Người học Tiếng Anh như là 1 ngôn ngữ thứ hai thì chắc hẳn ai cũng có trăn trở, tự hỏi làm sao để mình có thể nói Tiếng Anh với ngữ điệu như người bản xứ. Tài liệu dưới đây sẽ trả lời cho câu hỏi đó, tài liệu chỉ rõ ra cách nhấn âm trong từ vựng hoặc cả câu. Kết hợp với những ví dụ cụ thế, giúp người học có thể luyện tập để nâng cao khả năng phát âm của mình.
Trang 1Stress
A The Nature of Stress
From the perspective of production, it seems that when we produce a stressed syllable, the muscles of our lungs and speech organs are more active than for the articulation of unstressed syllables From a perceptual point of view, we perceive stressed syllables as being prominent This means that stressed syllables stand out against a background of unstressed syllables.Four factorswork together to give prominence to stressed syllables:
▪ Loudness:stressed syllables are louder than unstressed ones.
▪ Duration: the vowels in stressed syllables tend to have their full duration, whereas
unstressed ones are likely to be shortened
▪ Pitch: every syllable is said with some pitch, and when one syllable has a pitch that is
noticeably different from that of the others, this usually produces the effect of prominence To place some movement of pitch on the syllable is even more effective14
▪ Quality: a syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in quality from the neighboring vowels The stressed syllables occur against a background
of weak syllables containing weak vowels
B Level of Stress
In the word around /əˈraʊnd/, the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed On the second syllable of this word, the voice pitch does not remain level, but usually falls from a higher
to a lower pitch.This pitch movement gives the strongest type of stress, called primary stress All polysyllabic English words haveone syllable that carries primary stress In many words of more than three syllables, we can observe a type of stress that is weaker than primary stress but stronger than that of the first syllable of around, for example, in the first syllable of complimentary /ˌkɒmplɪˈmentri/ and differentiation /ˌdɪfərenʃiˈeɪʃən/ This type of stress is called secondary
stress In transcription, primary stress is represented with a high mark ( ˈ ) before the first sound
of the syllable which carries primary stress, while secondary stress is indicated with a low mark ( ˌ ) before the first found of that syllable A third level is called unstressed: the syllable has no (audible amount of) prominence (e.g the first syllable in around)
14 Pitch depends on the frequency with which the vocal folds vibrate to produce voicing: the more quickly, the higher the pitch.
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Trang 2C The Placement of Stress
English word stress is difficult to predict, and some people think it is best to treat stress placement as a property of the individual word, i.e to be learned when that word is learned Native speakers, however, can usually guess the stress placement of words they do not know, so there must be some kind of pattern What follows is summary of some rules on stress placement
in verbs, nouns, and adjectives They have to be used carefully, because practically the rules have exceptions
In order to decide on stress placement, we need some (or all) of the following information: a) Is the word morphologically simple, compound or complex?
A simple word does not have more than one meaningful or grammatical unit (morpheme): e.g care is simple, but careful, carefully, careless, carelessly, and carelessness are all complex because they care composed of more than one morpheme A compound word is made of two (or occasionally more) independent English words: e.g housework, greenhouse, ice-cream
b) Which word class does the word belong to (noun, verb, adjective, etc.)?
c) How may syllables does the word contain?
d) What is the phonological structure of the syllables?
e.g potato /pəˈteɪtəʊ/: the center of the first syllable is /ə/, that of the second is /eɪ/ and that of the last is /əʊ/
1 Stress in Simple Words
Disyllabic words
Verbs
Long vowel/diphthong/ends with
more than one consonant
e.g apply /əˈplaɪ/, arrive /əˈraɪv/,
attract /əˈtrækt/
short vowel/ends with one or no consonant or with /əʊ/
e.g enter /ˈentə/, envy /ˈenvi/, open /ˈəʊpən/, follow /ˈfɒləʊ/
Trang 3Adverbs and prepositions tend to behave like verbs and adjectives.
Nouns:
e.g money /ˈmʌni/, product /ˈprɒdʌkt/, larynx /ˈlærɪŋks/ exception: estate /ɪˈsteɪt/, ballon /bəˈluːn/, design /dɪˈzaɪn/
Trisyllabic words
Verbs
e.g encounter /ɪnˈkaʊntə/ e.g entertain /ˌentəˈteɪn/
determine /dɪˈtɜːmɪn/ resurrect /ˌrezəˈrekt/
Nouns
e.g potato /pəˈteɪtəʊ/, disaster /dɪˈzɑːstə/
short vowel/ends with one consonant long vowel/diphthong/ends withmore than one consonant
short vowel or /əʊ/ or end with one consonant long vowel/diphthong
Short vowel
Trang 4e.g quantity /ˈkwɒntəti/, e.g stimuli /ˈstɪmjʊlaɪ/,
cinema /ˈsɪnəmə/, emperor /ˈemprə/ intellect /ˈɪntəlekt/
Adjectives seem to follow the same rule as nouns
e.g.opportune /ˈɒpətjuːn/, humanoid /ˈhjuːmənɔɪd/, derelict /ˈderɪlɪkt/, insolent /ˈɪnslənt/
2 Stress in Complex Words
Complex words have one or more affixes, which can be prefixes or suffixes We can classify affixes according to the effect they have on word stress:
▪ The affix itself receives primary stress
▪ The word is stressed as if the affix was not there: most suffixes are added to the base with
no effect on the placement of stress
▪ The suffix attracts stress to the immediately preceding syllable
Prefixes
The effect of adding prefixes is less predictable than of suffixes There is no prefix of one or two syllables that always carries primary stress Generally, stress in words with a prefix is determined
by the same rules as stress in words without a prefix
Suffixes
Suffixes carrying primary stress themselves
Some examples:
-ee refuge /ˈrefjuːʤ/ refugee /ˌrefjʊˈʤiː/
-eer mountain /ˈmaʊntən/ mountaineer /ˌmaʊntəˈnɪə/
Short vowel long vowel/diphthong/ends withmore than one consonant
Trang 5Suffixes that do not affect stress placement.
Some examples
-able comfort /ˈkʌmfət/ comfortable /ˈkʌmftəbl/
-age mile /maɪl/ mileage /ˈmaɪlɪʤ/
-al refuse /ˌrəˈfjuːz/ refusal /rəˈfjuːzl/
-en wide /waɪd/ widen /ˈwaɪdn/
-ly hurried /ˈhʌrɪd/ hurriedly /ˈhʌrɪdli/
-ment punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/ punishment /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/
Suffixes that influence stress in the base
The stress shifts to the last syllable of the base
Some examples:
-egous advantage /ədˈvɑːntɪʤ/ advantageous /ˌædvənˈteɪʤəs/ -graphy photo /ˈfəʊtəʊ/ photography /fəˈtɒgrəfi/
-ial proverb /ˈprɒvɜːb/ proverbial /prəˈvɜːbiəl/ -ic climate /ˈklaɪmɪt/ climatic /klaɪˈmætɪk/ -ion perfect /ˈpɜːfɪkt/ perfection /pəˈfekʃən/
-ious injure /ˈɪnʤə/ injurious /ɪnˈʤʊərɪəs/
-ive product /ˈprɒdʌkt/ productive /prəˈdʌktɪv/
3 Stress in Compound Words
A few rules can be given, but they are not completely reliable The element which does not carry primary stress normally gets secondary stress
Trang 6Compound nouns (n) + (n) ˈtypewriter, ˈsuitcase, ˈbattery charger,
ˈtelephone directory
Compound adjectives (adj) + (n)-ed bad – ˈtempered, heavy – ˈhanded
Compound adverbs stress last element head – ˈfirst, North – ˈEast, downˈstream
Compound verbs (v) + prep to take ˈoff, to switch ˈon
4 Variable of Stress
The stress pattern of English words is not always fixed Stress in words may vary for mainly two reasons:
1) As a result of the stress on other words occurring next to that word: the stress on a final-stressed compound word tends to move to the preceding syllable if the following word begins with a strongly stressed syllable
e.g bad – ˈtempered but a ˈbad-tempered ˈteacher,
heavy – ˈhanded but a ˈheavy – handed ˈsentence
2) Sometimes there is more than once correct pronunciation of a word
e.g controversy /ˈkɒntrəvɜːsi/ or /kənˈtrɒvəsi/
ice-cream /ˈaɪs kriːm/ or /aɪs ˈkriːm/
kilometer /ˈkɪləmiːtə/ or /kɪˈlɒmətə/
formidable /ˈfɔːmɪdəbl/ or /fəˈmɪdəbl/
5 Word-class Pairs
Some disyllabic words are distinguished as being either a noun/adjective or verb merely by stress placement In these cases, the verbs get stressed on the second syllable while nouns and adjectives have stress on the first syllable the unstressed vowel may be weakened, but this does not always happen Some illustrations:
contrast /ˈkɒntrɑːst/ /kənˈtrɑːst/ perfect /ˈpɜːfɪkt/ /pəˈfekt/ desert /ˈdezət/ /dɪˈzɜːt/ permit /ˈpɜːmɪt/ /pəˈmɪt/
export /ˈekspɔːt/ /eksˈpɔːt/ present /ˈpreznt/ /prɪˈzent/ import /ˈɪmpɔːt/ /ɪmˈpɔːt/ produce /ˈprɒdjuːs/ /prəˈdjuːs/ insult /ˈɪnsʌlt/ /ɪnˈsʌlt/ rebel /ˈrebl/ /rɪˈbel/
Trang 76 Phrases, Compounds, Stress Shift
Phrases
When an adjective modifies a following noun, they make a phrase Typically, they have late stress, i.e the second word has more stress than the first
ˌpolished ˈwood ˌrunning ˈwater
ˌinteresting ˈbook ˌhard ˈwork
ˌnew ˈassistant ˌdifficult ˈcourse
Compounds
When two elements combine to make inseparable unit with a new meaning, they form a compound Compounds typically have early stress, i.e the first element is more stressed than the second
ˈfirewood ˈhomework ˈBatman
Note that compounds are often written as two words:
ˈrunning shoes ˈlibrary book
ˈsafety valve ˈtoy story
ˈshop assistant ˌcorreˈspondence course
Some can optionally by hyphenated, e.g safety-valve Native speakers of English are often inconsistent in the use of the hyphen
Primary stress [ ˈ ] and secondary stress [ ˌ ] mark syllables which can take an accent Sometimes the same sequence of words can make a phrase or a compound Here the late or early stress distinguishes them
a ˌdark ˈroom the ˌwhite ˈhouse a ˌtoy ˈfactory
a ˈdarkroom the ˈWhite house a ˈtoy factory
Late-stressed compounds: some compounds have late stress as if they were phrases Three useful categories:
a) The first element is the material or ingredient out of which a food is made:
ˌcherry ˈpie ˌpork ˈshop ˌrice ˈpudding ˌchocolate ˈeggs except for cake, bread, juice, and water These compounds have early stress, as we would expect:
ˈchocolate cakeˈrye bread ˈorange juice ˈmineral water b) The first element is a proper name
ˌLondon Uniˈversity Ro ˌDeo ˈDrive ˌEuston ˈRoad the ˌHilton Hoˈtel ˌSunset Boulevard ˌOxford ˈCircus except for Street: these have normally early stress
ˈOxford Street ˈEuston Street ˌForty ˈSecond Street
Trang 8c) The first element names a time or place
ˌChristmas ˈpudding ˌsummer ˈholidays ˌevening ˈdress ˌkitchen ˈwindow ˌcity ˈcenter ˌocean ˈvoyage ˌ New compounds may at first be spoken with late stress and in time switch to early stress Some compounds have late stress in British English but early stress in America
ˈbank note ˈice cream ˈspare ribs ˈRobin Hood
Stress shift
Late-stress patterns switch to early-stress in constructions where they are followed by stranger-stressed item
ˌfourˈteen ˌfourteen ˈmen
ˌtown ˈhall ˌtown hall ˈclock
the ˌtown hall’s closed ˌOxford ˈCircus ˌOxford Circus ˈtube
Is ˌOxford Circus ˈinteresting?
ˌBeverly ˈHills ˌBeverly Hills ˈCop
ˌHeathˈrow ˌHeathrow ˈAirport