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Word stress placement by Tanzanian learners of English
(University of Dar es Salaam, 2013) Msagalla, Brighton
This study investigated the degree of variation between word stress placement by Tanzanian learners of English and the native-like stress placement as well as the extent to which these learners agree among themselves on their stress assignment in English words The study was conducted at the University of Dar es salaam and it involved thirty third year undergraduate students of E English. The subjects were required to read 120 target English words both in sentences and in isolation. Results from the stress placement test suggested that, while their stress placement majority of the disyllabic words differed only slightly from the native stress assignment, the subject stress placement in trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic words varies widely from the native-like one. It was concluded that most Tanzania learners of English fail to assign stress to the preantepenultimate syllable of quadrisyllabic words and antepenultimate syllable of trisyllabic verbs mainly because word stress placement in English is complex and determined by a number of constraints. The study recommended that further research should be carried out to investigate the acquisition of English stress by Tanzania learners of English from secondary schools or other universities. Research may also include other sets of words that were not incorporated in the present study.