Word Stress & Sentence Stress Huang Wanmei Review of Vowels

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Word Stress Sentence Stress

• Huang Wanmei

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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

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The height of the body of the tongue
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The front-back position of the tongue
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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
• /?/ mid, central, unrounded vowel

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• 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

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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

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Word Stress

• A word stress means a prominent syllable

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How to pronounce word stress?

• When a syllable is stressed, it is pronounced
• longer in duration
• higher in pitch
• louder in volume

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How do you say teacher?
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Word Stress Rule
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(No Transcript)
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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.

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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.
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Imagine that you receive this telegram message
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(No Transcript)
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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

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Content words - stressed
Structure words - unstressed