Word Stress & Sentence Stress

1. Word Stress & Sentence Stress Huang Wanmei

2. Review of Vowels Three factors for the description of English vowels I. The height of the body of the tongue – highest point of tongue (vertical axis); II. The front-back position of the tongue – highest point of tongue (horizontal axis); III. The degree of lip rounding - lip posture

3. The height of the body of the tongue

4. The front-back position of the tongue

5. Description of the vowels • Front & Central Vowels • /:/ high, front, unrounded vowel • // lower high, front, unrounded vowel • /e/ mid, front, unrounded vowel • /æ/ low, front, unrounded vowel • /:/ mid, central, unrounded vowel • /ə/ mid, central, unrounded vowel

6. Back Vowels • /:/ low, back, unrounded vowel • // low, back, rounded vowel • /:/ mid-low, back, rounded vowel • /u/ lower high, back, rounded vowel • /u:/ high, back, rounded vowel • // lower mid, back, unrounded vowel

7. Unit 8: Word Stress • English is a stress timed language The English language is often referred to as stress-timed. Stress in a spoken sentence occurs at regular intervals and the time to say something depends on the number of stressed syllables rather than the number of syllables itself. • 1 2 3 4 • 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 • 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 • 1 and then a 2 and then a 3 and then a 4

8. Word Stress • A word stress means a prominent syllable

9. How to pronounce word stress? When a syllable is stressed, it is pronounced • longer in duration • higher in pitch • louder in volume

10. How do you say teacher?

11. Word Stress Rule

13. Sentence Stress in English • Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast. • Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". You remember that word stress is accent on one syllable within a word. Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence.

14. Most sentences have two types of word: content words structure words Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense. Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically. If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence.

15. Imagine that you receive this telegram message:

17. Rules for Sentence Stress in English The basic rules of sentence stress are: • content words are stressed • structure words are unstressed • the time between stressed words is always the same

18. Content words - stressed Structure words - unstressed