The perception of lexical stress in Malaysian English
Malaysian English is described as a variety of English that lacks perceivable lexical stress. This, in turn, could affect its intelligibility to non-Malaysian listeners. This paper examines if lexical stress can be detected in Malaysian English. The findings were based on two listening tasks com...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2020
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16533/1/39628-144977-2-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16533/ https://ejournals.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1364 |
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| Summary: | Malaysian English is described as a variety of English that lacks perceivable lexical stress. This, in turn, could
affect its intelligibility to non-Malaysian listeners. This paper examines if lexical stress can be detected in
Malaysian English. The findings were based on two listening tasks completed by 65 respondents from three
neighbouring countries: Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. In the first task, they were required to listen to
recordings of the Malaysian speakers, and mark the stressed syllables in the test words. In the second task, they
wrote out the words they heard in the recordings. The findings indicate that most of the respondents were
generally able to identify the stressed syllables in the test words. However, the more syllables a word had, the
more difficult it was to identify the stressed syllable. Context was also an important factor as the listeners found
it easier to identify, and make out the test words when they were placed in a sentence. Speakers who used less
English in their daily interactions, and who declared a lower level of English proficiency had more difficulty
identifying the stressed syllables, and making out the words being uttered by the Malaysian English speakers. |
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