Learning a foreign language is always associated with the study of pronunciation and phonetic formation. Knowledge of phonetic phenomena and the patterns of their functioning is a prerequisite for understanding foreign language statements and “voicing” one’s own thoughts. Imperfect pronunciation skills are often the cause of inaccurate or even incorrect understanding of foreign language speech. The comparative study of languages is a fruitful means of linguistic analysis. Thanks to deep penetration into the structural features of languages, it provides invaluable rich material for their structural and typological characteristics, and helps to identify typologically similar and specific phenomena in compared languages [1, p. 46].

By its nature, word stress in English and Turkmen is similar, since it is basically forceful, or dynamic. But in both languages it does not exist in its pure form, but has a mixed character, since the dynamic principle of highlighting a stressed syllable is complemented by other principles: qualitative, quantitative and musical. However, in English stress the pitch component predominates, while in Turkmen it is the quantitative component.

Now we should move on to the general characteristics of Turkmen word stress and the principles of its study. First of all, stress is a sign of sounding speech. Modern Turkmen word stress is highly centralizing, dynamic and monotonic. Depending on the main means of highlighting a stressed syllable, the following types of stress are distinguished:

1) dynamic, forceful, expiratory, in which a stressed syllable differs from unstressed syllables in greater tension;

2) quantitative, longitudinal, in which a stressed syllable differs from unstressed syllables in length;

3) tonal, melodic, musical, characterized by the movement of the musical tone of stressed vowels in the absence of such movement in unstressed vowels

Word stress in the modern Turkmen literary language is dynamic, forceful, expiratory, that is, a stressed syllable is characterized by greater tension and strength compared to unstressed ones. But the sign of longitude for Turkmen vowels is differential, distinctive: like, for example, the English language, in the Turkmen language there are no significant units (morphemes, word forms) that differ only in the longitude of the vowels (cf. in English the words it – eat, which differ only vowel length).

Stress in English, as in Turkmen, is an important means of combining a sequence of words into a single whole and highlighting one syllable of the speech stream against the background of others. In Turkmen English studies, a distinction is usually made between word stress and phrasal stress. We’ll look at word stress. Word stress is a means of phonetically combining a word into one whole. This unifying function of word stress is carried out by highlighting one of the syllables in the word (stressed), which “subordinates” the others (unstressed) [3, p. 45].

There are many approaches (including British, American) both in terms of identifying its typology and in terms of identifying its many functions. Typological signs of stress in English:

1. The nature of stress. By its nature, the stress in the compared languages is similar, since it is mainly forceful, or dynamic (determined by the force of exhalation). However, in English stress the pitch component predominates, and in Turkmen – the quantitative component [1, p. 87].

2. Place of stress. The English and Turkmen languages differ significantly from each other in terms of the place of stress in a word. English stress can be considered typologically as less constant and more flexible, since the vast majority of English two and three-syllable words have stress on the initial syllable: ‘suphate,’alkane,’purity. The stress, as a rule, remains on the same syllable if word-forming affixes are added to the root morpheme: ‘nature – ‘natural, ‘power – ‘powerful’. In contrast to English, Turkmen stress is even more constant and do not move in a word from one syllable and  falls on the last one: ba’lyk, balyk’çy, balykçy’lar [4].

3. Quality of stress. A feature of the English accentuation system is that it has a clearly expressed secondary stress in polysyllabic words (with more than four syllables), in which the main stress falls on the second or third syllable from the end of the word: ,evo’lution, ,interference, ,solubili ‘zation, ,decom’pose.

4. Accent functions. The functions of stress in the compared languages are also different. In Turkmen, stress serves as a means of delimiting individual lexical units: alma – alma; çatma – çatma [1, p. 134].

In English, stress serves as a means of distinguishing between two words belonging to different parts of speech. In nouns, the stress usually falls on the first, and in verbs – on the second syllable: increase – increase, import – import [2, p. 250].

So, we can conclude that the comparative study of languages is a fruitful means of linguistic analysis, is directly related to the development of the foundations of an effective methodology for teaching English pronunciation to Turkmen-speaking people, allows us to take into account the typological differences of both languages, and makes it possible to theoretically determine the difficulties that await Turkmens in the process of mastering them with English pronunciation, make an appropriate selection of phonetic and phonological difficulties and develop a sequence for studying sounds and the necessary system of exercises. Thanks to deep penetration into the structural features of languages, it provides invaluable rich material for their structural and typological characteristics, and helps to identify typologically similar and specific phenomena in compared languages. The comparative method allows us to identify such patterns and facts in the structure of a language that remain hidden when examined within the framework of one language.

1. Weýisow B., Babaýewa G. Türkmen diliniň fonetikasy. Aşgabat, 2009
2. Аракин В.Д. Сравнительная типология английского и русского языков: Учеб. пособие для студентов пед. институтов / В.Д. Аракин. – Л.: Просвещение, 1979.
3. Nartyýew N. Türkmen dili. Aşgabat, 2010.
4. http://www.enedilim.com

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