Word Stress

Word stress

Modified from: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/word-stress

Word stress is not an optional extra that you can add to the English language if you want. It is part of the language! English speakers use word stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. If, for example, you do not hear a word clearly, you can still understand the word because of the position of the stress.

Think again about the two words photograph and photographer. Now imagine that you are speaking to somebody by telephone over a very bad line. You cannot hear clearly. In fact, you hear only the first two syllables of one of these words, photo... Which word is it, photograph or photographer? Of course, with word stress you will know immediately which word it is because in reality you will hear either PHOto... or phoTO... So without hearing the whole word, you probably know what the word is (PHOto...graph or phoTO...grapher).

When you learn a new word, you should also learn its stress pattern. If you keep a vocabulary book, make a note to show which syllable is stressed. If you do not know, you can look in a dictionary. All dictionaries give the phonetic spelling of a word. This is where they show which syllable is stressed, usually with an apostrophe (') just before or just after the stressed syllable.

A stressed syllable has five characteristics:

It

●       is stronger

●       is longer

●       is louder

●       has a higher pitch

●       uses larger facial movement

Generalities

There are some guidelines about where to put the stress on words. 

There are patterns in word stress in English but, as a rule (!), it is dangerous to say there are fixed rules. Exceptions can usually be found.

Rule 1:

Here are some general tendencies for word stress in English:

Word	Type of word	Tendency	Exceptions
apple table happy	two-syllable nouns and adjectives	stress on the first syllable O o apple	hotel lagoon
suspect import insult	words which can be used as both nouns and verbs	the noun has stress on the first syllable O o "You are the suspect!" the verb has stress on the second syllable o O "I suspect you."	respect witness
hairbrush  football	compound nouns	fairly equally balanced but with stronger stress on the first part O o hairbrush

In Practice

Students can be alarmed when they meet words which are similar but have different stress patterns:

O o equal

o O oo  equality

O o o  equalize

o o o O o equalization

A useful thing you can do is to help students see connections with other word families. Patterns can usually be found, for example:

O o final neutral

o O oo finality neutrality

O o o finalize neutralize

o o o O o finalization neutralization

There are some recognized differences in word stress which depend on the variety of English being used, for example:

o o O o Caribbean aluminum (British English)

o O o o Caribbean aluminum (American English)

These differences are noted in good learner dictionaries. If words like these come up in class, point them out to students. Ask if there are similar cases of differences in word stress in their own language - this will heighten awareness and interest.

Rule 2:

Words end in 'ATE'

Graduate – verbà sounds like 8

Graduate -- adjective or nounà will sound like 'it'

Practice: estimate, articulate, negotiate, calculate,

Rule 3:

/tʃaɪˈniz                      dʒæp əˈniz                              pɔr tʃəˈgiz

●       Chinese                       Japanese                                  Portuguese

●       Pioneer                        volunteer                                 engineer

●       Antique                       boutique                                  critique                       technique 

æk əˈdɛm ɪk                ˌri əˈlɪs tɪk

●       Academic                    realistic                                   electric

●       Strategic                     optimistic                               pacific                         terrific

Rule 4:

Reduced forms:

Madam

Problem

Symptom

Album

O'clock

Doctor

Photography

Words that sound the same:

Atom -- Adam (a 't' between two vowels sounds a 'd’)

Lesson -- lessen

Caller -- collar

Profit -- prophet

Seller -- cellar

Exercise:

Economy                                 develop          

Memory                                  Europe

Control                                    information

Contain                                   commercial

Sentence Stress

Content and Function Words

Content words carry the meaning and function words don't. Function words help the structure. They may possibly help with the structure of some grammatical point. For example, the verb have may be a content word in 'I have a car.' but it can also be a function word in a sentence 'I have read the War and Peace'. Hence in the second sentence the word doesn't carry the meaning but it helps the grammatical structure. 

Study the following sentences. 

Teachers teach students. 
The teachers teach students. 
The teachers teach the students. 
The teachers will teach the students. 
The teachers will have taught the students. 

Are they pronounced at the same speed? Which sentence includes only content words? 

The first sentence includes only content words. Function words are gradually added. The function words of the last sentence are: the, will, have, the. 

Teachers teach students. 
The teachers teach students. 
The teachers teach the students. 
The teachers will teach the students. 
The teachers will have taught the students. 

E.g. I will driving to the market to buy something to eat.

Rule 1:

The second content word has more stress in the sentence.

I got a new job.

Do me a favour.

See you later.

Did you get it? vs did you get the job?

The speed between all stressed syllables remains the same from the first to the last sentence. An ESL instructor can clap hands or use the metronome to show the same speed. The function words are gradually added. The last sentence will appear faster because there are more words but the speed between the stressed syllables will be constant. The function words will be contracted and will carry no stress. In Canadian English this speed is generally 0.6 seconds but, of course, varies. 

Where in relation to the suffixes is the stress in the above words? Some stress is predictable based on the suffix added. Study the following document called Suffixes to check your answers and learn the rules.

Some words shift the stress depending on the Parts of Speech. For example, a word record can be a noun or a verb. The noun will be stressed on the first syllable while the verb will be stressed on the second. If a student doesn't stress the correct syllable, he/she might be misunderstood. Alternatively, if a student is not aware of such changes, he/she might misuderstand others. Click here for the list of nouns and verbs that function the same way as the word record. 

Congruent Pattern

To further emphasize and practice the sentence stress, instructors may choose to introduce the congruent pattern. Instructor should develop should develop a set of sentences that follow the same stress pattern. In other words, each syllable in the sentence will be either stressed, unstressed or it will carry the main sentence stress. In the example below, you can see that the words I, to, a are unstressed; the words want, buy, car are stressed and the word car carries the major stress of the sentence. 

In summary, the general rule is that if the last word of the unit is a noun or a verb, it's a stressed syllable will carry the major unit/sentence stress. Sometimes, based on its importance, the stress will lie on an adjective or an adverb. Notice that in British English the pattern may be different. Note that this pattern is not contrastive.

Contrastive Stress

If a speaker wants to contrast the meaning of a specific word in a sentence then they would stress that specific word regardless the usual patter mentioned. This would also change the meaning

Consider the following:

Mary wants to buy a car. - the word Mary is stressed - implies that Mary, not John wants to buy a car.

Mary wants to buy a car. - the word car is stressed - implies that Mary wants to buy a car, not a truck. 

Study the following examples. Which explanation sentence corresponds to the sentence with the highlighted word?

a) Tony bought a new car.	b) Christa made a coffee cake.
i) Tony didn't steal it, he bought it.	i) Christa made a cake, not a pie.
ii) Tony bought a new car, not an old one.	ii) Christa made a cake, she didn't buy it.
iii) Tony ,not his father, bought a car	iii) Christa, not her friend, made the cake.
iv) Tony bought a car, not a truck.	iv) Christa made a coffee cake, not a fruit cake.

c) Mary is driving to Montreal tomorrow.	d) Irina painted a portrait of her daughter.
i) Mary is driving, not flying, to Montreal.	i) Irina, not her daughter, painted the portrait.
ii) Mary, not her husband, is driving to Montreal.	ii) Irina painted a portrait, not a landscape.
iii) Mary is driving to Montreal, not to Ottawa.	iii) Irina painted her daughter.
iv) Mary is driving to Montreal tomorrow, not next week.	iv) Irina painted the portrait, she didn't have it painted.

What people say versus what they mean

Read the Following

What people say versus what they mean is actually a very interesting and tricky topic at the same time.

Read some on that topic here and this one. Then, follow these tasks.

Task one:

Pick out at least five expressions from these ones that someone has said to you or to anyone you know or you said it to somebody and they (or you) have misinterpreted them and write them down. Write down what you or the people really meant at that time.

Task two:

Click on this link and record yourself describing just one situation that you have had that someone, or yourself, said something and what you or them actually meant; share the situation, what, and why that misunderstanding happened.

Parts of Speech

Let's practice some parts of speech activities:

https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/parts-of-speech-quiz.htm

http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/grammar/parts_of_speech/quiz395.html

http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0073123587/student_view0/chapter6/parts_of_speech_exercise.html

Here are more links to practice:

1. Click on this link: http://www.lethbridgecollege.net/elearningcafe/index.php/writing/grammar-and-mechanics/parts-of-speech to read about the parts of speech on the site from Lethbridge College.
2. Click on the title "Parts of Speech Matching Activity" at the bottom of the page to complete the drag and drop activity that helps sort parts of speech.
3. You can get some help identifying basic sentence parts at this link: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quizzes/bodyparts.htm on the site "Guide to Grammar and Writing"