The Repository @ St. Cloud State

Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

5-2025

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Styleguide

apa

Degree Name

English - Teaching English as a Second Language: M.A.

Department

English

College

College of Liberal Arts

First Advisor

Dr. Ettien Koffi

Second Advisor

Dr. Michael Schwartz

Third Advisor

Dr. Lisa Loftis

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Keywords and Subject Headings

Acoustic Correlate, Lexical Stress, Fundamental frequency (F0), Duration, Intensity, Intelligibility, Nepali Accented English

Abstract

Extensive research has been conducted on the acoustic correlates used by native English speakers to mark stress, raking the acoustic correlates: pitch/Fundamental frequency (F0), intensity, and duration (Fry, 1958; Fry, 1995; Ladefoged, 2003). Several researchers evaluated the raking of acoustic correlates in lexical stress by L2 speakers of English (Herrera Huezo, 2017; Koffi, 2021; Koffi & Mason, 2024; Payena et al., 2023). However, similar research has not been extended to Nepali Accented English (NAE). This study investigates the ranking of acoustic correlates of lexical stress in disyllabic words produced by NAE and determines whether these rankings differ from those observed in General American English (GAE). Data for this study comprised recordings of 16 NAE speakers (8 males and 8 females) obtained from Speech Accent Archive (SAA) website (Weinberger, 2015). Eight disyllabic words were analyzed using TextGrids created via Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013). Acoustic measurements of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration were obtained, and the Just Noticeable Difference (JND) was applied to rank these cues according to their perceptual salience. Quantitative analysis revealed that the hierarchy of acoustic correlates in NAE speakers deviate from the patterns previously reported for GAE by Koffi (2021). Finally, pedagogical implications and applications are drawn, and relevant strategies are suggested to help NAE speakers understand stress patterns.

Comments/Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my chairperson and research advisor Dr. Ettien Koffi; for guiding and supporting me through this journey and making this a smooth sail, your door was always open for me whenever I needed any guidance or motivation to keep going. Your expertise, passion and knowledge on the field of acoustic phonetics has not just guided me but also inspired me and opened my path to further research and interest. I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Scwartz, my academic advisor for his words of encouragement, knowledge, and guidance which made this work possible and Dr. Lisa Loftis for her invaluable comments and suggestions that not only contributed to my work but also my academic growth.

I am immensely grateful to my friends and family for their belief in me, their unwavering support throughout this journey and beyond. I am thankful to everyone who has been a part of this journey, have motivated me and cheered for me. Without them, none of this would have been possible. Thank you all.

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