Bad stress and intonation are more likely to make you misunderstood than poor pronunciation of individual sounds.
PAUSING:
To make your speech more effective and natural in English, students have to think and speak not in individual words, but in complete phrases. This means pausing in the right places.
Clause boundaries / Pausing and chunking:
Pausing in the wrong place in a presentation sounds like hesitation. But, pausing for effect in the right place is a powerful technique.
In particular, we tend to put speech unit boundaries:
- Between two clauses linked by and or but:
- “We have cut costs substantially // and will continue to invest.”
- “This is only one view // but it’s supported by recent research.”
- Before and after an adverbial clause (i.e. a clause that gives more info about how, where, when, why, etc.)
- “Before she left school // she started her own business.”
- After a clause that is the subject of a sentence:
- “What they will do next // is unclear.”
- “How the process works // will be explained in the next lecture.”
- Before and after a non-defining relative clause:
- “The head of the police force // who is to retire next year // has criticized the new law.”
Pausing in the wrong place can change the meaning or make you sound unclear. Be especially careful with relative clauses, like who and which. Pausing completely changes the meaning here:
- "Those who sold their shares immediately made a profit." (But those who didn't sell immediately, didn't make a profit.)
- "Those who sold their shares immediately made a profit." (All those who sold their shares made an immediate profit.)
- "The Germans who backed the proposal are pleased with the results." (The Germans backed the proposal and are pleased with the results.)
- "The Germans who backed the proposal are pleased with the results." (But the Germans who didn't back it, aren't.)
Obviously, there are places where you can’t pause without destroying the meaning of what you are saying. But, how frequently you pause is a matter of choice. Both of these are correct:
I’d like you to look at these figures,
which clearly indicate the strategic importance of South Korea
in our attempt to gain a foothold in South-East Asia.
I’d like you
to look at these figures,
which clearly indicate
the strategic importance of South Korea
in our attempt to gain a foothold
in South-East Asia.
STRESS:
Where should the stress be placed? Stress is usually placed on the last content word of the speech unit. Content words are:
- Nouns, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives and question words are considered to be content words.
- The focus word is usually the last content word in a thought group (a short sentence, clause, or phrase)
- Example: “Here’s a PACKage for you.”
Stress is not usually placed on function words/structure words. Words that aren’t usually stressed (function words):
- Pronouns
- Prepositions
- Articles
- Conjunctions
- Auxiliary verbs
- “To be” verbs (is, was, etc.)
Rules for stress and vowel length of the focus word:
- In every English word of more than one syllable, one syllable is stressed the most.
- The vowel sound in the stressed syllable is extra long. It is the peak vowel.
Schwa, the unclear vowel:
While stressed vowels must be clear, many other vowels are not said clearly. The other two vowels in “baNAna” are reduced to a very short, unclear sound. The reason many vowel sounds are reduced to schwa is to make a contrast with the clear peak vowel in the stressed syllable.
The contrast between schwa and clear vowels. The unstress is just as important as the stress!
Side note:
Students should pay attention to vowel sounds and length, because the vowel in “save” is longer than “safe.” A vowel before a voiced consonant is longer than a vowel before a voiceless consonant. This can help with listening comprehension too. Teaching pronunciation is also about getting the student to hear these differences. Because in the end, if they can’t hear the difference, they won’t be able to pronounce them differently.
The main stress in a sentence:
As a rule, the stress tends to come at the end of each chunk (the last content word of the chunk). But, by deliberately placing the main stress at the beginning or in the middle of a chunk, you can subtly change the meaning of what you say. Here are some examples:
- "The BRITISH will never agree to that."
- "The British will NEVER agree to that."
- "The British will never AGREE to that."
- "The British will never agree to THAT."
Where would the stress be here?:
- "It's hard to break into Korea. But not impossible."
- "It's hard to break into Korea. But harder still to break into Japan."
INTONATION:
Once you have mastered the basic technique of pausing and stressing in the right places, you can start to give real expressive power to your speech by making full use of the rise and fall of your voice. Generally, we keep our voice up until we finish. Here, the speaker keeps their voice up or level in the middle of statements, and lets it drop at the end:
As a business EVOLVES
it goes through FOUR BASIC STAGES.
And a t every stage of the business LIFE cycle
y o u r company's financial needs are g o i n g to CHANGE.
Keeping your voice up until you finish is the general rule, but is an oversimplification. Notice how your voice tends to rise when you make a positive point and fall when you make a negative one:
“Turnover is down, but productivity is up. And for the second year running.”
Also, choosing a falling tone indicates that the information in the speech unit adds some “news:” it is information that the hearer is not expected to know already:
A: Can you come over now?
B: I’m busy ↘ at the moment ↗ // B: I’m busy ↘ at the moment ↘↗
A: Can I have some of this cake now?
B: The pudding’s for toMORrow ↘, not for toDAY ↘↗
Intonation for finding out or making sure:
When we ask a question, we might be trying to find out information that we don’t already know. Alternatively, we might ask a question in order to make sure that information we think we know is, in fact, correct:
Finding out questions usually end with a falling tone:
“What part of Spain were you in?” ↘
“How much are they?” ↘
Note: Because wh-questions are often used to find out information, they often, although not always, end with a falling tone.
Making sure questions usually end with a rising or a fall-rising tone:
“Was Brian there?” ↗
“Doesn’t she work with you?” ↗
Note: Because yes-no questions are often used to make sure, they often, although not always, end with a rising or fall-rising tone.
For statements, we commonly use a fall-rising tone when we want to indicate our reservation about something. We may not completely agree or we know that what we are saying is only partly correct. Example:
A: Do you like her paintings?
B: Yes ↘. (= I do like her paintings).
A: Do you like her paintings?
B: Yes ↘↗ (= I am not so sure, or I like some of them)
In negative sentences:
A: "It’s a pity Ann was ill and missed the party."
B: "She didn’t miss the party because she was ill."
Keeping the conversation going:
When we are taking part in a conversation, we often show the current speaker that we are following what they are saying, and that we want them to go on. A number of sounds, words and phrases are commonly used to do this, usually with a rising tone. These include mm, uhuh, okay, right, yeah, I see…
When these are used with a falling tone, they often indicate that we think the speaker has finished or that we want to take a turn in the conversation ourselves:
B: ...but make sure you don’t move this switch.
A: RIGHT ↘. What does it do?
B: It changes the voltage setting.
A: I SEE ↘. And what would happen exactly?
Exercise - get the student to hum stress and intonation:
