mischievous

How do you pronounce 'mischievous'?

According to Wells (2008, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd Edition), the standard pronunciation is [ˈmɪstʃɪvəs]. However, two alternative pronunciations are also given: [mɪsˈtʃiːvəs] and [mɪsˈtʃiːvɪəs]. And a chart on page 511 of Wells (2008) shows that stress on the second syllable is most common among younger speakers, so presumably it will one day become the norm.

While overall 65% of British people and 67% of Americans prefer stress on the first syllable, this preference is much reduced for younger speakers, and it is the pronunciation pattern of younger speakers that will almost certainly win in the future.

One might further ask why this shift is occurring. It seems that it is an instance of spelling pronunciation: the spelling of a word influences the way that it is pronounced. In this case, it is highly unexpected that <ie> be pronounced as [ɪ], so speakers use the more expected [iː] instead; and then the long [iː] in the second syllable gets stressed.

That explains the [mɪsˈtʃiːvəs] pronunciation. But what about [mɪsˈtʃiːvɪəs]? My guess is that this is a result of analogy with words such as 'previous'. 'envious', 'devious', 'obvious' and 'impervious' — it seems there is a common pattern for [vɪəs] to occur at the end of an adjective.

Yesterday, I asked students in my class how they pronounced 'mischievous'. Half of them opted for [mɪsˈtʃiːvəs] while the other half went for [mɪsˈtʃiːvɪəs] — and none chose the more standard [ˈmɪstʃɪvəs]. This illustrates that speakers of English in Brunei tend to be in the forefront of the evolution of English pronunciation, as I have previously argued (see here).