Phonology: Stress, rhythm and intonation

Raising awareness of important aspects of language

Warm-up

• In pairs practise both conversations. • NB Meaning is totally conveyed by these

words only. Get your acting hats on!• Do you think learners would find this activity

easy or difficult?• Most attitudinal features of stress are

universal. Depends how uninhibited the learners are, though.

Stress

• Read these invented words and try to predict the way each one is stressed. Count the syllables first. Can you suggest any rules?

• pawler veddle malmish pandifulloomitive loomition imbelist imbelisticgeon geonics geonetics geonetologygeonetological

Some general tendencies

• In two-syllable words the stress tends to be on the first syllable, especially where the second syllable is a suffix (pawler, veddish, malmer).

• Polysyllabic words tend to be stressed on the third to last: pandiful, loomitive, imbelist, cosmopolitan.

• However, certain suffixes such as –ic, ition, sort of ‘attract’ the stress: loomition, imbelistic.

• This accounts for stress shift in word families: geon, geonics, photograph, photographic, photography??

Techniques to highlight word stress

• Provide a model, i.e., drill chorally and individually.

• Ask learners, where’s the stress?• Tap or hum the pattern.• Write the word on the board with a small

indicator of stress, e.g., a small box above the stressed syllable.

Word stress Practice

• Mark the stress on these words. It helps to count syllables first.

• Tablehappy decide overtirednotebook sociable happily organiseexercise independently

Stress• Read the short dialogues aloud then answer the questions.

• A: Let’s invite Jack to dinner next Saturday.• B: No, let’s invite Jack next Friday.

• A: Let’s invite Jack to dinner next Saturday.• B: Let’s invite Jill to dinner next Saturday.

• A: Let’s invite Jack to dinner next Saturday.• B: Let’s invite Jack to lunch next Saturday.

• A: Let’s invite Jack to dinner next Saturday.• B: No, let’s not invite Jack to dinner next Saturday.

Questions

• 1. In what way does the second sentence change?• 2. Why does the sentence change in this way?• The sentence stress shifts according to the speaker’s

assessment of what the listener needs to focus on. Sentence stress (unlike word stress) is variable.

• General rule new information is stressed in English. Quite a difficult skill since in many languages new information is signified through word order, for example.

Rhythm

• Take it in turns to read the sentences given to you.• There are 3 mains beats. Even the final one has 3 main

beats. So, in English they take more or less the same time (give or take a microsecond!).

• Tap out the 3 beats on the table as you say the sentences.

• What happens the individual words (especially the ones between the beats) as the sentences become longer.

• Why might this be a problem for learners both with listening and speaking?

Rhythm• What happens the individual words (especially the ones between

the beats) as the sentences become longer?• Why might this be a problem for learners both with listening and

speaking?• The individual words are accommodated by contractions and

weak forms.• The ‘squeezing’ and ‘swallowing’ of the low-information words

are sometimes difficult for learners to actually hear at all.• Failure to use weak forms and contractions makes their own

spoken language sound stilted. Failure to stress the high-information words can make it difficult for listeners to ‘unpack’ what they what to say.

Intonation

• Intonation is also used to ‘package’ meaning.• This is simply an awareness raising task. Listen

to me say each sentence and then decide what the difference in meaning is between each.

• You could, if you like, use a little arrow ( ) to decide where intonation is falling or rising.