Speech Work: Introduction to Stress

When we speak English, we tend to give prominence to certain syllables in the words we pronounce. We do so by pronouncing those syllables with stronger force, thereby making them sound louder than those syllables we do not stress. The syllables that are pronounced with more effort are said to be stressed, while those we do not pronounce with strong force are said to be unstressed.

It must be noted that words of one syllable are often not stressed when they are pronounced in isolation. However, when they occur in continuous speech, one-syllable words may or may not be stressed.

As a student, you are expected to be familiar with the stress patterns of all the words within your range of vocabulary. However, that is often not the case. You know and often use many words whose stress patterns you do not know. One reason for the problem may be that your native language (mother tongue), unlike English, does not lay much emphasis on stress, or worse, does not employ stress at all.

The situation may have made you indifferent to the use of stress in English. Whatever the case, one thing is clear – you are bound to find the aspect of stress very difficult both in your personal speech and in the examination.

It must be emphasized that there is no shortcut to understanding stress. The best method is to learn a new word along with its stress pattern. Here, the dictionary is of immense value. Note how you can learn new words, together with their stress patterns, using a dictionary.

Suppose you want to look up the meanings of the words master, complete and magazine. If you are using the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, you will notice that it not only tells you the meanings of the words, the dictionary also shows how they are stressed and pronounced, thus:

master /ˈmɑːstə/

complete /kəmˈpliːt/

magazine /mᴂɡəˈziːn/

Note the stroke and its position in the transcription of each of the three words. The dictionary uses the stroke to show that the word master is stressed on the first syllable, the word complete on the second while the word magazine is stressed on the third or last syllable.