Transcript Content Words Stress

How to Improve your
Pronunciation?
STRESS
AND
INTONATION
Level 3 Conversation
Margaret McLay
Stress and Intonation
Stress is linked to meaning.
English speakers stress the words that carry
the most meaning.
These rules can help you to decide how to
stress words.
Stress practice will help your conversation
skills!
Stress and Intonation
Intonation is like the music of language.
Every language has its own intonation.
Stress and Intonation
Understanding Syllables for Word Stress
To understand word stress, it helps to
understand syllables.
Every word is made from syllables.
Each word has one, two, three or more
syllables.
Stress and Intonation
Word Stress Rules:
There are two simple rules about word
stress:
1/. One word has only one stress.
2/. We stress vowels, not consonants
Stress and Intonation
Word
Number of
Syllables
Dog
1
Quiet
Qui-et
Green
1
2
1
Stress and Intonation
Some Rules to Remember….but there
are many exceptions and many more
rules!
Stress on the first Syllable
Rule
Example
Most 2-syllable
nouns
CHIna , TAble,
EXport
Most 2-syllable
adjectives
SLENder, CLEVer,
HAPpy
Stress and Intonation
Stress on the last Syllable
Rule
Example
Most 2-syllable
verbs
to exPORT, to
deCIDE, to beGIN
Stress and Intonation
Practice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSNc
I_agzpI&NR=1
How do we produce stress?
1. LOUDER (more air = more
volume)
 2. LONGER
(s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the word, especially
the vowel sound)
 3. PAUSE
(before or after the
stress to make it stand out)
 4. Higher in Pitch
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How do we produce stress?
Try this with your partner, the word
teacher
Longer teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee cha
tea
Higher
cha
Louder TEA cha
cha
all three combined TEA eeeeee
Stress Words in a conversation
Some general rules
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Stress content words and not function
words.
The most important word has the
most stress.
When a conversation begins, the
main focus word is the final content
word.
New information usually gets the
main stress.
Stress in a conversation
Some general rules
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Content Words include: (Main)
Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs,
Negative Auxiliary Verbs,
Demonstratives, and Question Words
Function Words include: Pronouns,
Prepositions, Articles, Conjunctions,
Auxiliary Verbs, (Main) Verb “to be”
Content Words Stress
Main Verbs, go, talk, writing
Nouns student, desk
Adjectives, big, clever
Adverbs, quickly, loudly
Negative Aux. Verbs can’t, don’t,
aren’t
Demonstratives, this, that, those
Question Words, who, which, where
Function Words No Stress
Pronouns I, you, he ,they
Prepositions on, under, with
Articles the, a, some
Conjunctions (FANBOYS) but, and,
so
Auxiliary Verbs can, should, must
Verb “to be”is, was, am
Intonation and Stress
Practice 1
Identify the Function and Content
Words
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Examples
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I am talking to the clever students.
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You’re sitting on the desk, but you
aren’t listening to me.
He’s writing quickly, so it’s difficult
for him to hear me.
With a partner try to put stress on
the correct words.
Tell Ann to call me tomorrow.
Susan got doughnuts instead of
bagels today.
Where is my red hat?

Stress timed – only certain types of
words are stressed and words in
between are compressed.
We are
studying English today
at
school!
Word Stress, which syllables?
Practice 2 Activity 1

There are four basic types of word stress
that lead to proper intonation in English.

tonic stress

emphatic stress

contrastive stress
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
new information stress
(as mentioned before)
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tonic stress
Tonic stress is the syllable in a word
which receives the most stress in an
intonation unit (sentence).
An intonation unit has one tonic stress.
It's important to remember that a
sentence can have more than one
intonation unit, and therefore have
more than one tonic stress.
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Tonic stress
Examples in bold/underlined.
He's waiting
He's waiting / for his friend.
He's waiting / for his friend / at the
station.
The final tonic stress in a sentence receives
the most stress. In the above example,
'station' receives the strongest stress.

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2. Emphatic Stress
If you decide to emphasize
something, you can change the
stress from the principal noun to
another content word such as an
adjective (big, difficult, etc.),
intensifier (very, extremely, etc.)
This emphasizes the word.
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2. Emphatic Stress
For example:
That was a difficult test. - Standard
statement
That was a difficult test. - Emphasizes
how difficult the test was
There are a number of adverbs and
modifiers that have emphatic stress.
extremely
terribly
completely
utterly
especially
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Contrastive Stress
Contrastive stress is used to point
out the difference between one
object and another.
Contrastive stress tends to be used
with words such as 'this, that,
these and those'.

Contrastive Stress

For example:

I think I prefer this color.

Do you want these or those
curtains?

For example:
Where are you from?
I come from Seattle, in the USA.

What do you want to do?
I want to go bowling.

When does class begin?
The class begins at nine o'clock.
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Practice 2 Activity 2

The COOKIE JAR
Students sit in a circle, or at desks
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Assign numbers to everyone
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
Clap and snap fingers all together, in
rhythm
Start chanting the following rhyme
The COOKIE JAR CHANT
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Who took the cookie from the – cookie jar?
Number one took the cookie from the – cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you.
Not true!
Then who?
Number seven took the cookie from the – cookie
jar.
Who me?
Yes, you.
Not true!
Then who?
Number four took the cookie from the – cookie jar.
Etc. etc.
It is important to remember to
identify a content word and to
stress the correct syllable.
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Homework HCC Learning Web
Syllable and Word Stress
This Presentation is on the HCC Learning
Web