{"id":2714,"date":"2015-04-07T20:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T20:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eoisabi.org\/?p=2714"},"modified":"2020-11-19T20:52:28","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T20:52:28","slug":"stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishroam.com\/?p=2714","title":{"rendered":"Rhythm & Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/h5>\n

Stress<\/strong>: an essential element of rhythm<\/strong>, which is the most<\/strong> distinctive feature of the English language.\u00a0Word stress is not used in Japanese or Spanish, where each syllable is pronounced with eq-ual em-pha-sis.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The biggest difference in the \u201cmusic\u201d of languages is the way we speak\u00a0<\/span>syllables. All languages can divide sounds into syllables. For example the\u00a0<\/span>English word\u00a0<\/span>‘beau<\/strong>-ti-ful’\u00a0<\/em>has three syllables,<\/span>\u00a0but the first part will be\u00a0<\/span>slow, long and strong, while the other parts are quick, short and soft.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The English way of speaking syllables is called stress timing, <\/em>while\u00a0the Spanish<\/span>\u00a0way is more like syllable timing<\/em> (though not 100%)<\/span><\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\u2192\u00a0What is Word Stress?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Roach (1983:73) identifies the four characteristics that make a syllable stressed. A stressed syllable;<\/p>\n

1. <\/strong>is louder,<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>is longer,<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>has a higher pitch, and<\/p>\n

4. <\/strong>contains a vowel different in quality from the neighboring vowels.<\/p>\n

Word stress is not<\/strong> an optional extra that you can add to the English language if you want. It is\u00a0part of the language<\/b>! English speakers use word stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. If, for example, you do not hear a word clearly, you can still understand the word because of the\u00a0position<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0of the stress.<\/p>\n

Think about these two words: \u00a0<\/span>pho<\/span>tograph<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0photo<\/span>grapher<\/b>… Imagine that you are speaking to somebody by telephone over a very bad line. You cannot hear clearly. In fact, you hear only the first two syllables of one of these words,\u00a0photo…<\/b>\u00a0Which word is it, photograph or photographer? Of course, with word stress you will know immediately which word it is because in reality you will hear either\u00a0PHOto…<\/b><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0phoTO…<\/b><\/a>\u00a0So without hearing the whole word, you probably know what the word is (PHOto…graph<\/a><\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0phoTO…grapher<\/a><\/b>). \u00a0Of course, you also have the ‘context’ of your conversation to help you.<\/p>\n

\"Word_Stress_Rules\"<\/a><\/p>\n