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INSTRUCTION 1


DO YOU POSSESS ARTICULATE SPEECH?

When you listen to your own voice speaking, what do you think about it? Are you articulate? Do you occasionally mumble words? 
 Today we shall be taking a look at the term “Stress” in English. What is it? It is the relative emphasis given to a syllable in a word (lexical stress), or a minimum of one word in a sentence (prosodic stress). A language can either be syllable-timed, or stress-timed.

In a stress-timed language, the interval or duration between two stressed syllables is equal. In a syllable-timed language, the duration between every syllable in a word is equal.

Examples of stress-timed languages include, 
•      English
•      Russian
•      Arabic
•      German
•      Portuguese
Examples of syllable-timed languages include,
•      French
•      Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo 
•      Spanish
•      Italian
•      Mandarin Chinese
A number of New English varieties exhibit tendencies towards syllable timing, as shown below:
Stress-timed English include
•      UK English
•      American English
•      Canadian English
•      Australian English
•      New Zealand English
Syllable-timed languages include:
•      Indian/ Black South African English
•      East African English
•      Nigerian English
•      Ghanaian English
•      Indian English
•      Pakistani English
•      Singapore English
•      Malaysian English
•      Philippine English 
There are several factors capable of impeding on correct stressing of English words, especially for those that speak English as their second language. We shall be looking at them in the next post.

download Speak Right, Sound Right 1 for free.

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