Araştırma Makalesi

A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French

Cilt: 12 Sayı: 1 31 Mart 2026
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A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French

Öz

Word stress is a significant topic in phonology because it shapes pronunciation, rhythm, and meaning differentiation. This study applies a contrastive analysis approach to lexical stress in English and phrase-final prominence patterns in French, providing a qualitative comparative account of the structural and functional differences between the two languages. It examines how stress interacts with morphology, grammatical category, and communicative intent in English, and how prominence in French functions primarily as phrase-final prominence. Data were compiled through purposive sampling from authoritative grammar books and phonological descriptions, selecting canonical examples that represent (i) stress levels and prominence patterns, (ii) suffix-driven stress tendencies, and (iii) noun–verb alternations and minimal pairs in English, alongside phrase-final stress patterns and syntactic phrasing effects in French. The analysis follows Krzeszowski’s (1990) three-stage procedure (description, juxtaposition, and comparison), systematically mapping the two systems across matched dimensions such as stress domain (lexical and phrasal), variability/predictability, morphological sensitivity, and rhythmic organization within the broader prosodic system (stress-timed and syllable-timed). The findings indicate that lexical stress in English operates as a central organizing resource for grammatical distinction and information highlighting, whereas prominence in French contributes mainly to rhythmic regularity and boundary marking at the phrasal level. These differences have direct pedagogical implications for second-language pronunciation, particularly in preventing L1-based rhythm transfer. Future research could test these contrastive generalizations using corpus-based and acoustic analyses of spontaneous speech and examine learner production and perception to identify which stress and prominence patterns pose the greatest difficulty across proficiency levels.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Kaynakça

  1. Abbas, A. M., & Ahmad, R. S. (2012). Contrastive analysis of stress in English and Kurdish. Alustath Journal for Human and Social Science, (202).
  2. Arvaniti, A. (2012). The usefulness of metrics in the quantification of speech rhythm. Journal of Phonetics, 40(3), 351–373.
  3. Baek, H. (2024). Acoustics of the alignment of narrow focus prosody and lexical stress in native and nonnative English productions. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 156(4), 2340–2350. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0029737
  4. Betti, M. J., & Ulaiwi, W. A. (2018). Stress in English and Arabic: A contrastive study. English Language and Literature Studies, 8(1), 83–91. https://doi.org/10.5539/ells.v8n1p83
  5. Brasart, C. (2021). L’essentiel de la grammaire anglaise (2nd ed.). Armand Colin.
  6. Coulange, S., Kato, T., Rossato, S., & Masperi, M. (2024). Exploring impact of pausing and lexical stress patterns on L2 English comprehensibility in real time. In Proceedings of Interspeech 2024 (pp. 1030–1034).
  7. Cruttenden, A. (1997). Intonation (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  8. Crystal, D. (1997). A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics (4th ed.). Blackwell.

Ayrıntılar

Birincil Dil

İngilizce

Konular

Uygulamalı Dilbilim ve Eğitim Dilbilimi , Dilbilim (Diğer), Karşılaştırmalı ve Kültürlerarası Eğitim

Bölüm

Araştırma Makalesi

Yayımlanma Tarihi

31 Mart 2026

Gönderilme Tarihi

27 Nisan 2025

Kabul Tarihi

23 Mart 2026

Yayımlandığı Sayı

Yıl 2026 Cilt: 12 Sayı: 1

Kaynak Göster

APA
Güçlü, R. (2026). A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 12(1), 124-143. https://doi.org/10.31592/aeusbed.1685065
AMA
1.Güçlü R. A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi. 2026;12(1):124-143. doi:10.31592/aeusbed.1685065
Chicago
Güçlü, Ruhan. 2026. “A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French”. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 12 (1): 124-43. https://doi.org/10.31592/aeusbed.1685065.
EndNote
Güçlü R (01 Mart 2026) A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 12 1 124–143.
IEEE
[1]R. Güçlü, “A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French”, Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, c. 12, sy 1, ss. 124–143, Mar. 2026, doi: 10.31592/aeusbed.1685065.
ISNAD
Güçlü, Ruhan. “A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French”. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 12/1 (01 Mart 2026): 124-143. https://doi.org/10.31592/aeusbed.1685065.
JAMA
1.Güçlü R. A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi. 2026;12:124–143.
MLA
Güçlü, Ruhan. “A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French”. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, c. 12, sy 1, Mart 2026, ss. 124-43, doi:10.31592/aeusbed.1685065.
Vancouver
1.Ruhan Güçlü. A Contrastive Overview of Stress and Prominence Patterns in English and French. Ahi Evran Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi. 01 Mart 2026;12(1):124-43. doi:10.31592/aeusbed.1685065