The production and perception of Libyan Arabic stress patterns by English speaking learners: A comparison with native speakers

This dissertation examines the production and perception of some selected stress patterns in Libyan Arabic by English speaking learners and compares them to the production and perception of the native speakers. Two tasks were utilised to investigate the participants’ performance: a picture naming and an identification task. Word patterns covered potential problematic and non-problematic areas. An optimality theoretic approach is adopted in the discussion of the results of the perception and production of stress by the participants (Chapters 5 & 7) while a metrical approach is referred to in the discussion of the Libyan Arabic stress system in Chapter 3. It is found that structural effects (e.g. syllable structure, vowel quality, syllable position or class) have consequences on how the learners perceive and produce stress and on how they use this information in assigning stress. The study found that if the stress patterns match in the L1 and L2, and they follow regular phonological conditions, the learners get these patterns right by just applying the predictable patterns. If the stress patterns are similar but applied differently and they contradict predictable conditions, these unpredictable and/or marked patterns are not accessible in the L2 despite their partial availability in the L1. If a particular stress pattern does not exist in the L1, then the L1 negative transfer effect may appear in the L2. The misperception of stress is not only restricted to L2 learners but native speakers also fail in certain patterns to perceive the stress location. The learners use grammatical class and syllable structure as stress indicators but they show a deviation from the native speakers in using the vowel length cue. The native speakers are more sensitive to vowel length; the absence of vowel length or syllable closure in the stressed syllable in certain patterns prevent the native speakers from perceiving stress accurately.