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Stress (linguistics)
Stress (/ˈstres/) is an extra force used when pronouncing a word or syllable. Stress can mean several things in English language teaching, depending on the context in which it is used.
Word stress[edit | edit source]
Main article: Word stress.
“Stress" can refer to "word stress" - the position of the stressed syllable in the pronunciation of a word.
A great number of words in English only have one syllable (for example go, eat, wait, eight, house, prince, friends, thieves, straight, etc.). In these cases the stress can only be located in that syllable.
In longer words the stresss can lie in any syllable:
- First syllable: doctor - animal - decorator
- Second syllable: hotel - delete - important - security
- Third syllable: information - understand - economiLol, me editing in the online page
- EGF a sdfa sfaWFG d MFOAFPMAFAFMPAPFAPFApog aeFaskiibidi
If the instructions are followed correctly, the structure words will be reduced to weak forms and the characteristics of a stress-timed language will be clearly demonstrated. Limericks can also be used to develop awareness of sentence stress due to their unique sentence stress pattern.
Other forms of stress[edit | edit source]
In addition to the above forms of stress an English speaker can also use stress to impart additional information, emphasis or contrast.
In these cases stress can be added through greater loudness, higher pitch and longer duration or a combination of these. Normally stress can be placed only on content words (verbs, nouns, adverbs, and adjectives) and pronouns (because they are used to replace a noun). Propositions, articles, conjunctions and interjections are seldom stressed. The full strong form of a non-content word would also count as “stress" under this definition.
Emphatic stress[edit | edit source]
Stress can refer to "emphatic stress" - where stress is placed on a particular word in a phrase for clarity or emphasis.
Contrastive stress[edit | edit source]
Stress can refer to “contrastive stress" - where stress is placed on a particular word to indicate a difference of opinion.
Citation form[edit | edit source]
When a word is pronounced in isolation, it is stressed. For example, “I said men" /aɪ sed ˈmen/.
Non‑content words are pronounced in their strong form. For example, “I meant would /aɪ ment ˈwʊd/.”
