Phonology: Stress, rhythm and intonation

1. Phonology: Stress, rhythm and intonation Raising awareness of important aspects of language

2. 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.

3. 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 pandiful loomitive loomition imbelist imbelistic geon geonics geonetics geonetology geonetological

4. 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??

5. 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.

6. Word stress Practice • Mark the stress on these words. It helps to count syllables first. • Table happy decide overtired notebook sociable happily organise exercise independently

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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?

10. 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.

11. 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.