English majors'stress assignment to English loanwords

The purpose of the study was to investigate 1) how Thai university English majors assign primary stress in English loanwords of two and three syllables, 2) the English loanwords and stress patterns most problematic to the learners, and 3) the relationship between the production of the words in sentences and the words in isolation.
Twenty-nine English and Communication majors at Ubon Ratchathani University were asked to take two word stress production test tasks: word-in-context task and word-in-isolation task. Each task comprised of 30 disyllabic loanwords and 30 trisyllabic loanwords, totaling 60. First, the participants individually performed word-in-context task and then word-in-isolation task. Both tasks were recorded and stored in a digital file format (.mp3) then analyzed by phonetic data analysis software called Praat to determine how the target words were stressed.
The results showed an overwhelming preference for the first syllable in disyllabic words. Error analysis also showed that the students tended to stress on the last syllable in trisyllabic words. It was also found that disyllabic words where primary stress falls on the second syllables were that most difficult to the students. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (rxy=0.69) revealed a positive relationship between the stress production in the word-in-context task and the word-in-isolation task. That is, those who performed well in the first task tended to perform well also in the second task. The results also indicated that the word-in-context task was significantly more difficult than the word-in-isolation task, suggesting a task effect.