Sentence stress
•English is a stress-timed language, which means that it follows a regular rhythm
•Some words in a sentence are stressed while other words are not.
Sentence Stress
Listen to the following sentences. Which words are stressed? Which kinds of words are they?
We always have lots of fun but we work hard too.
You need to find out what your lecturers want and give it to them.
Sentence Stress
Listen to the following sentences. Which words are stressed? Which kinds of words are they?
We always have lots of fun but we work hard too.
You need to find out what your lecturers want and give it to them.
Which words in a sentence are stressed?
•Stressed words are usually Content words
-Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter
-Verbs e.g. visit, construct
-Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting
-Adverbs e.g. often, carefully
Which words in a sentence are NOT stressed?
• Non-stressed words are considered Function Words such as:
Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few
Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite
Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as
Pronouns e.g. they, she, us
Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were, have
However, these words can be stressed in some situations such as contrast or emphasis
Contrastive stress – another use of sentence stress
•The words that we choose to stress in a sentence can also emphasise deliberate meaning.
•Compare the following sentences and note which words are stressed:
•I love you (not someone else)
•I love you (I want you to know)
•I love you (me, not her)
Contrastive Stress
•A)You don’t speak English, do you?
•B)Yes, I do speak English.
•A) He isn’t from Japan.
•B) Yes, he is from Japan.
•A) You said you weren’t hungry.
•B) No, I said I was hungry.
Practice
•Look at the sentences on your work sheet. Try to identify the content words which should be stressed.
•Check with a partner.
•Let’s check together.
•Now practise saying the sentences.
Sentence stress
1.He couldn’t admit he’d done it.
2.Learning another language is always challenging.
3.Understanding pronunciation is the key to effective communication.
4.If you’re having difficulty with something you should seek help.
5.The main reason for the existence of Student Learning Support is to help students.
Listen to this news report
•Australia's big supermarket chains have signalled the start of a price war. Both Coles and Woolworths have announced they are reducing grocery prices across their stores.
One analyst says the retailers have had a wake- up call from cut price competitors such as Aldi.
Carly Laird reports
ABC News. (2010, January 29). Supermarket Price War Begins. Retrieved January 29th , 2010, from http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2804411.htm