The Production of word stress patterns in English noun to verb conversion words by adult EFL learners in Indonesia: A Phonological Study

Abstract

Abstract: Word stress errors produced by EFL learners is such a common issue in phonological study. Many research regarding the issue have been conducted. Most of research concerned about the analysis of word stress errors itself. This urges the researcher to conduct a study on the production of word stress patterns in noun to verb conversion words. This topic is somehow rarely found in the area of research since the researcher use conversion words as an instrument. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the production of word stress patterns in English noun to verb conversion words by adult EFL learners in Indonesia. The researcher gathers the data by recording the production of 10 English noun to verb conversion words in the form of sentences given to 10 English Linguistics postgraduate students as participants of the study. The researcher classifies the data into correct word stress and error word stress. The error word stress are also classified into types of error word stress. The results showed that most of the students already have phonological competence, particularly in word stress patterns production in noun to verb conversion words. Apart from the success of word stress placement. It is also found that there are several types of error placement produced by adult EFL learners comprising verb stress placement in noun, noun stress placement in verb, unstressed words, and double-stressed words. In addition, this research have made contributions to the area of phonological study especially word stress and its implementation according to specific language learners.