CHAPTER 8
Syllables and Word Stress
Segmentals and suprasegmentals
Until now we’ve been talking about individual phonemes—
consonants and vowels—which together are called the
segmental features of pronunciation. In the next !ve
chapters we’ll be going beyond just the sounds to talk about
suprasegmental features—the aspects of pronunciation
that a"ect more than just a single sound. The most important
suprasegmental features of English are:
- Word stress: The extra emphasis given to one syllable
in a word that has more than one syllable. - Thought groups:^ Groups of spoken words that form a
grammatical and semantic unit and seem to !t together.- Prominence: The one word or syllable in each thought
group or sentence that receives more stress than the
others. - Intonation: The pitch pattern of a sentence—the up-
and-down “melody” of your voice as you speak. - Rhythm: The characteristic pattern of longer and
shorter, stressed and unstressed syllables in a language. - Connected speech: The changes in pronunciation that
happen when words come together and are linked to the
words around them.
- Prominence: The one word or syllable in each thought
How important is it for these features of pronunciation to be
taught, learned, and used? These days, teachers and scholars
recognize that stress, rhythm, intonation, and other
suprasegmental features are very important in helping
speakers sound natural and be understood, but this hasn’t
always been the case. Until the 1970s, suprasegmental
features were mostly ignored in language classes, and
pronunciation teaching usually concentrated on individual
sounds. With the growing popularity of communicative
language teaching beginning in the late 20th century and
continuing into the 21st, however, many scholars began to
emphasize the importance of suprasegmentals. In fact, some
claimed that in order to make speech understandable,
pronouncing individual sounds accurately was much less
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