more

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than one syllable: antimatter, pseudo-scientist. Some of these words may be compounds, which normally take primary stress on their first element.

3) Stress and Compound Words

“A compound is formed when two or more words behave as a single word” (Denham & Lobeck, 2010, p. 197). Compound nouns generally have a primary stress on the first element (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1972, p. 1039; Sabater, 1991, p. 149). Meanwhile, noun phrases are different since they “have the main stress on the most important element, the noun” (Sabater, 1991, p. 149). To take an example, contrast here the compound blackbird with the noun phrase black bird: "That sounds like a 'blackbird [compound]” and “A carrion crow is a completely black 'bird [noun phrase]” (Daniel, 1994, p. 5). In the first sentence,blackbirdrefers to a particular species of bird; in the second one, black bird refers to a bird that is black, a bird of any possible species (Denham & Lobeck, 2010, p. 197).

“The difference between compounds, such as a 'loudspeaker (sound amplifier), and noun phrases, a loud 'speaker (a person who talks loud), is also indicated by stress alone” (Sabater, 1991, p. 149). The compound has the primary stress on the first element, while the noun phrase has the primary stress on the second element.

When a compound is made part of another compound, the primary stress and the secondary stress are redistributed to give the same rhythm,

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for example: 'light house but 'lighthouse-keeper (Quirk et al, 1972, p. 1039).

A smaller number of compounds have the primary stress on the final component (Quirk et al, 1972, p. 1039; Daniel, 1994, p. 6). “Many of these compounds are not nouns, but verbs (back-'fire), adverbs (hence'forth), and especially adjectives (knee-'deep, flat-’footed)” (Quirk et al, 1972, p. 1039).

In other case, “the stress often shifts from the second to the first element when the compound is being used attributively in a noun phrase” (Quirk et al, 1972, p. 1039). An example taken from Quirk et al (1972, p. 1039)is “the room is down'stairs” but “a 'downstairs 'room.”

4. Errors in Word Stress

As stated in Chapter 1, error and mistake are different. Both of them are natural parts of the learning process. At first glance, they seem interchangeable, but in fact they are quite different from each other especially in the language learning context. Ellis (1997, p. 17) says that “errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what is correct. Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.” Corder(1979, p. 168) similarly states that both terms are different since “an error is lack of competence and mistake is performance deviant.”

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Dulay (1982, p. 138) claims that error is an inevitable part of learning and people cannot learn language without first committing errors systematically. Similarly, Prator & Robinett (1972, p. 17) say that “persons who learn English as a second language often make the mistake of pronouncing unstressed vowels the way they are spelled.” Corder (1979, p. 259) also says that errors happen when “the learners have not yet internalized the formation rules of the second language.” Thus, it is considered challenging for second language learners including Indonesian learners to produce English word stress. Moreover, there is no word stress in Indonesian language.

Some researchers have attempted to discuss errors on word stress. Chi (2000) attempts to identify and describe the errors that Vietnamese students often make. Therefore, the researcher records the students’ reading aloud at different levels in order to collect the data for this study. As a result, it is found that stress errors have become a real problem to concern. There are two types of word stress errors which are found from this research, namely:

a. Primary and/or secondary stress falls on the wrong syllable. b. All of the syllables are stressed.

Meanwhile, Kenyar (2009) in her study investigates the mastery of nouns stress placement among English Language Education Study Program’s Second Semester students. Furthermore, the researcher recordsthe subjects’ speech when all of them are doing their final test at class. The researcher transfers the recorded speech into the computer and transcribes the speech into written text, and afterwards she identifies the nouns stress of the participants’ production. She

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attempts to obtain data about how well the students master the stress placement of nouns and also what errors the students make toward the nouns. Consequently, related to the word stress error, the researcher finds that there are three types of word stress errors, they are:

a. Misplacing the word stress or the stress falls on the wrong syllable, e.g. in the word powder, the speaker put the stress on the second syllable, while the appropriate stress is should be on the first syllable.

b. Double-stressing the words that actually only have one stressed syllable, e.g. in the student’s production in the wordfamily, the student double-stressed the word by putting the stress on the second and the third syllable, while the word is supposed to have a single stress. c. Putting equal stress on all the syllables of the word, e.g. the speaker

put equal stress on all three syllables of the wordaccident.

The main difference between those research findings above is only on the second point of Kenyar’s theory which states that the word which only has one stressed syllable is double-stressed. Both theories state that the types of word stress errors are misplacing the word stress and stressing all the syllables of the word.

B. Theoretical Framework

In this section, several theories are summarized. Firstly, the theories used are related to the English word stress placement in order to help indicate the stress of the words uttered by the students. Word stress happens “when an English word

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has more than one syllable” (Kenworthy, 1987, p. 10). Therefore, the words which are stressed have more than one syllable. The theories about patterns of word stress explained above are also used because they are relevant to this research. As stated by Prator & Robinett (1972), we can indicate the noun-verb word pairs. However, Gimson (1962) notes that “several disyllables do not conform to the general noun/verb accentual pattern distinction or exhibit instability” (p. 229) and “words containing more than two syllables also exhibit distinctive accentual patterns” (p. 230). The theory proposed by Delahunty & Garvey (2003) to indicate how derivation can influence word stress is also applied. The next theory is stress on compounds. Compound nouns generally have a primary stress on the first element (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972, p. 1039). A smaller number of compounds have the primary stress on the final component and many of these compounds are not nouns, but verbs, adverbs, and especially adjectives (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972, p. 1039). Since there are many theories about word stress placement, the writer also consults the dictionary to help analyze the data.

Afterwards, the writer also uses theories which are related to the word stress errors. The theories used are research findings proposed by Chi (2000) and Kenyar (2009). They show that the types of word stress errors are firstly misplacing the word stress and secondly stressing all the syllables of the word. This study will use these research findings as the guidance to find out the types of word stress errors produced by the students.

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25 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter is divided into six sections, namely: the research method, research setting, research subjects, instruments and data gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure. Each section is described to give a clear picture or description about how this research is conducted.

A. Research Method

This study is basically qualitative research. Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh (2002, p. 22) claim that this kind of research “focuses on understanding social phenomena from the perspective of human participants in the study.” Ary et al. (2002, p. 22) also say that the data are collected in natural settings and it aims at generating theory rather than testing theory. The goal of qualitative research is “a holistic picture and depth of understanding, rather than a numeric analysis of data” (Ary et al., 2002, p. 24). Therefore, it usually uses a narrative description and doesn’t use statistical analysis of numeric data.

In this study, the writer employs content or document analysis as the research method. Content analysis is defined as “a technique that enables writers to study human behavior in an indirect way, through an analysis of their communications” (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2008, p. 472). The types of communications that can be used in this method are textbooks, essays, newspapers, novels, magazine articles, cookbooks, songs, political speeches,

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advertisements, pictures, and other documents (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2008, p. 472). Meanwhile, the kinds of communications used in this research are the video and the play performance script ofThe Good Woman of Setzuan.

This research method is used because it is the best and the most appropriate one since the researcher uses a certain type of document, which is the play performance video. Moreover, this content analysis method is also beneficially employed. As noted by Fraenkel & Wallen (2008), content analysis is unobstrusive since the presence of the writer does not influence the data which is analyzed (p. 483).

B. Research Setting

The writer uses the video of the play performance titledThe Good Woman of Setzuan. The play performance itself was conducted on November 30th, 2010 and it was recorded by the multimedia team. The setting of the play performance is in Sanata Dharma University, which is located at Jl. Gejayan, Mrican, Tromol Pos 29, Yogyakarta. The data collection itself starts in the middle of even semester, which is on March 2012.

C. Research Subjects

The subjects of this research are the students of English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta. All of the students are the 5th semester students in 2010. They have experienced teaching and learning process using English at many classes in the university. They all

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study English and their major scope is English education, so they are expected to be English teachers after they graduate.

The total number of the students in the play performance class is 47. However, not all of them performed in the play, since there were some students who participated in the backstage jobs. So, there are 29 players in the play performance itself. The writer takes the whole performers of the play performance as the participants of this research.

D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique

The instrument used to elicit data in this study is an observation table. The table consists of some columns. The first column is the numbering. The second one is the list of words. The third column isthe transcription of the students’ word stress production. The fourth column is the correct stress based on the dictionary. The last one is frequency of occurrences. This table was used by the writer when she gathered the data. The form of the table used is as follows:

Table 3.1 Observation of Word Stress Error

No. Words List

Transcription of the Students’

Word Stress

Correct Stress Based on Dictionary

Frequency of Occurrences

To gather the data, the writer listened carefully to how the students stressed the words in the dialogue when doing the play performance. The script of the play

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performance was also available. In order to make the data collection easier, the writer read the script of the play performance while listening to the dialogue spoken by the students in the video.

The writer also used some word stress pattern theories presented in Chapter 2 to help finding the incorrect word stress. Besides, how the students stressed the words was compared to the phonetic transcription in Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (2008) and the online version of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. The online version of the dictionary was used because it was free charge and easy to access. Moreover, the website was always updated and the phonetic transcription could be copied directly using the computer. As a result, the stress transcription could be provided in this study. By comparing the students’ oral production to the transcription in the dictionary, the writer could find the data of incorrect word stress from the play performance. After finding the lists of incorrectly stressed words, the writer transcribed the word stress that the students produced by listening carefully to the students’ oral production. The transcriptions of the word stress were put into the observation table above. The complete contens of the table would also be presented in Appendix 1.

E. Data Analysis Technique

To make the data analysis easier, the writer classified the data based on some categories. The writer found that there were five major categories which had incorrect stress, namely: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and compounds. Afterwards, the writer paid attention to how the students incorrectly placed the

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stress on the syllables of the words. It was done by noting the stress which was put on the word’s syllables; whether the stress was put on the first syllable, antepenultimate syllable, penultimate syllable, last syllable, or put on more than one syllables. How the students placed the stress incorrectly was observed by the writer in order to analyze the data.

F. Research Procedure

This research was done through several steps. The very first step was the instrument preparation to obtain the data. In this step, the writer prepared the video and the script of the play performanceThe Good Woman of Setzuanin order to collect and note the students’ oral production of word stress.

The second step was listening carefully to the students’ pronunciation in the play performance while checking the play performance’s script in order to make the process easier.

The third step was data collection. The data collection was done by searching the incorrect word stress by referencing to the related literature or theories presented in Chapter 2. Besides that, the writer noted the students’ stress in the word level and compared the stress to the transcription in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (2008) and the online version of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary in order to determine whether the word has incorrect word stress placement.

The fourth step was data analysis. In this step, the writer classified the data into some categories. The writer also paid attention to how the students

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incorrectly placed the stress on the syllables of a word. Afterwards, the writer attempted to solve the research problems addressed in this study.

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31 CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter consists of two major sections, namely the presentation and the discussion. The first section deals with the data gathered on this study. On the other hand, the second section describes the answer of the research problems, which are firstly about the types of word stress errors produced by the students and secondly about some ways to overcome the word stress errors.

A. Research Results

As presented in Chapter 3, the writer obtained the data by listening carefully to the dialogue spoken by the students in the play performance The Good Woman of Setzuan. Afterwards, the writer identified the inappropriate or incorrect word stresses which appeared in the play performance using some theories and dictionaries as the guidance to collect the data. After finding the data, she classified the words based on the word categories and also the stress placement. Then, the writer transcribed the word stresses produced by the students. The data collected was analyzed in order to answer the two research problems.

Based on the data gathered in this study, the total numbers of words which have wrong stresses are 77 words with 105 total occurrences. It is also found that there are five word categories which are incorrectly stressed, namely noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and compound. Nouns have the highest rank of incorrect stress with 62 occurrences. It is followed by adjectives with 22 occurrences, verbs with

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fifteen occurrences, and afterwards adverbs and compounds with respectively three occurrences.

The researcher summarizes all the results into a table. The table below has the list of word classes, the occurrences of each type of errors, and also the total occurrences of the errors.

Table 4.1 Occurrences of Word Stress Errors

No. Word

Categories

Types of Error Total

Occurrences of Error Misplaced Word

Stress

Unnecessary Word Stress

1. noun 53 9 62

2. adjective 19 3 22

3. verb 14 1 15

4. adverb 3 0 3

5. compound 2 1 3

Total 91 14 105

From the data analysis, the researcher finds that the most common type of error produced by the students is misplaced word stress. As seen in the table above, this type of error is produced 91 times. The words produced are mostly nouns with 53 occurrences and followed by adjectives with nineteen occurrences, verbs with fourteen occurrences, adverbs with three occurrences, and the last is compounds with two occurrences. Another type of error, unnecessary word stress, occurs fourteen times. Nouns also have the highest rank with nine occurrences, followed by adjectives with three occurrences, and finally a compound and a verb which respectively occurs once. There is no adverb for this type of error.

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Since this study investigates word stress errors, all the words with incorrect word stress in this study do not have the frequency of right occurrences. In other words, the analysis of the data is focused on the errors only.

B. Discussion

This section covers the discussion of the result findings, answering the research questions which are stated on this study. The first part of the discussion discusses the types of word stress errors which are produced by the students on their oral production. Meanwhile, the second part is aimed to find out some ways to overcome the word stress errors, which are helpful for the learners. The answers were obtained by analyzing the data of the research.

1. The Types of Word Stress Errors Produced by the Students

In order to answer the first research question, the researcher attempted to find out the types of word stress errors produced by the students. It was done by noticing the stress position on the words which were wrongly stressed by the students. From the data collection, it was found that there were two types of word stress errors, namely misplaced word stress and unnecessary word stress.

Based on the research findings done by Chi (2000) and Kenyar (2009) presented in Chapter 2, the type of word stress error which also occurs in this study is misplaced word stress, which means that the primary stress falls on the wrong syllable. Another finding stating that “all the syllables are stressed” does not always occur in this study because the speakers tend to produce unnecessary stresses on their oral production. It means that the word sounds like it has more

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than one primary stress including the correct stressed syllable so that the stress is unecessary. Therefore, in the second type of error, either all of the syllables of the word are stressed or more than one syllable of the word is stressed. The details will be discussed as follows:

a. Misplaced Word Stress

This type of error shows that the students placed the stress on the wrong syllable. The researcher finds that the words produced are mostly nouns, followed by adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and finally compounds.

1) Nouns

For the disyllabic words such as consent, machine, police, the speakers misplaced the stress by putting the stress on the first syllable, i.e. ˈconsent, ˈmachine, ˈpolice, which should be on the last syllable, namely, conˈsent, maˈchine, poˈlice.

For the disyllabic words contract, escort, markets, secret, uproar, and worries, the speakers misplaced the stress by putting the stress on the last syllables, i.e. conˈtract, esˈcort, marˈkets, seˈcret, upˈroar, worˈries. Those words should be stressed on the first syllables, i.e. ˈcontract, ˈescort, ˈmarkets, ˈsecret, ˈuproar, ˈworries.

For the polysyllabic words committee, desire, idea, intention,policeman,position,possessions,reduction,tobacco, the speakers wrongly put the stress on the first syllable, i.e.ˈcommittee, ˈdesire, ˈidea, ˈintention, ˈpoliceman, ˈposition, ˈpossessions,

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ˈreduction, while all of those words must receive penultimate stress, i.e. comˈmittee, deˈsire, iˈdea, inˈtention, poˈliceman, poˈsition, posˈsessions, reˈduction.

The speakers misplaced the stress of the words exclamations,resolution, and understandingon the second syllable, i.e. exˈclamations, reˈsolution, unˈderstanding; and the word conundrum on the last syllable, i.e. conunˈdrum, while the words also must receive penultimate stress, i.e. exclaˈmations, resoˈlution, underˈstanding, coˈnundrum.

The polysyllabic words century and usury are wrongly stressed on the second syllables, i.e. cenˈtury, uˈsury; the word multitude on the last syllable, i.e. multiˈtude; while all the words should be stressed on the first syllable, namely, ˈcentury, ˈusury, ˈmultitude.

The speakers also misplaced the stress of the words opportunity and sensuality on the first syllable, e.g. ˈopportunity, ˈsensuality, while they have antepenultimate stress, namely, opporˈtunity, sensuˈality.

2) Adjectives

For the disyllabic worddiscreet, the speakers misplaced the stress by putting it on the first syllable, i.e. ˈdiscreet, while the word has last-stress syllable, i.e. disˈcreet.

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For other disyllabic words such as decent, honoured, punished, the speakers misplaced the stress by putting it on the last syllable, i.e. deˈcent, hoˈnoured, puˈnished, while the words have first-syllable stresses, namely,ˈdecent,ˈhonoured,ˈpunished.

The speakers misplaced the stress of polysyllabic words heroic, included, restricted, and transparent on the first syllable, i.e. ˈheroic, ˈincluded, ˈrestricted, ˈtransparent, while they must receive penultimate stress, i.e. heˈroic, inˈcluded, resˈtricted, transˈparent.

The stresses of the wordscharitable, favourable,intimate, miserable, necessary, imminent are misplaced on the penultimate syllable, i.e. chariˈtable, favouˈrable, inˈtimate, miseˈrable, neceˈssary, imˈminent, while they should be stressed on the first syllables, i.e. ˈcharitable, ˈfavourable, ˈintimate, ˈmiserable, ˈnecessary,ˈimminent.

The words considerate, pathological, unlimited are misplaced on the first syllable, e.g. ˈconsiderate, ˈpathological, ˈunlimited; the word unfortunate on the last syllable, e.g. unfortuˈnate; while all those words should receive antepenultimate stress, namely, conˈsiderate, pathoˈlogical, unˈlimited, unˈfortunate. 3) Verbs

The speakers misplaced the stress of disyllabic words conceal, exchange, exist, occur, prefer, present, replied, and

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suspecton the first syllable, i.e. ˈconceal, ˈexchange, ˈexist,ˈoccur, ˈprefer, ˈpresent, ˈreplied, while the words must be stressed on the last syllable, namely, conˈceal, exˈchange, eˈxist, ocˈcur, preˈfer, preˈsent, reˈplied.

The stresses of the polysyllabic words committed and continue are misplaced on the first syllable, i.e. ˈcommitted, ˈcontinue, while the words should be stressed on the penultimate syllable, namely, comˈmitted, conˈtinue.

The polysyllabic words disappeared,intervene are stressed on the first syllable, i.e.ˈdisappeared,ˈintervene, while they should be stressed on the last syllable, i.e. disapˈpeared, interˈvene.

The polysyllabic word recognize is stressed on the last syllable, i.e. recogˈnize, while the word should be stressed on the first syllable, i.e.ˈrecognize.

4) Adverbs

The speaker misplaced the stress of disyllabic word somehow on the first syllable, i.e. ˈsomehow, while it should be stressed on the last syllable, i.e. someˈhow.

The stress of the polysyllabic word naturally is misplaced on the last syllable, i.e. naturalˈly, while the word should be stressed on the first syllable, i.e. ˈnaturally. Another polysyllabic word, unobtrusively, is incorrectly stressed on the second syllable,

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i.e. unˈobtrusively, while it should receive antepenultimate stress, namely, unobˈtrusively.

5) Compounds

The stresses of the compounds background and backside are misplaced on the last syllable, i.e. backˈground, backˈside, while they must be stressed on the first syllables, namely, ˈbackground,ˈbackside.

b. Unnecessary Word Stress

In unnecessary word stress error, the students tend to put the stress on more than one syllable, including the correct stress, so that the word sounds like it has more than one primary stress. The researcher finds that the unnecessary word stresses are mostly nouns, then followed by adjectives, and finally a verb and a compound with the same number of occurrences.

1) Nouns

The speaker wrongly put the stress on all the syllables for the disyllabic word distress, i.e.ˈdiˈstress, while the word should be stressed only on the last syllable, i.e. diˈstress.

All the syllables of the disyllabic word colleague are also incorrectly stressed by the speaker, i.e. ˈcolˈleague, while the word should be stressed only on the first syllable, i.e.ˈcolleague.

The speakers also wrongly put the stress on all the syllables for the polysyllabic words incident and widower, e.g. ˈinˈciˈdent,

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WONG Those are Shen Te’sthings. [To crowd.] Shen Te’s clothes are here!

POLICEMAN Mr. Shui Ta, unless you can tell us where the girl is, I’ll have to ask you to come along.

SHUI TA I do not know.

POLICEMAN I can’t say how sorry I am, Mr. Shui Ta. [He shows him the door.] SHUI TA Everything will be cleared up in no time. There are still judges in Setzuan. YANG SUN I heard sobbing!

Wong’s den. For the last time, the GODS appear to the water seller in this dream. They

have changed and show sings of a long jurney, extreme fatigue, and plenty of mishaps. The FIRST no longer has a hat; the THIRD has lost a leg; all three are barefoot.

WONG Illustrious ones, at last you’re here. Shen Te’s been gone for months and today her cousin’s been arrested. They think he killed her to get the shop. But I had a dream and in this dream Shen Te said her cousin was keeping her prisoner. You must find her for us, illustrious ones!

FIRST GOD We’ve found very few good people anywhere, and even they didn’t keep it up. Shen Te is still the only one that stayed good.

SECOND GOD If she has stayed good. WONG Certainly she has. But she’s vanished. FIRST GOD That’s the last straw. All is lost! SECOND GOD A little moderation, dear colleague!

FIRST GOD [Plaintively.] What’s the good of moderation now? If she can’t be found, we’ll have to resign! The world is a terrible place! Nothing but misery, vulgarity, and waste! Even the countryside isn’t what it used to be.

THIRD GOD The place is absolutely unlivable! Good intentions bring people to the brink of the abyss, and good deeds push them over the edge. I’m afraid our book of rules is destined for the scrap

heap-SECOND GOD It’s people! They’re a worthless lot! THIRD GOD The world is too cold!

SECOND GOD It’s people! They’re too weak!

FIRST GOD Dignity, dear mates, dignity! Never despair! As for this world, didn’t we agree that we only have to find one human being who can stand the place? Well, we found her. True, we lost her again. We must find her again, that’s all! And at once!

[They disappear.]

Courtroom. Groups: Shu Fu and MRS. MI TZU; YANG SUN and MRS. YANG; WONG, the CARPENTER, the NIECE, the OLD MAN, the OLD WOMAN; MRS. SHIN, the POLICEMAN; the UNEMPLOYED MAN, the SISTER-IN-LAW.

OLD MAN So much power isn’t good for one man.

UNEMPLOYED MAN And he’s going to open twelve super shops! WIFE One of the judges is a friend of Mr. Shu Fu’s.

(2)

SISTER-IN-LAW Another one accepted a present from Mr. Shui Ta only last night. A great fat goose.

OLD WOMAN [To WONG.] And Shen Te is nowhere to be found. WONG Only the gods will ever know the truth.

POLICEMAN Order in the court! My lords the judges!

[Enter the THREE GODS in judges’ robes. We overhear their conversation as

they pass along the footlight to their bench.]

THIRD GOD We’ll never get away with it, our certificates were so badly forged. SECOND GOD My predecessor’s “sudden indigestion” will certainly cause comment. FIRST GOD But he had just eaten a whole goose.

UNEMPLOYED MAN Look at that! New judges. WONG New judges. And what good ones!

[The THIRD GOD hears this, and turns to smile at WONG. The GODS sit. The FIRST GOD beats on the bench with his gave. The POLICEMAN brings in SHUI TA, who walks with lordly steps. He is whistled at.]

POLICEMAN [To SHUI TA.] Be prepared for a surprise. The judges have been changed. [SHUI TA turns quickly round, looks at them, an staggers.]

NIECE What’s the matter now?

WIFE The great Tobacco King nearly fainted. HUSBAND Yes, as soon as he saw the new judges. WONG Does he know who they are?

[SHUI TA picks himself up, and the proceedings open.]

FIRST GOD Defendant Shui Ta, you are accused of doing away with you cousin Shen Te in order to take possession of her business. Do you plead guilty or not guilty? SHUI TA Not guilty, my lord.

FIRST GOD [Thumbing through the documents of the case.] The first witness is the policeman. I shall ask him to tell us something of the respective reputation of Miss Shen Te, Mr. Shui Ta.

POLICEMAN Miss Shen Te was a young lady who aimed to please, my lord. She liked to live and let live, as the saying goes. Mr. Shui Ta, on the other hand, is a man of principle. Though the generosity of Miss Shen Te forced him at times to abandon half measures, unlike the girl he was always on the side of the law, my lord. One time, he even unmasked a gang of thieves to whom his too trustful cousin had given shelter. The evidence proves that Mr. Shui Ta wasincapableof the crime of which he stands accused!

FIRST GOD I see. And are there others who could testify along, shall we say, the same lines?

[SHU FU rises]

POLICEMAN [Whispering toGODS.] Mr. Shu Fu-a very important person. FIRST GOD [Inviting him to speak] Mr. Shu Fu!

SHU FU Mr. Shui Ta is a businessman, my lord. Need I say more? FIRST GOD Yes.

SHU FU Very well, I will. He is Vice President of the Council of Commerce and is about to be elected a Justice of the Peace. [He returns to his seat. Mrs. MI TZU rises.] WONG Elected! He gave him the job!

[With a gesture the FIRST GOD ask who MRS. MI TZU is.] POLICEMAN Another very important person. Mrs. Mi Tzu FIRST GOD [Inviting her to speak.] Mrs. Mi Tzu!

(3)

MRS. MI TZU My lord, as Chairman of the Committee on Social Work, I wish to call attention to just a couple of eloquent facts: Mr. Shui Ta not only has built a model factory with model housing in our city, he is a regular contributor to our home for the disabled. [She returns to her seat.]

POLICEMAN [Whispering.] And she’s a great friend of the judge that ate the goose! FIRST GOD [To the POLICEMAN.] Oh, thank you. What next? [To the Court, genially.]

Oh, yes. We should find out if any of the evidence is less favorable to the defendant. [WONG, the CARPENTER, the OLD MAN, the OLD WOMAN, the UNEMPLOYED, the SISTER-IN-LAW, and the NIECE come forward.]

POLICEMAN [Whispering.] Just the riffraff, my lord.

FIRST GOD [Addressing the “riffraff”.] Well, um, riffraff-do you know anything of the defendant, Mr. Shui Ta?

WONG Too much, my lord.

UNEMPLOYED MAN What don’t we know, my lord. CARPETER He ruined us.

SISTER-IN-LAW He’s a cheat. NIECE Liar.

WIFE Thief. BOY Blackmailer. BROTHER Murderer.

FIRST GOD Thank you. We should now let the defendant state his point of few. SHUI TA I only come on the scene when Shen Te was in danger of losing what I had

understood was a gift from the gods. Because I did the filthy jobs which someone had to do, they hate me. My activities were restricted to the minimum!

SISTER-IN-LAW He had us arrested! SHUI TA You stole from the bakery!

SISTER-IN-LAW Such concern for the bakery! You didn’t want the shop for yourself, I suppose!

SHUI TA I didn’t want the shop overrun with parasites. SISTER-IN-LAW We had nowhere else to go.

SHUI TA There were too many of you.

WONG What about this old couple: Were they parasites? OLD MAN We lost our shop because of you!

OLD WOMAN And we gave your cousin money!

SHUI TA My cousin’s fiancée was a flyer. The money had to go to him.

WONG Did you care whether he flew or not? Did you care whether she married him or not? You wanted her to marry some one else!

[He points to SHU FU.]

SHUI TA The flyer unexpectedly turned out to be a scoundrel.

YANG SUN [Jumping up.] Which was the reason you made him your manager? SHUI TA Later on he improved.

WONG And when he improved, you sold him to her? [He points not MRS. MI TZU.] SHUI TA She wouldn’t let me have her premises unless she had him to stroke her

knees!

MRS. MI TZU What? The man’s a pathological liar. [To him.] Don’t mention my property to me as long as you live! Murderer! [She rustles off, in high dudgeon.] YANG SUN [Pushing in.] My lord, I wish to speak for the defendant.

SISTER-IN-LAW He’s you employer.

(4)

MRS. YANG That’s a lie! My lord, Mr. Shui Ta is a great man. He . . .

YANG SUN He’s this and he’s that, but he is not a murderer, my lord. Just fifteen minutes before his arrest I heard Shen Te’s voice in his own backroom.

FIRST GOD Oh? Tell us more! YANG SUN I heard sobbing, my lord!

FIRST GOD But lots of women sob, we’ve been finding. YANG SUN Could I fail to recognize her voice?

SHUFU No, you made her so often yourself, young man!

YANG SUN Yes, but also made her happy. Till he [Pointing at SHUI TA.] decided to sell her to you!

SHUI TA Because you didn’t love her. WONG Oh, no: it was for the money, my lord!

SHUI TA And what was the money for, my lord? For the poor! And for Shen Te so she could go on being good!

WONG For the poor? That he sent to his sweatshops? And why didn’t you let Shen Te be good when you signed the big check?

SHUI TA For the child’s sake, my lord.

CARPENTER What about my children? What did he do about them? [SHUI TA is silent.]

WONG The shop was to be fountain of goodness. That was the gods’ thought. You came and spoiled it!

SHUI TA If I hadn’t, it would have run dry! MRS. SHIN There’s a lot in that, my lord.

WONG What have you done with the good Shen Te, bad man? She was good, my lords, she was, I swear it! [He raises his hand in an oath.]

THIRD GOD What’s happened to your hand, water seller?

WONG [Pointing to SHUI TA.] It’s all his fault, my lord, she was going to send me to doctor- [To SHUI TA.] You were her worst enemy!

SHUI TA I was her only friend!

WONG Where is she then? Tell us where your good friend is!

[The excitement of this exchange has run through the whole crowd.] ALL Yes, Where is she? Where is Shen Te? [Etc.]

SHUI TA Shen Te . . . had to go. WONG Where? Where to?

SHUI TA I cannot tell you! I cannot tell you! ALL Why? Why did she have to go away? [Etc.]

SHUI TA [Shouting.] Because you’d all have torn her to shreds, that’s why! My lords, I have a request. Clear the court! When only the judges remain, I will make a confession. ALL [Except WONG, who is silent, struck by the new turn of events.] So he’s guilty? He’s

confessing! [Etc.]

FIRST GOD [Using the gavel.] Clear the court! POLICEMAN Clear the court!

SECOND GOD [Taking matters in hand, sternly.] No! Let the people know what he has done with our good woman of Setzuan.

ALL Yes!

SHUI TA My lords, I have a very terrible confession. Actually, I am Shen Te! [He takes off his mask, and tears away his clothes. SHEN TE stands there.]

ALL [Shocked.] Shen Te!

(5)

Your world is not an easy one, illustrious ones! Good ones punished?

I truly wished to be the Angel of the Slums Why?

To help my neighbor To love my lover

And to keep my little one from want

For you great, godly deeds, I was too poor, too small. [Pause.]

FIRST GOD [Shocked.] Don’t go on making yourself miserable, Shen Te! We’re overjoyed to have found you!

SHEN TE I’m telling you I’m the bad man who committed all those crimes!

FIRST GOD [Using-or failing to use-his ear trumpet.] The good woman who did all those good deeds?

SHEN TE Yes, but the bad man too!

FIRST GOD [As if something had dawned.] Unfortunate coincidences! Heartless neighbors!

THIRD GOD [Shouting in his ear.] But how is she to continue? FIRST GOD Well, she’s a strong, healthy girl . . .

SECOND GOD You didn’t hear what she said!

FIRST GOD I heard every word! She is confused, that’s all! [He begins to bluster.] And what about this book of rules-we can’t renounce our rules, can we? [More quietly.] Should the world be changed? How? By whom? The world should not be changed!

SHEN TE No! Don’t go, illustrious ones! FIRST GOD

Our cloud has landed now in yonder field From which it will transport us back to heaven. Farewell, Shen te, let not thy courage fail thee. . . . [Exeunt GODS.]

SHEN TE What about the old couple? They’ve lost their shop! What about the water seller and his hand? And I’ve got to defend myself against the barber, because I don’t love him! And against Sun, because I do love him! How? How?

[Shen Te’s eyes follow the GODS as they are imagined to step into a cloud,

which rises and moves forward over the orchestra and up beyond the balcony.] FIRST GOD [From on high.] We have faith in you, Shen Te!

SHEN TE There’ll be a child. And he’ll have to be fed. I can’t stay here. Where shall I go?

FIRST GOD Keep being good, good woman of Setzuan! SHEN TE I need my bad cousin!

FIRST GOD But not very often! SHEN TE Once a week at least!

FIRST GOD Once a month will be quite enough! SHEN TE [Shrieking.] No, no! Help!

[But the cloud continues to recede as the GODS sing.]

VALEDICTORY HYMN What rapture, oh, it is to know

(6)

A good thing when you see it And having seen a good thing, oh,

What rapture ‘tis to flee it Be good, sweet maid of Setzuan

Let Shui Ta be clever Departing, we forget the man

Remember your endeavor

Because through all the length of days Her goodness faileth never

Sing hallelujah! Make Shen Te’s Good name live on forever!

Epilogue

You’re thinking, aren’t you, that this is no right Conclusion to the play you’ve seen tonight? After a tale, exotic, fabulous,

A nasty ending was slipped up on us. We feel deflated too. We too are nettled To see the curtain down and nothing settled. How could a batter ending be arranged?

Could one change people? Can the world be changed? Would new gods do the trick? Will atheism?

Moral rearmament? Materialism? It is for you to find a way, my friends, To help good men arrive at happy ends. You write the happy ending to the play!

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Word stress errors in students`oral production.

WORD STRESS ERRORS IN

STUDENTS’

ORAL

PRODUCTION

WORD STRESS ERRORS IN

STUDENTS’

ORAL

PRODUCTION

There can be miracles

When you believe

Though hope is frail

It's hard to kill

Who knows what miracles

You can achieve

When you believe, somehow you will

You will when you believe

Parts

Dokumen yang terkait

AN ANALYSIS ON STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH (A Case Study at the Second Grade of SMPN 3 Tangerang Selatan)

Measuring accuracy and complexity of an l2 learner’s oral production

ERRORS IN SPOKEN PRODUCTION MADE BY STUDENTS OF MAN 1 BOARDING SCHOOL SURAKARTA Errors In Spoken Production Made By Students Of MAN 1 Boarding School Surakarta.

ERRORS IN SPOKEN PRODUCTION MADE BY STUDENTS OF MAN 1 BOARDING SCHOOL SURAKARTA Errors In Spoken Production Made By Students Of MAN 1 Boarding School Surakarta.

ERROR IN ORAL PRODUCTION BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA Error In Oral Production By English Department Students Of Muhammadiyah University Of Surakarta.

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