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The basis of communication is the interaction between people. Verbal communication is one way for people to communicate face-to-face. Some of the key components of verbal communication are sound, words, speaking, and language. At birth, most people have vocal cords, which produce sounds. As a child grows it learns how to form these sounds into words. Some words may be imitative of natural sounds, but others may come from expressions of emotion, such as laughter or crying. Words alone have no meaning. Only people can put meaning into words. As meaning is assigned to words, language develops, which leads to the development of speaking. The actual origin of language is subject to considerable speculation. Some theorists believe it is an outgrowth of group activities such as working together or dancing. Others believe that language developed from basic sounds and gestures. Over 3,000 languages and major dialects are spoken in the world today. The development of languages reflects class, gender, profession, age group, and other social factors. The huge variety of languages usually creates difficulties between different languages, but even within a single language there can be many problems in understanding. Through speaking we try to eliminate this misunderstanding, but sometimes this is a very hard thing to do. Just as we assume that our messages are clearly received, so we assume that because something is important to us, it is important to others. As time has proven this is not at all true. Many problems can arise is speaking and the only way to solve these problems is through experience. Speaking can be looked at in two major areas: interpersonal and public speaking. Since the majority of speaking is an interpersonal process, to communicate effectively we must not simply clean up our language, but learn to relate to people. In interpersonal speaking, etiquette is very important. To be an effective communicator one must speak in a manner that is not offending to the receiver. Etiquette also plays an important role in an area that has developed in most all business settings: hierarchical communication. In business today, hierarchical communication is of utmost importance to all members involved. The other major area of speaking is public speaking. From the origin of time, it has been obvious that some people are just better public speakers than others. Because of this, today a good speaker can earn a living by speaking to people in a public setting. Some of the major areas of public speaking are speaking to persuade, speaking to inform, and speaking to inspire or motivate.

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In multi-syllable words the stress falls on one of the syllables while the other syllables tend to be spoken over quickly. This leads to sounds that are not clear (muted) on unstressed syllables. In order to improve your pronunciation, focus on pronouncing the stressed syllable clearly. However, don't be afraid to "mute" (not say clearly) the other unstressed vowels. Listen to the examples by clicking on "listen". Return to this page using the "back" button on your browser. For example: Listen to these specific examples: PersonNEL TOtally InDUstrial ToMAto FanTAstic Unstressed syllables keep the correct sound, but sound muted. Sometimes, unstressed vowels become a schwa sound - like a soft "uh" sound. For example: Listen to these specific examples: Little Repeat Tomato At other times, the vowel is pronounced but not stressed. For example: Listen to these specific examples: Industrial Noisily

With this in mind, here are the eight common word stress patterns in English. One Syllable - Stressed All one syllable words have the stress on the one syllable. The intonation should go down.Listen to the general pattern. EAT DRINK SIGN WELL Two Syllable - First Syllable Stressed Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples: GIant PICture HEAting Two Syllable - Second Syllable Stressed Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples: toDAY aHEAD aLLOW Three Syllable - First Syllable Stressed Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples: ENergy Operate ORganize Three Syllable - Second Syllable Stressed Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples:

meMORial aSSUMPtion caNAdian Three Syllable - Third Syllable Stressed Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples: employEE japanESE voluntEER Four Syllable - Second Syllable Stressed Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples: psyCHOLogy eVAporate cerTIficate Four Syllable - Third Syllable Stressed Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples: poliTIcian indiVIdual repuTAtion

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Improving sentence intonation is one of the key elements in your English pronunciation. Let's discuss the four basic types of word stress that lead to proper intonation in English.
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tonic stress emphatic stress contrastive stress new information stress

Tonic Stress Tonic stress refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an intonation unit. An intonation unit has one tonic stress. It's important to remember that a sentence can have more than one intonation unit, and therefore have more than one tonic stress. Here are some examples of intonation units with the tonic stress bolded. He's waiting He's waiting / for his friend He's waiting / for his friend / at the station. Generally, the final tonic stress in a sentence receives the most stress. In the above example, 'station' receives the strongest stress. There are a number of instances in which the stress changes from this standard. Here are short explanations for each of the changes with example sentences to illustrate. Emphatic Stress If you decide to emphasize something, you can change the stress from the principal noun to another content word such as an adjective (big, difficult, etc.), intensifier (very, extremely, etc.) This emphasis calls attention to the extraordinary nature of what you want to emphasize. For example: That was a difficult test. - Standard statement That was a difficult test. - Emphasizes how difficult the test was There are a number of adverbs and modifiers which tend to be used to emphasize in sentences that receive emphatic stress. extremely terribly completely utterly especially etc.

Contrastive Stress Contrastive stress is used to point out the difference between one object and another. Contrastive stress tends to be used with determiners such as 'this, that, these and those'. For example: I think I prefer this color. Do you want these or those curtains? Contrastive stress is also used to bring out a given word in a sentence which will also slightly change the meaning.
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He came to the party yesterday. (It was he, not someone else.) He walked to the party yesterday. (He walked rather than drove.) He came to the party yesterday. (It was a party not a meeting or something else.) He came to the party yesterday. (It was yesterday not two weeks ago or some other time.)

New Information Stress When asked a question, the requested information is naturally stressed more strongly. For example: Where are you from? - I come from Seattle, in the USA. What do you want to do? - I want to go bowling. When does class begin? - The class begins at nine o'clock. Use these various types of stress to help improve your pronunciation and understandability.

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Say this sentence aloud and count how many seconds it takes. The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance.

Time required? Probably about 5 seconds. Now, try speaking this sentence aloud. He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening. Time required? Probably about 5 seconds. Wait a minute the first sentence is much shorter than the second sentence! The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening You are only partially right! This simple exercise makes a very important point about how we speak and use English. Namely, English is considered a stressed language while many other languages are considered syllabic. What does that mean? It means that, in English, we give stress to certain words while other words are quickly spoken (some students say eaten!). In other languages, such as French or Italian, each syllable receives equal importance (there is stress, but each syllable has its own length). Many speakers of syllabic languages don't understand why we quickly speak, or swallow, a number of words in a sentence. In syllabic languages each syllable has equal importance, and therefore equal time is needed. English however, spends more time on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, less important, words. Let's look at a simple example: the modal verb "can". When we use the positive form of "can" we quickly glide over the can and it is hardly pronounced. They can come on Friday . (stressed words underlined) On the other hand, when we use the negative form "can't" we tend to stress the fact that it is the negative form by also stressing "can't". They can't come on Friday . As you can see from the above example the sentence, "They can't come on Friday" is longer than "They can come on Friday" because both the modal "can't" and the verb "come" are stressed. So, what does this mean for my speaking skills?

Well, first of all, you need to understand which words we generally stress and which we do not stress. Basically, stress words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as
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Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter (most) principal verbs e.g. visit, construct Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting Adverbs e.g. often, carefully

Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as

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Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as Pronouns e.g. they, she, us

Let's return to the beginning example to demonstrate how this affects speech. The beautiful Mountain appeared transfixed in the distance . (14 syllables) He can come on Sunday s as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening . (22 syllables) Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are 5 stressed words ineach sentence. From this example, you can see that you needn't worry about pronouncing every word clearly to be understood (we native speakers certainly don't). You should however, concentrate on pronouncing the stressed words clearly. Now, do some listening comprehension or go speak to your native English speaking friends and listen to how we concentrate on the stressed words rather than giving importance to each syllable. You will soon find that you can understand and communicate more because you begin to listen for (and use in speaking) stressed words. All those words that you thought you didn't understand are really not crucial for understanding the sense or making yourself understood. Stressed words are the key to excellent pronunciation and understanding of English.

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As you know, spoken English words with two or more syllables have different stress and length patterns. Some syllables are stressed more than others and some syllables are pronounced longer than others. The same is true of phrases and sentences. Different words in a sentence have stronger stress and are pronounced longer and other words are weaker and shorter. This pattern of strong and weak stress and short and long pronunciation gives English its rhythm. It is important for non-native speakers to understand and master the rhythm of English. If the wrong words are stressed in a sentence or if all words are pronounced with the same length or loudness, the speech will be difficult to understand. Words that have the most stress in English are called content words. Content words are usually the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns (demonstrative, possessive, reflexive, and interrogative). These words are important to express the main meaning of the sentence. Nouns: Terry, car, dinner Verbs: eat, study, drive Adjectives: blue, large, oval Adverbs: quietly, smoothly, equally Pronouns: that, theirs, himself, what Function words are those words that are weaker and shorter. They include auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and possessive adjectives. These words are less important in expressing the meaning of the sentence. Auxiliary verbs: may, do, have (if not the main verb) Prepositions: under, around, near Conjunctions: but, not, Determiners: the, some, each Possessive adjectives: my, your, our

ten to the following sentences. Note that the content words (in bold) are stressed more (pronounced louder an ger) than the functions words. When are you coming to dinner?

I have never liked the color red. Motorcycles can be dangerous to drive or ride on. Last month Carol got a new job in San Francisco. Not everyone likes chocolate ice cream, but I do. chocolate Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday.

Stress Timing
Some languages are syllable timed and others are stressed timed. In syllable timed languages, the syllables are the same length and the number of syllables determines the length of time required to say something. English is a stressed time language. In a stressed time language, speakers try to make the amount of time to say something the same between the stressed syllables. If there are three or four unstressed syllable between the stressed syllables, the unstressed syllables will be spoken faster, so that the speaker can keep the rhythm. Also, in order to keep the rhythm, if there are no unstressed syllable between stressed syllables, the stressed syllables are stretched out to space them equally. The time it takes to say something in English depends on the number of stressed syllables, not the number of syllables.

The following group of numbers each have 4 stressed syllables, but the actual syllables in each group is different. (actual syllables) a. one two three four 4 b. five six seven eight 5 c. nine ten eleven twelve 6 d. thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen 8 e. seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty 9

To practice getting the beat and rhythm of English try counting from one to twenty. Tap with your finger on a table as you count the numbers. Keep the tapping evenly spaced. The beginning of each number should occur on the tap.

Look and listen to the three sentences below. They all have the same number of stressed syllables, but a different number of unstressed syllables.

Practice the beat and rhythm again try tapping with your finger on a table while saying the sentences. The stressed syllables should be said on the tap. All three sentences have four stressed syllables and should take

about the same amount of time to say. Bob ate some corn. 4 syllables Kenny has swam to France and back. 8 syllables The Americans are buying some souvenirs and posters. 15 syllables

For more practice try saying the sentences below. In the first sentence the taps should come on the second word (bought) and the fourth word (book) and should be about a second apart. Continue with this beat and add each new phrase to the sentence. She bought the book She bought the book for his She bought the book for his She bought the book for his She bought the book for his college She bought the book for his freshman She bought the book for his freshman about daffodils She bought the book for his freshman about daffodils and

birthday birthday today birthday today she had read birthday today she had read long ago in birthday today she had read long ago in college as a birthday today she had read long ago in college as a birthday today she had read long ago in college as a how to grow them.