Listen Up! Advanced

Listen Up! Advanced

Session 12

Sentence Stress

Sentence stress is the pattern of stressed and unstressed words across a sentence. Normally this emphasis is on words that carry important information, although this can change significantly, depending on the specific meaning the speaker wants to communicate.

The way stress moves in order to change the message is an extremely important part of pronunciation

English is a stress-timed language

The English language is often referred to as stress-timed. This means that stress in a spoken sentence occurs at regular intervals and the length it takes to say something depends on the number of stressed syllables rather than the number of syllables itself.

Speaking

Stress timing can help speakers communicate meaning. We need to be made aware of the fact that the way we say something can affect it's meaning.

Listen

Listen to the sentence "I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses" with the stress on different words.

You can hear that the meaning changes.

I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses.

I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses.

I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses.

I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses.

Most sentences have two basic types of word:

• Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense—the real content.

• Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically. They give the sentence its correct form—its structure.

Structure X Content word

If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence.

If you remove the content words from a sentence, you will not understand the sentence. The sentence has no sense or meaning.

Practice

It's time to answer the quiz!

Multiple Choice

1. What is sentence stress?

• Saying words quieter

• Saying words louder/longer/clearer

• Not speaking

• Saying words faster

Multiple Choice

2. Why is sentence stress used?

• To understand key information and fast speech

• To understand useless information

• To understand slow speech

• To understand Chinese

Multiple Choice

3. What is a content word?

• Words used for grammatical purpose

• Words used to annoy people

• Words used for fun

• Words used to represent key or important information

Multiple Choice

4. What are structure words?

• Words used to represent key information

• Words used to build things

• Words used to help people

• Words used for grammatical accuracy

Multiple Choice

5. Structure words contain most of the information in a sentence

• TRUE

• FALSE

Multiple Choice

6. Which words are stressed: 'there's a test at 8 in the morning, you should study'?

• Test, 8, Morning, Study

• Test, 8, Study

• Test, Morning, Should, Study

• Test, 8, Should, Study

Multiple Choice

7. Which words are stressed: 'You don't have the right to do that'

• Don't

• You, Don't, Right

• Don't, Right, Do

• Don't, Right, That

Multiple Choice

8. Which words are stressed: 'Give me the ball'

• Give, Ball

• Me

• Give, Me, The, Ball

• Give, Me