Page 42 - DENG401_Advance Communication Skills

Unit 1: Simple Rule for Pronunciation & Intonation

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, “global” rising and falling intonation are marked with Notes
a diagonal arrow rising left-to-right [ ↗ ] and falling left-to-right [ ↘ ], respectively. These may
be written as part of a syllable, or separated with a space when they have a broader scope:
He found it on the street?

[ hi faʊnd ɪt | ɒn ðə ↗ stɹi t ]
Here the rising pitch on street indicates that the question hinges on that word, on where he found
it, not whether he found it.
Yes, he found it on the street.
[↘ˈjɛs ˈ hi ˈfaʊnd ɪt | ɒn ðə ↘ˈstɹi t ˈ ]
How did you ever escape?

[↗ˈˈhaʊ dɪdju | ˈɛvɚ | ɨ↘ˈˈskeɪp ˈ ]

Here, as is common with wh- questions, there is a rising intonation on the question word, and a
falling intonation at the end of the question.
Improving sentence intonation is one of the key elements in your English pronunciation. Let's
discuss the four basic types of word stress that lead to proper intonation in English.
1. Tonic stress
2. Emphatic stress

3. Contrastive stress
4. New information stress

Tonic Stress

Tonic stress refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an intonation unit.
An intonation unit has one tonic stress. It's important to remember that a sentence can have
more than one intonation unit, and therefore have more than one tonic stress. Here are some
examples of intonation units with the tonic stress in bold.

He’s waiting
He’s waiting / for his friend
He’s waiting / for his friend / at the station.
Generally, the final tonic stress in a sentence receives the most stress. In the above example,
'station' receives the strongest stress.
There are a number of instances in which the stress changes from this standard. Here are short
explanations for each of the changes with example sentences to illustrate.
Emphatic Stress
If you decide to emphasize something, you can change the stress from the principal noun to
another content word such as an adjective (big, difficult, etc.), intensifier (very, extremely, etc.)
This emphasis calls attention to the extraordinary nature of what you want to emphasize.

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