WORD STRESS PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED BY INDONESIAN
SPEAKERS IN SPEAKING ENGLISH
Saiful
([email protected])
English Lecturer of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Syiah Kuala University,
Banda Aceh, Indonesia
Abstract
This article describes the word stress challenges facing Indonesian speakers in
speaking English. Indonesian speakers face word stress problems faced in pronouncing
English words accurately because they do not have adequate theoretical knowledge about
how to place right stress on right syllable of English words. Word stress is very important in
English as placing wrong stress on the wrong syllable when someone speaks English will
cause misunderstanding and misinterpretating. There are three reasons why Indonesian
speakers face problems in pronouncing English words. The first reason is related to the first
language systems interference which is sometimes difficult to avoid and Indonesia speakers
also tend to use English word stress patterns on Indonesian words. The next reason is that
English is considered as a foreign language in Indonesia. Indonesian think that English is
difficult and they do not want to study more and more. So, they do not know much about
English. The last reason is that the Indonesian speakers are not much exposed to English
speaking community to acquire native-like competence. Approaches and teaching
methodology of word stress are also elaborated in the article.
Introduction
People who learn English, which is considered as an international language, definitely want
to be good at pronouncing every English word like native speakers. It has generally assumed
that the main goal of English language learners is to be native like competence. Stern
(1983:341) says that the native speakers’ competence and proficiency is a necessary point of
reference for the target language learners. From Stern’s statement above we can see how
people who learn English want to be as good as possible in any skills of English like correct
pronunciation and right stress for each syllable of words when they are speaking English. In
other words, becoming good at pronouncing English words, including accurate word stress, is
being dreamed by non-native speakers who are learning English as a foreign language.
However, pronouncing English words like native speakers do is not an easy effort. One of the
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challenging problems for being able to pronounce English words correctly and accurately is
word stress system.
Word stress system is different from one language to another. There have not been found
that two languages in the world have the same word stress patterns. Halle and Samuel (1971:
3) state that stress location in words differs greatly from language to language. English,
however, has a far more complex system of stress counters, so that when a speaker of any
other language background learn English, like Indonesian, mastering the position of stress in
the the word is a matter of some difficulty. Halle and Samuel’s statement is supported by
another linguist, Ladefoged. Ladefoged (2001: 231) argues that English makes far more use
of differences in stress than do most of the languages of the world. It can be concluded that
English words stress patterns are more complex than Indonesian word stress patterns.
Teachers and learners of English in Indonesia are not aware how important a word stress
position is. They tend to neglect to learn more about the pronunciation properties like word
stress because they think that the fluency is the most important in speaking. This is a wrong
view that must be avoided.
Teaching pronunciation at schools is absolutely required because pronunciation is one of
requirements
for successful communication among people in the universe. When
pronunciation is taught, students will obtain theoretical knowledge about sound system of
English and features of pronunciation like vowels, consonants, intonation, rhythm, stress, etc.
that can lead the students to be able to pronounce English words and sentences correctly.
Kelly (2000: 11) says that a consideration of learners’ pronunciation errors and of how these
can inhibit successful communication is a useful basis on which to access why it is important
to deal with pronunciation in the clasroom.
I want to stress here that word stress is a big problem faced by Indonesia speakers in
pronouncing English words because most of them do not have adequate theoretical
knowledge about how to place right stress on right syllable of English words. They tend to
put stress wherever they like and frequently they employ Indonesian word stress patterns – in
the final or penultimate syllables when they speak English. This can definitely make hearers
confused because there have been certain rules or patterns of word stress in English. This is
the primary reason why the writer choose the topic “word stress problem” in his final essay
of Analyzing Spoken English subject taught by Beth W. Zielinski.
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This paper then will discuss about English word stress problems faced by most of the
English learners in Indonesian. Firstly, I would like to discuss the definitions of the word
stress and the system of word stress in English and in Indonesian. Secondly, the discussion
will be on consequences of the word stress difficulty. The next discussion will be on the
possible reasons for word stress problems faced by Indonesian speakers. Lastly, the writer
will propose some approaches to teaching word stress.
What is Word Stress?
A stress syllable is higher pitch, louder, longer and clearer in sound than the unstressed
syllable. According to Ladefoged (2001:231), stress is a suprasegmental feature of utterances.
It applies not to individual vowels and consonants but to whole syllables-whatever they might
be. A stress syllable is pronounced with a greater amount of energy than an unstressed
syllable, and it is more prominent in the flow of speech. Furthermore, Ladefoged explains
that stress sounds are those on which the speaker expends more muscular energy. This
usually involves pushing out more from the lungs by contracting the muscle of the rib cage
and perhaps increasing the pitch by the use of the laryngeal muscles. The extra activities may
bring about the sound having more prominent length. There may also be increases in the
muscular activity involved in the articulatory movements. When there is an increase in the
amount of air being pushed out of the lungs, there is an increase in the loudness of the sound
produced (Ladefoged, 2001:231). The same view on word stress is also stated by Katamba.
According Katamba (1989: 221), stress is primarily a matter of greater auditory prominence.
He adds that the main phonetic ingredients of stress are pitch, length and loudness.
Stress syllables tend to have higher pitch and longer duration than their non-stressed
counterparts. In addition, stress syllables may be somewhat louder than unstressed syllables
but loudness is a much less important parameter than pitch or length. Furthermore, Katamba
(1989) explains that in English every lexical item is entered in the dictionary with word
stress. A particular syllable of a word is pronounced in a way that makes it more prominent
than the rest. For example,the words mother, better, cotton, and pity . The first syllable in all
these words is much more silent than the second. The first syllable is said to be stressed and
the second one unstressed . In longer words, there is often not just one stress syllable and a
host of unstressed ones. Besides the syllable receives the main or primary stress, there are
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other more prominent than the weakest syllables of the word. For example, the word radiator
. The first syllable of this word receives primary stress and the third syllable has secondary
stress (p. 222).
Poldauf (1984: 13) argues that word stress is the relative position of the force peak (s) in a
word opposed to the other positions the force peak (s) could occupy in a word in
consideration of the number of its syllable. He adds that a monosyllable canot have word
stress. In English, this implies that the individuality of monosyllabic words cannot be marked
by stress, nor can the category to which they belong be signalized by the stress patterns. For
example, black and bird or green and room have no stress by themselves, while blackbird
and green-room have word stress and a black bird and a green room have the stress of a
modifier-head combination.
From explanations mentioned above, we now know how important is the distinction between
strong and weak syllables to be recognized in English words. A strong syllable is produced
with loudness, pitch change, and longer. On the other hand, a weak syllable may be described
as absence of these (Kelly, 2000: 67).
Related to the system of word stress in English, Kelly (2000: 68-69) proposes several rules of
word stress.
The first rule is core vocabulary. Many ‘everyday’ nouns and adjactive of two- syllable
length are stressed on the first syllable. For example: SISter, BROther, Mother, WAter,
Paper, Table, COFfee, Lovely, etc.
The second rule is prefixes and suffixes. These are not usually stress in English. For example:
QUIetly, oRIGinally, deFECtive, etc. (Note the exceptions, though, among prefixes, like
BIcycle and DISlocate).
The next rule is compound words. Words formed from a combination of two words tend to
stressed on the first syllable. For example: POSTman, NEWSpaper, TEApot, CROSSword,
etc.
The last rule of word stress stated by Kelly is words having a dual role. According to him, in
the case of words which can be used as either a noun or a verb, the noun will tend to be
stressed on the first syllable (in line with the ‘core vocabulary’ rule above) and the verb on
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the last syllable (in line with the prefix rule). For example: Import (noun), imPORT (verb);
REbel (noun), reBEL (verb); and INcrease (noun), inCREASE (verb).
Indonesian speakers, however, tend to place wrong stress on English words when they speak
English. They usually put stress in the penultimate position or in the final position of the
word and even frequently they put stress wherever they like or without any stress. This
happens due to the different word stress systems between Indonesian and English. Obviously,
Indonesian word stress system is not as complex as English. Indonesian speakers are
influenced very much by the system of stress in Indonesian. This leads to misunderstanding
and even can not be understood by the native speakers of English.
According to Yong (cited in Swan and Bernard, 1987: 282), word stress in one variety of
Indonesian is penultimate. She further explains that Indonesian speakers tend to transfer
these patterns to their pronunciation of English words. It means that the word stress patterns
of the speakers’ first language influence the way they way they put stress on English words.
In contrast, Asyik (2008: Personal Communication on the Phone) explained to the the writer
that the stress in Indonesian is usually in the final syllable of the word. For example:
‘kemaNA’ (where), ‘sekoLAH’ (school), ‘meJA’ (table), etc. Asyik further expalined that
when Indonesian people speak English, they tend to be very much influenced by the word
stress system in Indonesia - place stress in the final position of almost all English words.
Asyik does not write the word stress patterns in Indonesian in any book or scientific journal.
However, the writer trusts him because he got his Ph.D. degree in Linguistics at Leeds
University in UK. In addition, he was the writer’s English teacher and is a very senior
linguistics lecturer at Syiah Kuala University (where the writer did his bachelor program
from 1993 to 1997) in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
Asyik argument on the word stress system in Indonesia is supported by one of one of the
Gil’s descriptions on word stress in Indonesian. Gil (2003, 2006) says that the position of
lexical stress in Indonesian has traditionally been described in at least three different ways:
(a) always penultimate (eg. Amran 1984); (b) always final (eg. van Ophyysen 1915); and (c)
penultimate, except when the penult is a schwa, in which case it is final (eg. Kähler 1956). In
a couple of recent papers, Tadmor (1999, 2000) provides an extensive survey of these various
descriptions, and argues that the differences are due, at least in part, to different authors
describing different regional or sociolinguistic varieties of Indonesian. In addition, however,
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he proposes, for some varieties of Indonesian, yet a fourth description of the facts, to the
effect that lexical stress is simply absent (Retrieved from: http://email.eva.mpg.de/~gil/
ismil/11/abstracts /Gil.pdf).
Zanten & Vincent (1998) views that in English, words like FOREbear and forBEAR or
TRUSty and trusTEE (stressed syllables are capitalized) are different in stress positions. They
explain that stress may be expressed by a change in pitch; the stressed elements FORE and
BEAR will also be longer and/or louder than unstressed for and bear. At the same time,
stressed syllables in English have full vowels, whereas in unstressed syllables vowels are of
ten reduced to schwa, e.g., TElephone ['telsfaun] versus teLEphony [ta'lefani].
In Indonesian, however, stress is not distinctive: there are no words containing the same
sequence of vowels and consonants that differ in their stress patterns (and consequently in
their meanings).
(Retrieved from: http://www.kitlv-journals.nl/files/pdf/art_BKI_1639. pdf)
In addition, the difference in duration between stressed and unstressed syllables is
comparatively small in Indonesian (Van Zanten and Van Heuven 1997). An earlier
perception experiment (Van Zanten and Van Heuven submitted) provided evidence that
Indonesians are relatively tolerant as regards stress and its position. Neither the form nor the
position of the accent-lending pitch movement associated with the stressed syllable seems to
be of crucial importance to Indonesian listeners. This would suggest that, indeed, stress is
free in Indonesian.
(Retrieved from: http://www.kitlv-journals.nl/files/pdf/art_BKI_1639. pdf)
Consequences of the Word Stress Problems
Word stress is very important in English. Placing wrong stress on the wrong syllable when
we speak English will cause misunderstanding and misinterpretating. One of the most
important criteria used in assessing the importance of word stress is intelligibility. According
to Hughes (2006: 252-254), although intelligibility includes a variety of speaking related
features, it is often closely tied to pronunciation. She says that intelligibility refers to whether
a listener is able to understand a speaker. In other words, the speaker’s message or intention
must be able to be understood by a listener.
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Intuitively, intelligibility is a powerful concept. If a speaker’s message is accessible in
content, yet presented in a way that impairs recognition (such as with adequate
pronunciation), a listener is likely to have greater difficulty understanding. Understanding can
be impaired because a listener has difficulty decoding an utterance because the utterance
meaning is not clear or because the utterance is not easily interpretable.
Zielinski (2006: 11) says that non-standard suprasegmental features-- stress, rythm, and
intonation-- can reduce intelligibility. She goes on arguing that intelligible speech is essential
for effective communication. From her statements, It can be concluded that intelligibility
requires standard phonological features like word stress patterns.
In short, placing right stress on the right syllable of the word is very important in English
because wrong stress position can result in an unintelligible utterance that makes the listener
is not able to understand what ia meant by the speaker.
Why Face Problems?
There are several reasons why the Indonesian speakers face problems with the word stress
patterns in English.
The first obvious reason is that the word stress patterns between English and Indonesian are
quite different. English word stress patterns are more complex than Indonesian word stress
patterns. Word stress in Indonesia is penultimate syllable or in the final position or even
stress is free (Yong, cited in Swan and Bernard, 1987: 282; Zanten & Vincent, 1989; Asyik,
2008; and Gil, 2003, 2006). In contrast, stress in English can fall the first, middle, or last
syllables of words like in SYLlabus, enGAGEment, and underSTAND (the syllables written
in capitals are the stressed syllables) (Kelly, 2000: 66). When Indonesian speakers pronounce
those words, they will stress penultimate syllables or final ones or can be no stress at all.
Indonesian speakers do not know if there is different stressed syllable in the same word. For
example: The word ‘record’ in sentence ‘I want to buy you a record’, is simply different
from the word ‘record’ in sentence ‘I want to record your speech’.
In short, the word stress patterns of the speakers’ first language influence the way how they
place stress on English words. The influence of the first language systems is sometimes
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difficult to avoid. When the writer observed native speakers of English speak Indonesian,
they also tend to use English word stress patterns on Indonesian words.
The next reason why Indonesian speakers face problems with stress in English is that English
is considered as a foreign language in Indonesia. Indonesian think that English difficult and
they do not want to study more and more. So, they do not know much about English. They
just assume that in speaking, for example, fluency or speak fast is main purpose of learning
English without taking standard word stress patterns into account. As a result, although they
can speak English fast but their utterances are still far from standard English.
The last reason for this difficulty is that the learners are not much exposed to English
speaking community to acquire native-like competence. Most people in Indonesia only learn
English when they are as school students. At schools, English is a compulsory subject that
need to be taken by every student. The main purpose of teaching English at schools in
Indonesia is to guide and prepare students to be able to pass their national exams (no
speaking exam) at the end of their schools.
Although students are trained to be able to speak English at schools but the teachers neglect
teaching pronunciation to them. Teachers think that fluency is the most important aspect of
speaking while accurate pronunciation including word stress patterns in English is neglected.
That is why the students do not know much about the importance of the word stress in
English.
The writer himself experienced this condition when he was a school student. His English
teachers did not teach him and the other students how to pronounce English words accurately;
how to place word and sentence stress correctly, intonation, etc., but they had a tendency to
teach their students how to pronounce each word fast without considering standard
phonological aspects (word stress and sentence stress, intonation, English vowels and
consonants, etc.). Unqualified English teachers at most schools in Indonesia is also the main
reason why students are not able to recognize the importance of word stress in English.
Teacher even do not know how pronounce English words accurately. They cannot be a good
model of pronunciation. In addition, schools do not have good facility that can be used by
students to practise their English skills like pronunciation. Language laboratory, CDs, DVDs,
players, tapes, TVs, etc. whic are very important for the students to learn and to practice their
pronunciation including word stress system in English.
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Approaches and Teaching Methodology of Word Stress
Raising awareness of word stress patterns is very important. According to Kelly (2000: 75),
each time teacher should introduce new vocabulary item to the students. It is important
because he should consider what the students actually need to know about the word stress.
With regard to pronunciation, stressed and unstressed syllables are important features.
Moreover, Kelly explains that there are many ways in which the teacher can encourage a
continuing awareness of stress. Receptive awareness is important, as it is through this that
successful production tends to come. Choral and individual drilling of new words usefully
combines receptive awareness and productive skill. Teacher should try drilling words in a
natural manner, first. If the students are having difficulty, teacher can try exaggerating the
stressed syllable. Other techniques can be performed by beating out the pattern of stress with
your hand or finger or tapping with a pen on the table, speaking or singing the stress pattern
(DA da da).
Sample Lessons for Teaching Word Stress
There are many sample lessons for teaching word stress patterns. However, the write just
proposes 4 sample lessons in this short paper.
Lesson 1. Introduce students to the word stress system in English.
Teacher writes the following country names on the board:
France,China, Japan, Canada, Japan, Vietnam
Australia,
America, Indonesia, Mozambique
Teacher asks students
1. what these words have in common (countries);
2. what difference these words have (syllables).
Teacher adds stress patterns and ask students what they represent. Elicit stress or strong
syllable. Drill each word several times.
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O
O o
oO
O oo
France, China, Japan, Canada,
o
O o oOoo
Australia,
o oOo
America,
o o
Indonesia,
O
Mozambique
Teacher asks if students can add any more names to the list.
Next, teacher asks students to write words as many as they can based on stress patterns in the
following columns:
O
Oo
oO
Ooo
oOo
ooO
Oooo
oOoo
Lesson 2. Find a partner (Kelly, 2000)
The teacher gives half of the students a card each with a word on, and the other half a card
with a sentence on. Each word card has a sentence card match, the word and the sentence
both having the same stress pattern. Students mingle, saying their words or sentences out
aloud, and through listening, trying to find their partner. Whey they think they have found a
partner, they check with the tecaher, and if they are indeed a pair, they can sit down. Once all
of the students are paired up, the pairs read their word and sentence to the other students, who
write down the stress pattern, using a small circle to represent unstressed syllables, and a
large one to represent a stressed syllable, as in the following example:
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Politician o o O o
It’s important o o O o
The sample card might be as follows:
Politician / It’s important
Policeman / He’s English
Electrician / Can I help you?
Photographer / You idiot!
Interior designer / I want to go to London
3. Categorisation (Kelly, 2000)
In this type of activity, students need to categorise words according to their stress pattern.
The words in this exercise are all name of jobs and profession. The teacher starts by one or
two of the words which appear on the task sheet before handing it out. The teacher also asks
students to work with neighbour to decide which syllables in the two words are stressed and
then elicit the answers. The task sheet like following:
Put this words into the correct colums, according to the
Oo
Ooo
oOo
Oooo
ooOo
Plumber Electrician Doctor Journalist Musician Shop assistant
Teacher Soldier Novelist Architect Carpenter Actor policeman
Fireman Lecturer Florist Businessman Artist Farmer Scientist
Researcher Gardener Designer
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4. Categorisation (Listening) (Kelly, 2000)
Teacher asks student to categorise words which can have two grammatical forms (noun and
verb). The teacher can read out these words or they can be recorded on a tape. The task sheet
like the following:
Listen to the tape. You will hear each of these words once. Put it into the correct column,
according to the stress pattern you hear
Import rebel increase export decrease insult content record
Oo
oO
Conclusion
Word stress which is one of the important properties of pronunciation has become a big
problem to the learners of English in Indonesia. The word stress problems need to be solved
immediately so that the learners will be more willing to participate in communication in class
and outside of their schools.
Improving the learners’ word stress capability would not be only beneficial to the learners but
also their schools and Indonesia country because the learners will be more confident to make
conversations with native speakers if they meet them and with the other students in English in
schools, workplace, market, store, etc.
Schools should provide facility that facilitates students to practice and to gain knowledge of
pronunciation - intonation, word stress and sentence stress. The use of TV set, CD’s, DVD’s
cassettes and players is required to improve the learners’ word stress accuracy. Good model
from their teachers who are able to produce accurate stress on the right syllables of English
words are needed as well. In addition, pronunciation teachers should have good cooperation
with their learners so that the learners would not feel reluctant in improving their word stress.
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REFERENCES
Asyik, A.G. 2008. Personal Communication: Banda Aceh: Phone: +6285260961520
Gil, D. 2003, 2006. A Typology of Stress, And Where Malay/Indonesian Fits In. Retrieved
from: http://email.eva.mpg.de/~gil/ismil/11/abstracts/Gil.pdf
Halle, M. & Samuel J.K. 1971. English stress: Its form, Its growth, and Its Role in Verse.
New York: Harper & Row Inc.
Hughes, R. 2006. Spoken English, TESOL and Applied Linguistics. New York: Palgrave
MacMilan.
Katamba, F. 1989. An Introduction to Phonology. New York: Longman Inc.
Kelly, G. 200. How to Teach Pronunciation. Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited.
Ladefoged. P. 2001. A Course in Phonetics. Boston: Thomson Learning, Inc.
Poldauf. I. 1984. English Word Stress: A Theory of Word-Stress Patterns in English. Oxford:
Pergamon Press Ltd.
Stern, H.H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Swan, M. & Bernard, S. 1987. Learner English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zanten, E.V. & Vincent, J.V.H. 1998. Word stress in Indonesian; Its
communicative relevance. Retrieved from: http://www.kitlvjournals.nl/files/pdf/art_BKI_1639.pdf.
Zielinski, B.W. 2006. Reduced Intelligibility in L2 Speakers of English. Melbourne: La
Trobe University
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