1. 1 English Phonetics and Phonology Lesson 5B Stress

2. 2 Stress for Italian learners of English English stress patterns are generally rather irregular. Let’s make a comparison with a language like Italian, which is highly regular. Any native speaker of Italian will know where the stress should lie on the following nonsense words: todernoentedettoli. Unusual stress patterns are marked orthographically, e.g. calamita/calamitàmeta/metà

3. 3 English not sure Native English speakers cannot be so sure about placement of stress in words they have never heard. Accents (ò,à,ù etc.) are not used in the writing system.

4. 4 Where is the stress?

5. 5

6. 6 i TOLD you to go

7. 7 i told YOU to go

8. 8 Word and Phrasal Stress The conventions for marking stress are: an upper vertical bar before primary stress e.g. / ’ kreizi /

9. 9 What is word and phrasal stress? A series of factors combine to give us what is known as word stress: 1)Pitch 2)Vowel quality 3)Length 4)Loudness We can illustrate these factors by using nonsense words.

10. 10 Pitch In the following word the third syllable will be perceived as being stressed given its falling intonation. /di:di:  di:di:di:/

11. 11 Vowel quality In the following word the third syllable will be perceived as being stressed as it has a different vowel phoneme. di: di: da: di: di: This seems to be an important factor in English, as central vowels are often used in unstressed positions.

12. 12 Length Vowel phonemes tend to be longer in stressed positions. The only example we can give with length having phonemic value in English is: da da da da: da da Obviously stressed syllables do not necessarily have long vowel sounds, e.g explicit

13. 13 Loudness In the following word the third syllable will be perceived as being stressed as it is louder. /di: di: di: di: di:

14. 14 Combined factors Note that usually all four factors combine to give us what is known as word stress. So much so that it is in fact difficult to utter the preceding examples e.g. that of loudness without involving the other three.

15. 15 Speaker and Regional Variation Stress placement is by no means uniform all over the English-speaking world. Some differences are regional, e.g. magaZINE (GB) vs. MAGazine(NZ) Other differences are between individuals in the same geographical area (e.g. kiLOmeter, KIlometer).

16. 16 Consequences of misplaced stress Placing stress on the wrong syllable in a single word usually does not usually lead to comprehension problems, although it does require extra effort by the listener. Stress (together with intonation) has important functions, misplacing, or not placing enough stress may make communication ambiguous.

17. 17 Acquiring stress patterns English word stress is not totally random and many authors have proposed systems to explain its functioning. While some recommend that learners utilise these rather complicated systems, others feel that it is better to take words one-by-one. Clearly if words are to be taken individually the learner must do a lot of listening and/or dictionary work.

18. 18 Schwa = unstressed @ Photograph @ @ Photographic @ @ @ Photographer

19. 19 Quiz Apply Arrive Japan Attract Assist Estate Balloon Correct Enter Envy Equal Open Money Product Hollow entertain

20. 20 Stress in verbs and nouns One problematic point is that of words that have one stress pattern if nouns and another if verbs e.g. NounVerb DEsertdeSERT IMportimPORT EScorteSCORT REcordreCORD PROtestproTEST

21. 21 Compounds Compounds usually have main stress on the first, qualifying item, e.g. Hole PLUGhole MANhole SMART card CAR park SWImming pool AIRbag NIGHTclub N.b. many compounds are present in other languages as loan words. Italian speakers usually place the stress on the second element, e.g. airBAG, and do the same when speaking in English.

22. 22 Notebooks (1) Write down the words whose stress you always get wrong e.g. apply process Japan secretary airbag etc.

23. 23 Notebooks (2) Write down the stress patterns of English Put one pattern at the top of each page

24. 24 Notebooks (3) Write down the difficult words under the correct pattern apply Japan secretary