The Perception of Word Stress in English and French: Which cues for native English and French speakers?

Dan Frost (1)

1 LIDILEM - LInguistique et DIdactique des Langues Étrangères et Maternelles

English prosodic features, particularly word stress, have long proven a source of debate. Word stress plays an essential role in the segmentation of speech, a crucial process in language comprehension, acquisition and learning. Incorrect use of English word stress by non-native speakers can lead to problems in comprehensibility. The English and French phonological systems are vastly different, especially in the domain of stress, and this leads to many problems for native French speakers learning English. This article presents a study which focuses on the four acoustic cues to word stress (F0, duration, amplitude and formant structure) and their perceptual correlates (pitch, length, loudness and timbre). The results support the hypothesis that French and English native speakers listen differently for stress.

Mots clés: cues; English; French; linguistic transfer; perception; stress; cues

Domaines: Education; Linguistique

Dan Frost. The Perception of Word Stress in English and French: Which cues for native English and French speakers?. EPIP1 (English Pronunciation: Issues and Practices, Université de Savoie, 2009, Chambéry, France. pp.57-73. ⟨hal-03542760⟩