THE USE OF SUPRASEGMENTAL ELEMENTS

IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

Diah Meta Arofah

12202244014

12202244014@student.uny.ac.id

English Education Study Program

Faculty of Langauages and Arts

State University of Yogyakarta

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses about the suprasegmental elements of english

language. Suprasegmnetal elements are a vocal effect that extends over more
than one sound segment in an utterance. These include variations in stress
(accent) and pitch (tone and intonation). The purpose of this paper is to find out
the use of suprasegmental elements for english learners. The scope of this paper
are to understand what the suprasegmental units are, to know the types of
suprasegmental elements and the use of the suprasegmental elements to
english learners. The significant thing is studying english can no be separated
with the studying the suprasegmental elements. Suprasegmental elements have
high roles to determine the meaning of the words that is uttered by the speaker.
.
KEYWOARD : Language, Suprasegmental, English Learners.
A. INTRODUCTION

Language is the significant component for human. Human needs

language to implement the one of social needs, that is to socialize each
other. One of ways human socializes is through communication.
Communication in general is process of sending and receiving messages
that enables humans to share knowledge, attitudes, and skills
(http://www.creducation.org retrieved 5 January 2015). There are two
types of communication, verbal and non verbal communication. Non
verbal communication is usually called communication without words. It
includes some behaviours, like facial axpressions, eyes touching, tone of
voice, etc. In contrast, verbal communication is usually called
communication with words. In this case, it focuses on verbal
communication. The main issue in verbal communication is language.
Human needs language to make verbal communication.

Language is system of sounds that has some characeristics. They

are arbitrary relation of form and meaning, conventional, symbolic sound,
onomatopoeic, social, systematic, non-istinctive, productive and creative.
In studying of how sounds interact in various languages, language is also
called speech. Speech has two elements. There are segmental elements
and suprasegmental elements. Segmental elements is a phenomena that
related with phonemic inventory and allophon. It also includes sound-
change rules and ordering. The other segment is supra-segmental
phenomena. It consists of syllabication, prominence, tones, and
intonation. In this paper, it will discuss focusing on suprasegmental
elements.

Learning language is indirectly learning the elements of the

language itself. Suprasegmental becomes the one of important point to be
discussed because as the secondary elements, students do not notice
with this element. In the fact, suprasegmental elements are very useful to
support in beyond pronouncing the language appropriately. The
formulation of this paper is “What is the use of suprasegmental elements
in english language learning?” This paper is aimed to findout what the use
of suprasegmental elements in english langauge learning. Students is
 expected to notice and apply the use of suprasegmental elements in their
english language learning. It also purposes to encourage their skill in
english, espcially in speaking that producing the language directly.

B. DISCUSSION
1. The Definition Of Suprasegmental Elements
Suprasegmental elements are the secondary components of
language. In phonology field, it deals with stress, intonation, rhytm,
syllabication, prominence, and tones. Suprasegmental elements has
function to mark the segmental elements. From
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com, it is stated that “segmental
units of language include such prosodic elements as length, tone,
intensity, melodies, rhythm, and intonation, as well as markers
indicating the juncture of segmental units.” Suprasegmental units of
language are sometimes divided into suprasegmental phonemes of
length (chronemes), of tone (tonemes), or of juncture. An additional
category of suprasegmental units of language is suprasegmental
morphemes, that is, those prosodic elements that are regularly
associated with the expression of grammatical differences.
A suprasegmental is a vocal effect that extends over more
than one sound segment in an utterance. These include variations in
stress (accent) and pitch (tone and intonation). Variations in length are
also usually considered to be suprasegmental features, although they
can affect single segments as well as whole syllables. All of the
suprasegmental features are characterized by the fact that they must
be described in relation to other items in the same utterance. It is the
relative values of the pitch, length, or degree of stress of an item that
are significant. The absolute values are never linguistically important,
although they may be of importance paralinguistically, in that they
convey information about the age and sex of the speaker, his
emotional state and his attitude. (http://www.britannica.com).

There is another term that relates with the suprasegmental

elements, that is prosodic. From http://grammar.about.com, it is
explained more about the differences between them. It clearly states
 that "although the terms 'suprasegmental' and 'prosodic' to a large
extent coincide in their scope and reference, it is nevertheless
sometimes useful, and desirable, to distinguish them.” The first, a
distinction can be made between 'suprasegmental' as a mode of
description on the one hand and 'prosodic' as a kind of feature on the
other. In other words, we may use the term 'suprasegmental' to refer
to a particular formalization in which a phonological feature can be
analyzed in this way, whether it is prosodic or not. The second, The
term 'prosodic,' on the other hand, can be applied to certain features
of utterances regardless of how they are formalized; prosodic features
can, in principle, be analysed segmentally as well as
suprasegmentally. To give a more concrete example, in some
theoretical frameworks features such as nasality or voice may be
treated suprasegmentally, as having extent beyond the limits of a
single segment.

2. The Types of Suprasegmental Elements

2.1 Stress
From http://grammar.about.com, it is citated that “phrase or
sentence stress is tied to meaning, and this is the second function
of stress. As we focus a camera on some item of interest, phonetic
stress helps us focus our listener's attention on what is most
important in our message." (Harold T. Edwards, Applied
Phonetics: The Sounds of American English, 3rd ed. Thomson,
2003)
As Harold, et.al. (2003) revealed, it finds out that stress
has high effection to the meaning of the words. The segmental
elements that is placed in the words or beyond the words are
effected the stress in its probounciation. Stress can be changed
the meaning. Stress is beyond the ordinary sound or voice. It has
special meaning in each words that is ruled by the stress.
One of the functions of phonetic stress is to make words
understandable. This kind of stress, known as word-level stress, is
actually part of a word's pronunciation. It may also serve to
differentiate words that are similar. For example, We're going to
record a record, the two similar words are stressed differently so
that the first record is stressed on the second syllable (vowel
reduction in the first syllable also assists in helping us to assign
stress to the second syllable), whereas the second record is
stressed on the first syllable (with vowel reduction in the second
syllable). All words of more than one syllable have a prominent or
stressed syllable.
“Stresses tend to recur at regular intervals. But the sound
pattern of English does not make it an overriding necessity to
adjust the lengths of syllables so as to enforce complete regularity.
The interval between stresses is affected by the number of
syllables within the stress group, by the number and type of
vowels and consonants within each syllable, and by other factors
such as the variations in emphasis that are given to each word."
(Peter Ladefoged and Keith Johnson, A Course in Phonetics, 6th
ed. Wadsworth, 2011)
From that statement, it digresses the understanding about
the affection of stress, particularly in number of syllables. There is
a certain rule that leads the regulation about the placing the stress
according to the number of syllables. Based on this stress, it can
differentiate the meaning to the similar words, evenmore the same
words.
Some rules of stress are explained from
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu, in English the stress is more
predictable but still random. Usually a middle syllable of a longer
word receives the stress. In two syllable words stress is rando
and often renders differences in meaning: project/to project,
produce/produce, insult/ to insult. Some languages have more
than one stress per word: English is such a language. In English,
words of four syllables or more have a primary and a secondary
stress: educátion.
The rules based on Collins and Mees as stated below. The
words most likely to receive sentence stress are those termed
 content words (also called 'lexical words'), namely nouns,
adjectives, adverbs, and main verbs. These are the words that
normally carry a high information load. We can contrast these with
function words (also called 'grammar words' or 'form words'),
namely determiners (e.g. the, a), conjunctions (e.g. and, but),
pronouns (e.g. she, them), prepositions (e.g. at, from), auxiliary
verbs (e.g. do, be, can). Function words carry relatively little
information; their role is holding the sentence together. Unlike
content words, function words for the most part carry little or no
stress. Only two types of function words are regularly stressed: the
demonstratives (e.g. this, that, those) and wh- interrogatives (e.g.
where, who, which, how). However, that when wh- words and that
are used as relatives they are unstressed, e.g. the girl who lent me
the yellow hat that I wore to your wedding."
(Beverley Collins and Inger M. Mees, Practical Phonetics and
Phonology: A Resource Book for Students. Routledge, 2003)
2.2. Length (Duration)
The length refers to the duration of a speech sound as
some speech sounds are inherently longer than others as
exemflified as follows. High vowels are shorter than low vowel.
Voiceless consonants are longer than voiced consonants.
Voiceless fricatives are the longest consonant of all.
There are some principles of duration, e.g. i:, a: or α:, ō:, u:
and ə: are fully long when final, e.g. when such words as si: (see),
ka:(car), rō: (raw). tu: (two), fə: (fur) are said by themselves or are
final in a sentence. They are also fully long when a voiced
consonant follows and the syllable is final in a sentence, e.g. when
such words as si:d (seed), hα:m (harm), kō:z (cause), smu:ð
(smooth), bə:d (bird) are said by themselves or are final in a
sentence. High vowels are shorter than low vowel.
Other priciples are [ı] high front lax unrounded vowel in
[bıg] is shorter than [æ] low front lax unrounded vowel [bæg].
Voiceless consonants are longer than voiced consonants; the
sound [b] in [bıg] requires shorter distance to produce than [p] like
 in [pıg]. There are also some rules that are not mentined in this
paper.
2.3 Intonation
Intonation pattern describes how pitch at the sentence and
word levels can convey meaning or alter the emphasis of the
communication. (http://moodle.hcc-nd.edu retrieved 5 January
2015 at 20.59). Intonation is also pitch of voice plays an important
part; it is constantly changing during speech; analysing intonation
refers to listening to the speaker´s pitch and recognising what it is
doing.
The pitch itself has many advantages. Firstly, Defining in
terms of high and low (arbitrary choices for end-points of the pitch
scale). Secondly, giving auditory sensation experienced by the
hearer. The next one is we are not interested in all aspects of a
speaker´s pitch, but in those that carry some linguistic information.
The last is speakers have control over their own pitch of voice, and
the possibility of choice (this may have linguistic significance).
2.4 Tones
If the pitch of a single syllable or word has the effect of
influencing the denotative meaning of the word, we call the
different pitch distributions by the term tone. Every language uses
pitch as intonation, but only some languages use it as tone. There
are two basic types of tones in tone languages. Register tones are
measured by contrasts in the absolute pitch of different syllables.
Register tones may be high, mid, or low. Contour tones are tones
involving a pitch shift upward or downward on a single syllable.
Many languages of East and Southeast Asia use contour tones,
the best known being Mandarin Chinese. (Cf. the IPA symbols for
register tones.)
Many West African languages use contrasts of high mid
and low tones to distinguish word meaning: Zulu, Hausa, Yoruba.
See text pp 204-205. Contour tones are tones involving a pitch
shift upward or downward on a single syllable. (Cf. the IPA
symbols for register tones.) Most tone languages use a
 combination of height and contour to create their tones. Tone
languages also have intonation, a gradual increase or decrease in
pitch over an utterance as well as an increase in general volume
of sound on various parts of the utterance to indicate emotion.
C. FINAL REMARKS
Understanding suprasegmental elements is one of the significant
thing that have to be owned by the students that is studying english
langauge. Suprasegmental elements is the secondary element of speech
in phonology that has a role to determine the meaning and the intention
that want to say by the speaker through langauage. Sometimes when we
learn english, we just learn without knowing beyond the language itself,
including knowing suprasegmental units itself.
Suprasegmental elements consist of stress, length, intonation, and
tones. Stress has special relation with the number of syllable that is
owned by each words. Stress can determine the menaing of the words.
Secodly, the next elements is length. It is also called duration. Duration
has some principles that have each rules for the segmental elements, like
vowels and consonants. The next one is intonation. Intonation is very
close with the pitch. Pitch gives the special sense of speches that will be
conveyed by the speaker to the hearer’s brain. When the speakers can
control their pitch, it supports how fluent the conversation will pass. The
last unit is tones. Tones have two types, they are register tones and
countor tones. Both have the specila roles in determining the meaning of
the words. they can distinguish the intention of the words that will be
uttered by the speaker. It also relates with the emotion that is felt by the
speakr when he or she is saying something.
Because of english is the one of langauges that notices more
about suprasegmental elements, consequently, every english learner has
to learning suprasegmental units when the are learning english.
Emphasizing the suprasegmental elements can encourage the
understanding of english learning. Especially, if language learners can
authorize this issue, they can have more ability in pronouncing the words
and determiing the meaning of the words in fluent communication.
D. REFERENCES

Anonim. Prosody. Retrieved 5 January 2015 at 16.52 from

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test2materials/prosody.ht
m.

CReducation.org. Article. Nonverbal Communication for Educators. Retrieved

5 January 2015 at 13.05 from
http://www.creducation.org/resources/nonverbal_communication/w
hat_is_nonverbal_communication.html.

Holy Cross College Team. Article. Supra Segmental Elements of English

Retrieved 5 January at 16.54 from http://moodle.hcc-
nd.edu/mod/wiki/view.php?pageid=428.

Hussain, Sarmad. Phonetis and Phonology An Introduction. Retrieved 5

January 2015 at 14.08 from www. PANL10n.net.

Ladefoged, Peter N. 2014. Article. Suprasegmentals. Retrieved 5 January

2015 at 16.50 from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/457255/phonetics/690
26/Suprasegmentals.

Liu, Ching Kang. 2011. Workshop Presentation. Stress, Rhythm, Tones, and
Intonation. Retrieved 5 January 2015 at 21.10 from
http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~language/workshop/2010-3.pdf.

Nordquist, Richard. Article. Suprasegmental. Retrieved 5 January 2015 at

17.06 from http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Suprasegmental.htm.

The Gale Group. 1979. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Rev.Ed). Retrieved 5
January 2015 at 16.48 from
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Suprasegmental+Units
+of+Language.