An analisys of the stress patterns of english words

Abstract

The present study contains a general analysis of the stress patterns of English words. This work tried to focus in the difficulties Brazilian English students have to use English stress patterns correctly. The difficulties were studied based on bibliographic data and a test administered to fluent English students from an English school which follows the communicative methodology. Both the test results and the author’s ideas used in this study showed that Brazilian students of English really face difficulties to apply the English stress patterns in speech. Also, this study contributes with some pedagogical ideas to reinforce the teaching of stress patterns in class in order to provide students of English with a great amount of input about the issue. This work tries to demonstrate the importance and the utility of correct use of stress patterns in a communicative context and shows some misunderstandings caused because of wrong use of word stress.