The rhythm and pace of words in spoken sentences varies in different languages. The way we add stress or prominence to individual syllables depends on several factors, which may not be easy for learners at any level.
The pace and rhythm of spoken English relies on where we add stress to words and longer chunks of speech, so it is worth getting familiar with stress patterns at different levels in order to demonstrate and teach these effectively.
Syllables and stress
The first step to understanding stress patterns is the ability to identify syllables. Words are broken in to syllables depending on how many vowel sounds are produced when we say the word. Importantly, this means how many vowel sounds there are, not how many vowel letters we use to spell the word. For example, the following words may be spelt with a number of vowels, but these may not all be sounded out when we say the word:
Suit /su:t/ 1 vowel sound = 1 syllable
Guitar /gɪta:/ 2 vowel sounds = 2 syllables
Literature /lɪtrɪtʃə/ 3 vowel sounds = 3 syllables
Curtains /kɜ:tənz/ 2 vowel sounds = 2 syllables
Important note: Vowels are at the heart of syllables, and stress only affects vowel sounds, not consonants.
Word stress
When we say an individual word in isolation (without any other language around it), it will have one or two syllables which sound stronger, louder and higher in pitch than the others. These syllables carry more stress. The loudest and highest-pitch syllable in the word is the stressed syllable of that word.
Say the words in the list from the above section, and identify the strong syllable in each. Can you hear the louder, higher sound that this syllable makes?
Word stress is shown by adding a small mark before the syllable which carries the stress, as follows, and we usually don’t show stress on one-syllable words, as they only have one vowel, which must be stressed. Remember, we are talking about words presented or spoken in isolation here, not as part of sentences:
Suit /su:t/ 1 syllable, so no stress mark necessary
Guitar /gɪˈta:/ stress on the second syllable /ta:/
Literature /ˈlɪtrɪtʃə/ stress on the first syllable /lɪ/
Curtains /ˈkɜ:tənz/ stress on the first syllable /kɜ:/
The stress mark ˈ may look like an apostrophe, but in fact it is just a small vertical line. For speed, an apostrophe is fine to use in teaching materials, though.
Strong and weak vowels
As we have seen, vowels are at the heart of syllables, and carry stress (or not). Vowels that do not carry the stress of a word are typically reduced or weakened, to contrast them with the stronger vowels in the stressed syllable/s of the word.
Weaker vowel sounds tend to be short and quick to produce, and the weakest sounds, which can be produced most easily are /ə/ (known as ‘schwa’ and /ɪ/, known as ‘schwi’). One difference between these sounds is that schwi /ɪ/ can be strong (as in ‘literature’, above), or weak (as in ‘guitar’, above) whereas schwa /ə/ can never carry stress. It is not possible to stress this sound, so if a word contains this sound (as most words do), look elsewhere for the stressed syllable.
Strong vowel sounds tend to be longer (as in ‘curtains’, above), more complex (such as diphthongs like /eɪ/ or /aʊ/) or more effortful to pronounce (like the open-mouthed /æ/ in ‘apple’). These sounds may not always carry stress, but they are not ‘weak’ or ‘reduced’ sounds, as they are formed fully with the mouth, require effort from the mouth and take time to produce as a result.
Sentence stress
When words come together with other items in phrases or sentences, we use a different technique to identify strong and weak syllables. When we speak several words together, we do not leave pauses between the words; speech is produced as a single flow of sound, an ‘utterance’. Given that different words carry stress on different syllables (first, second, third, etc., as in the examples above), if we stressed every word in the same way as when we pronounced it in isolation, it would require an enormous amount of effort and stopping and starting to catch the right syllable to stress in every word. This would be very unnatural and would not flow easily as a fluent stream of language.
The way that stress is applied to longer streams of words is called ‘sentence stress’. In phrases and sentences, some words are naturally more important to the meaning of the message, and we give those words more prominence, or stress, to convey the message we want to say.
Words which carry more meaning (and therefore more stress) tend to be nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs. These word classes are known as ‘content words’. This contrasts with other word classes such as prepositions, articles and auxiliaries, which convey grammatical aspects of a message, and are known as ‘structural words’. In general, it is content words which carry the sentence stress of longer utterances.
For example, say the following sentence at a natural pace, and think about which words are naturally produced more loudly, and at a higher pitch (ie, which words carry stress?):
He put on his suit and played his guitar
You should feel the verbs and nouns of this sentence as louder and more prominent that the other words. We can show the stressed and unstressed syllables by using dots or circles to represent each syllable, big for strong and smaller for weaker, as in
o O o o O o O o o O
He put on his suit and played his guitar
The key thing about sentence stress in English is that the strong syllables in a chunk of speech are produced more or less regularly in terms of their rhythm. The space of time between each strong syllable is approximately the same, so strong syllables act like ‘beats’ to time the sentence.
Try saying the above sentence example and clapping or finger-clicking at each strong syllable. This is an effective technique to get learners to engage with the stress and rhythm of a sentence in class, especially when drilling longer chunks for specific pronunciation features
Working with word and sentence stress in class
The most important thing to remember when drilling, modelling or working with pronunciation at this level is to make sure your own spoken examples are produced naturally and fluently. Many teachers take words and phrases in isolation and over pronounce every sound carefully, thinking that this will help learners understand them better. However, as we do not speak every sound of every word fully and carefully in natural speech, this is actually setting learners up for an unnatural and inaccurate understanding of English speech.
Practice isolating words and sentences yourself, and modelling them naturally, keeping the words connected into chunks, with all the ‘lazy’ sounding weak forms, fast and reduced vowels in there, and you will be helping students to get an authentic understanding of the sound of English as it is really spoken. If learners never have access to authentic-sounding speech, they will struggle when they have to interact with English speakers in out-of-class situations, which is a potentially stressful and off-putting experience.
Overall, be natural, speak at pace and in a connected way, and you will be able to explore the features of authentic, connected speech more effectively with your learners.
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