Stress in english words introduction

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STRESS IN ENGLISH WORDS

INTRODUCTION

Stress is one of the important elements in English spoken language. Without the sound knowledge of stress, learners of English may have difficulty understanding English spoken language and the native speakers of English may fail to understand.
For example when you say, “I love dessert”, you have to be clear what you mean. Whether you mean “the sweet food you eat after meal” or “a large area of land that has very little water and very few plants growing on it”. This means you need to place stress on the right syllable. If the stress falls on the first syllable (desert), it means “a large area of land that has very little water and very few plants growing on it” while if the stress falls on the second syllable (des sert), it means “the sweet food you eat after meal.”
This lesson deals with word stress in English. Learning English word stress can give the general overview of how native speakers put stress in English words. And this could help the learners of English understand better the nature of sentence stress.
WHAT IS STRESS?
A stressed syllable is in some way more prominent than the others in the same word. According to Ladeforge (1993: 249-250), a speaker stresses a syllable “by extra contraction of the muscles of the ribcage and by extra activity of the laryngeal muscles,” and perhaps also by “increases in the muscular activity in the articulatory movements.” By this definition, it seems that stressed syllable involves physiological aspects of speech sounds, the speaker may be unconsciously aware of these changes when he/she speaks. However, the hearer may perceive stress on a syllable by means of several audible phenomena. A stressed syllable often exhibits at least one or two of the following characteristics:

1. 
   It is louder because there is more air coming from the lung by extra contraction of the muscles of the rib cage. (Spoken more loudly)
   
2. 
   It is high in pitch because there may be extra activity of the pharyngeal muscles. (higher pitch of voice)
   
3. 
   It is longer because the speech sound is produced by using more muscular energy in the articulatory movements in the vocal tract; so it is said that the vowels in the stressed syllable are longer than those in unstressed syllables. (longer vowel)
   

The following words have three syllables; faculty, computer, guarantee. The syllable that receives stress means that it is perceived as louder, higher in pitch of voice and longer in duration. Thus, we get FACulty, comPUter, guaranTEE.
Note: Normally, the stress symbol ( ‘ ) – as a shorthand symbol - is marked in front of the stressed syllable, for example ‘faculty, but in here capital letter is sometimes used to show stressed syllable in order to help the students notice the stressed syllables easily. In a dictionary, you can find the stress mark in front the stressed syllable.