Word and sentence stress

Words with more than one syllable have stress, or emphasis, on a particular syllable. Stressed syllables are louder, longer and can have a different pitch (generally higher). They are more clearly articulated and due to the extra energy used in stressing a syllable, they can be visually seen from greater jaw and mouth movements.

In dictionaries, word stress is indicated by the / ˈ / symbol before the stressed syllable. For example, in the word ‘about’ / əˈbaʊt / the second syllable is stressed.

In unstressed syllables, consonants can become weaker, and vowels may reduce in volume, length, and clarity of pronunciation (Underhill, 2005, pp. 52-53). There are different rules surrounding word stress of longer words, so the teacher should be familiar with these prior to teaching such vocabulary items.

In sentences and other longer utterances content words such as nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs tend to be stressed. Grammatical or function words such as pronouns, prepositions, articles, and conjunctions tend to be unstressed. Because of this, they usually feature weak forms of vowels.

English is a ‘stress timed’ language. There is approximately equal distance in time between stressed parts of speech and this gives English its distinctive rhythmic sound. Word stress and sentence stress impact on intelligibility. Thus, it is important to focus on these in pronunciation lessons.