Age Effect On The Acquisition Of English Word Stress Patterns In Chinese Learners Of English As A Foreign Language

A much larger body of studies of age effect on the acquisition of English word stress patterns have been conducted in second language settings, whereas age effect on the acquisition of English word stress patterns in formal instruction environment lacks empirical evidence. Thus, the present study aims to explore age of acquisition effect on the acquisition of English stress patterns in Chinese learners of English in foreign language settings. Two factors affecting stress placement for English words: syllabic structure and lexical class, were investigated.The current study included three groups (N=90): 30 Americans, 30 Chinese EFL learners who started learning English before puberty and 30 learners after puberty. The following study tasks were administered to the Chinese EFL learners: a compound dictation test, a stress placement on real English words test, a foreign language learning environment interview and a production experiment based on Guion, Harada and Clark (2004). Thirty Americans only conducted the production task. In the production experiment, the subjects produced 40 non-words of varying syllabic structures in noun and verb sentence frames. A mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to provide evidence that there was significant difference in acquisition of knowledge of English stress patterns based on syllabic structure and lexical class between native speakers of English and Chinese EFL learners. Separate one-way ANOVA and separate t-test were used to decide the significant effects of lexical class and syllabic structure on stress assignment for English native speakers; early and late Chinese EFL learners were proved not to use this knowledge in placing main stress on non-words in production experiment. Age of acquisition effect was not found for Chinese EFL learners. The failure in Chinese learners'acquisition of English stress patterns may be due to early exposure to a phrase level prosodic system in Chinese. The foreign language learning environment with limited exposure to English may explain the absence of age effect in early and late Chinese EFL learners. Suggestions to future research, implications and limitations of the study are discussed.