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Lesson 8 - Sentence focus (sentence stress) Speakers of English focus their listeners’ attention on the specific part of the sentence they wish to emphasize by stressing particular words or phrases. Usually the emphasized words are content words such as nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs rather than structural words like prepositions or auxiliary verbs. The most significant information is likely to be the last content word in the sentence.
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| 1 I've been working all morning on the computer and now it's crashed! |
| 2 Hey, what's the problem? You look terrible! |
| 3 What is she so pleased about? She looks like the cat that's eaten the cream! |
Although content words are usually the focus of a sentence, the speaker can choose to stress any words s/he chooses according to the meaning s/he wishes to convey. Usually, known information is not stressed. For example, at a lecture, if everybody in the audience knows the talk is about Hong Kong, the place name is unlikely to be stressed. However, information which is new to the listeners is very likely to be stressed.
Stressing important words in a sentence
Look at this brief extract from the HKUST
President's 1999 State of the University Report.
(a) Find out all the words likely to be
stressed.
(b) Work out the places in the sentence where
you might hear a slight pause between sense
groups (phrases) to help listeners follow the
speaker's meaning.
Education and technology are the cornerstones of Hong Kong's future development and they are precisely HKUST's mission.
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Phone: (852) 2358-7851
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HKUST
Center for Language Education