Features of Spoken English
5. Intonation + Stress
Every english sentence has stressed and unstressed words. Stressed words are pronounced louder and longer than unstressed nouns. The pitch increases or decreases depending on the level of stress you want to put on certain words.
The variation of stress and pitch is called intonation. Words are stressed to make a certain emphasis. A sentence can be spoken differently depending on what the speaker wants to say.
Listen to the following sentences and try to figure out what the speaker wants to say.
"Didn't" is slightly stressed.
The speaker might be giving her opinion in a casual conversation.
There is a flat intonation with no clear rising or falling in sound.
The speaker wants the listener to know she really didn't like it.
Pronouns are usually not stressed unless the speaker wants to emphasize authority or having a different opinion.
The stress on the pronoun “I” creates a rising and falling sound followed by a straight rhythm in the rest of the sentence.
- The speaker meant: "Unlike you, I didn't like it."
- Here, the speaker wants to make it clear that she did not like the commercial.
- Probably, everyone else likes it except her.
- The pitch increases, and stress is applied, on the word that holds the intended meaning.
- Here, the speaker wants to emphasize why exactly she didn’t like that commercial.
- Stress is applied on the words that hold the intended meaning.
- Intonation changes while speaking those two words to emphasize them.
When intonation changes, meaning changes too
Watch this video for more examples on how intonation changes the meaning of a sentence.