Malaysian English is described as a variety of English that lacks perceivable lexical stress. This, in turn, could affect its intelligibility to non-Malaysian listeners. This paper examines if lexical stress can be detected in Malaysian English. The findings were based on two listening tasks completed by 65 respondents from three neighbouring countries: Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. In the first task, they were required to listen to recordings of the Malaysian speakers, and mark the stressed syllables in the test words. In the second task, they wrote out the words they heard in the recordings. The findings indicate that most of the respondents were generally able to identify the stressed syllables in the test words. However, the more syllables a word had, the more difficult it was to identify the stressed syllable.  Context was also an important factor as the listeners found it easier to identify, and make out the test words when they were placed in a sentence. Speakers who used less English in their daily interactions, and who declared a lower level of English proficiency had more difficulty identifying the stressed syllables, and making out the words being uttered by the Malaysian English speakers.

Keywords:  Malaysian English; lexical stress; perception; stressed syllable; intelligibility

Aminudin, E. A. (2003). Indonesian English: what's det tuh? TEFLIN Journal. 14(1), 140-148.

Azirah Hashim, & Tan, R. S. K. (2012). Malaysian English. In Low, E. L., & Azirah Hashim (Eds.). English in South East Asia: features, policy and language in Use (pp.

-74). Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing.

Baskaran, L. (2004). Malaysian English: Phonology. In Kortmann, B., Schneider, E. W., Burridge, K. & Upton, C. (Eds.), A handbook of varieties of English - Volume 1:

Phonology (pp. 1034-1046). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Becker, M. R., & Kluge, D. C. (2014). Intelligibility of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF): Perception by speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Proceedings of the International

Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech Concordia Working Papers in Applied Linguistics. 5 (pp. 50-57). Montreal: Concordia University.

Borlongan, A. M. (2017). Contemporary perspectives on Philippine English. Philippine ESL Journal. 19, 1-9

Chen, H. C., & Wang, Q. (2016). The effects of Chinese learners’ English acoustic-prosodic patterns on listeners’ attitudinal judgments. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal

of English Language Studies. 22(2), 91-108.

Chin, J. Y.-N. (2011). Lexical stress placement in polysyllabic words in Malaysian English. Master’s Dissertation, University of Malaya, Malaysia.

Cutler, A. (2015). Lexical stress in English pronunciation. In Reed, M. & Lewis, J. M. (Eds.), The handbook of English pronunciation (pp. 106-124). Boston, MA: John

Wiley & Sons.

Ernie Adnan, Pillai, S., & Chiew, P. S. (2019).The level of awareness and production of English lexical stress among English language teacher trainees in Malaysia.

Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics. 9(1), 98-107.

Field, J. (2005). Intelligibility and the listener: The role of lexical stress. TESOL Quarterly. 39(3), 339-423.

Fuchs, R. (2016). Speech rhythm in varieties of English: Evidence from educated Indian English and British English. Singapore: Springer.

Gut, U., & Pillai, S. (2014). Prosodic marking of information structure by Malaysian speakers of English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. 36(2), 283-302.

Gut, U., Pillai, S., & Zuraidah Mohd. Don (2013). The prosodic marking of information status in Malaysian English World Englishes. 32(2), 185-197

Hahn, L. D. (2004). Primary stress and intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching of suprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly. 38(2), 201-223.

Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an International Language: New models, new norms, new goals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, J. (2002). A sociolinguistically based, empirically researched pronunciation syllabus for English as an international language. Applied Linguistics. 23(1), 83-103.

doi: 10.1093/applin/23.1.83

Jeong, H., Thorén, B., & Juliana Othman (2020). Effect of altering three phonetic features on intelligibility of English as a lingua franca: a Malaysian speaker and

Swedish listeners. Asian Englishes. 22(1), 2-19.

Kirkpatrick, A., Deterding, D. & Wong, J. (2008). The international intelligibility of Hong Kong English. World Englishes. 27(3/4), 359-377.

Ladefoged, P. (2001). A course in phonetics (4th ed.). Boston: Thomson Learning Inc.

Leech, G., Rayson, P., & Wilson, A. (2001). Word frequencies in written and spoken English. Retrieved from http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/bncfreq/.

Lepage, A., & Busà, M. G. (2014). Intelligibility of English L2: The effects of incorrect word stress placement and incorrect vowel reduction in the speech of French and

Italian learners of English. Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech Concordia Working Papers in Applied Linguistics.

(pp. 387-400). Montreal: Concordia University.

Lewis, C., & Deterding, D. (2018). Word stress and pronunciation teaching in English as a Lingua Franca contexts. The CATESOL Journal. 30(1), 161-176.

Lee, H. Y. H. Q. (2019). Rethinking globalization, English and multilingualism in Thailand: A report on a five-year ethnography. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of

English Language Studies. 25(1), 69-84.

Li, H. P., & Chen, H. C. (2019). Intelligibility and comprehensibility of the Filipino English accent to Hong Kong English speakers. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of

English Language Studies. 25(1), 23-42.

Low, E. L., & Ao, R. (2018). The spread of English in ASEAN: Policies and issues. RELC Journal. 49(2), 131-148.

McArthur, T. (2001). World English and World Englishes: Trends, tensions, varieties, and standards. Language Teaching. 34(1), 1-20.

O'Neal, G. (2015). Interactional intelligibility: the relationship between consonant modification and pronunciation intelligibility in English as a Lingua Franca in Japan.

Asian Englishes. 17(3), 222-239.

Phoon, H. S. & MacLagan, M. A. (2009). Chinese Malaysian English phonology. Asian Englishes. 12(1), 20-45.

Pillai, S., Zuraidah Mohd. Don, Z. M., Knowles, G., & Tang, J. (2010). Malaysian English: an instrumental analysis of vowel contrasts. World Englishes. 29(2), 159-172.

Platt, J. T. (1980). Varieties and functions of English in Singapore and Malaysia. English World-Wide. 1(1). 97-121.

Rajadurai, J. (2004). The faces and facets of English in Malaysia. English Today, 20(4), 54-58.

Rajadurai, J. (2006). Pronunciation issues in non-native contexts: A Malaysian case study. Malaysian Journal of ELT Research. 2(1), 42-59.

Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology: A practical course (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smith, L. E., & Nelson, C. L. (1985). International intelligibility of English: directions and resources. World Englishes. 4(3), 333-342.

Tan, R. S. K. (2016). How do we stress? Lexical stress in Malaysian and British English. In Yamaguchi, T., & Deterding D. (Eds.), English in Malaysia: Current use and

status (pp. 65-88). Boston: Brill.

Trakulkasemsuk, W. (2012). Thai English. In Low, E. L., & Azirah Hashim (Eds.). English in South East Asia: features, policy and language in Use (pp. 101-112).

Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing.

Trakulkasemsuk, W. (2018). English in Thailand: looking back to the past, at the present and towards the future, Asian Englishes. 20(2), 96-105.

Yap, T. S., & Pillai, S. (2018). Intonation patterns of questions in Malaysian English, Asian Englishes. 20(3), 192-205.

Zhang, L. (2015). An empirical study on the intelligibility of English spoken by Chinese university students. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics. 38(1), 36-54.

Zhang, Y., Nissen, S. L., & Francis, A. L. (2008). Acoustic characteristics of English lexical stress produced by native Mandarin speakers. Journal of the Acoustical

Society of America. 123(6), 4498-4513.