Examining the Stress Patterns followed by Urdu Speakers Learning English in English Department at UOK

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the stress patterns followed by the Urdu Speakers learning English in the English Department at University of Kotli (UOK). This study throws light on how students break words into syllables and the approaches they use in navigating this area, and explores the influence of the Urdu language on the stress patterns spoken by the students of the English Department while speaking English. Urdu is the native language of the inhabitants of Kashmir and so it has deep influence on the speech patterns of speakers especially while learning second language. The researcher wants to find the influence of native language of participants, which is Urdu, on the target language, which is English because no work has been done in this regard. The researcher conducted interviews and recorded the answers on a cell phone using sound recorder software and provided the participants with a text to read so that the researcher could get a deeper insight into how they produce stress while pronouncing a particular word. The results of this study reveal the complexities involved in acquisition and production of the English stress patterns of Urdu speakers of English