TOPIC 9: THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE (III): STRESS, RHYTHM AND

INTONATION. COMPARISON WITH THE
PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SPANISH AND OTHER
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES.
TOPIC 9: THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (III):

STRESS, RHYTHM AND INTONATION COMPARISON WITH THE PHONOLOGICAL

SYSTEM OF SPANISH AND OTHER OFFICIAL LANGUAGES.

1. INTRODUCTION

2. STRESS

2.1 Primary and Secondary Stress

2.2 General Rules

2.3 Functional Variation

2.4 Compound Nouns

2.5 Stress in sentences

2.6 STRESS IN SPANISH (and dialect)

3. RHYTHM

3.1 Intervals of time between items

3.2 Changes.

3.3 RHYTHM IN SPANISH (and dialect)

4. INTONATION

4.1 Patterns

4.2 Question Tags

4.3 Functions

4.4 INTONATION IN SPANIS(and dialect)

5. CONCLUSION

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY

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1.- INTRODUCTION

It is important in English to produce not only a

good pronunciation but also to be able to
reproduce these correct sounds in connected
speech, as opposed to individual isolated
sounds.

Frequently, in natural speech, sounds undergo

various changes. We will examine these
changes by looking at three phenomena,
different from each other but closely connected: stress, rhythm and intonation. These
phonetic features affect long stretches of utterance such as syllable, the word or the
sentence. They are known as suprasegmental or prosodic features.

Stress concerns the prominence with which a part of a word or phrase is distinguished
from the other parts. For example: lnde’PENdent; did you ‘TELL her'?

Rhythm concerns the pattern of stresses within an utterance, occurring at regular

intervals, For example: the PARty FINished at eLEven

Intonation concerns the association of relative prominence with pitch, which is the
aspect of sound perceive as "high" or "low". Sentences can have a falling tone, as in:

Pedro won the match (indicating a statement)

or a rising tone, as in:

Pedro won the match? (indicating a question)

2.- STRESS

Stress is a term that we apply to words in isolation with more than one syllable. It refers
to the property that certain syllables carry which make them stand out from the rest of
the word. It seems certain that stressed syllables are made with more effort than
unstressed ones; the muscles in the lungs seem to expel air more aggressively than for
unstressed syllables. The prominence that these syllables exhibit is usually pronounced
in four ways.

> Pitch > Length > Loudness > Quality

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Any of these four factors can occur alone or in combination to produce the prominence
that marks a stressed syllable from an unstressed one.

PITCH

ba

ba ba

ba ba

Pitch is an auditory sensation that places sounds on a scale from high to low. Every
syllable has pitch, however, any syllable that is articulated with a noticeably different
pitch will be deemed to carry stress. This can go either way: if all the syllables are said
in a low pitch except one, then that higher pitch syllable will be deemed to carry the
stress of the word. Pitch also plays a central role in intonation.

LENGTH

ba ba baaaaaaa ba ba

Length seems to play a role in stress. Generally, if one syllable has a longer length than
the others in the word then it is deemed to be the one carrying stress. Length is one of
the most important determiners of stress.

LOUDNESS

BA

ba ba ba ba

It seems obvious that if one syllable is articulated louder than the others then it will have
achieved some prominence from the other syllables. This prominence would then make
that syllable the stressed syllable. However, it is very difficult to make a sound louder
without affecting the length, pitch or quality of that syllable.

QUALITY

ba ba bæ ba ba

A syllable will carry prominence if it contains a vowel that is different in duality from
the surrounding vowels. This effect is usually achieved by having a strong vowel in the

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midst of weak ones. The prominence of the strong vowel is contrasted with the weaker
vowels.

2.1 Primary and secondary stress

Stress is not marked in spelling. The notation of stress is the high mark demonstrated in the
following examples:

'nɜːvƏs for stress on the first syllable.

dɪ'mɪnɪʃ for stress on the second syllable.

entƏ'teɪn for stress on the third syllable.

- Vocalic groups will only remain together if they form a diphtong or triphtong in
English (e.g. ´radio), otherwise they will be divided if an accent is placed on them:

e.g. bi´ology, not ´bio-lo-gy

- The consonantal groups “-sp –st –sk” are added as part of the next syllable. They are
not separated as in Spanish. Therefore the stroke is placed before them when they are
part of the tonic syllable.

e.g. di´sputable , e´scape mini´sterial

It is possible to pick out a second, weaker, stressed syllable from the primary stress.
This is known as secondary stress and it is notated with the low mark, e.g.:

ˌfƏƱtƏ'græfɪK

In this example, the 3rd syllable is more pronounced than the 1st syllable, but the 1st
syllable is still more prominent than the other syllable and so carries the low mark.

- It is necessary for the placement of the secondary stress that between this and the
primary stress there should be at least two syllables of distance in the same word
(rhythmic reasons prevent the two being together).

- In the few words with double accent, like ´con´cave, the second one will be
considered the primary accent.

i.e.: ˌcon´cave

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- When several secondary accents precede the primary one, the nearest to the latter is
uttered weakly, more weakly than the others. This is the reason why some authors call
this accent tertiary, or unstressed, marking it by an inferior “o”.

i.e.: INDISPENSABILITY

2 = secondary 1 = primary 0 = unstressed

/ ˌin-di-ˌspen-sa-'bi-li-ty / 2 0 2 0 1 0 0

- Those syllables in derivative forms have secondary stress when they have it primarily
in the original form:

proˌnunci'ation pro´nounce gene´rosity ´generous

Some words have “double primary stress": 'A'men, 'hu'llo, 'thir'teen, 'four'teen

2.2 General rules: how to determine where stress lies.

English is not a language that follows precise rules for the

placement of stress. In French, the last syllable is usually
the stressed one; in Polish, it is usually the penultimate one;
and in Czech, it is generally the first syllable that is
stressed.

Unfortunately, English has a very complex set of

procedures that determine stress. It should be noted that
nearly all-English speakers agree on where stress should be
placed so the system of stress does have some method to its madness.

ONE SYLLABLE WORDS

Obviously, these present no problems because, when pronounced in isolation, they

receive the primary stress. (There is no other syllable competing with it.)

haƱs θɪŋ

TWO SYLLABLE WORDS

Many two-syllable words come from a one-syllable word eg. artist (art), remove (move)

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The stress is on the syllable of the original word: artist, remove, driver, rebuild, become,
teacher...

- NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES: Most two-syllable nouns and adjectives have stress on
the first syllable. E.g.: brother, lovely, table, printer, father, smelly.

Exceptions: asleep, mistake, machine, alone. (They all have stress on the second
syllable)

- VERBS: Most two-syllable verbs have stress on the second syllable. E.g.: escape,
forget, relax, enjoy.

Exceptions: cancel, copy and two syllable words ending in -er and -en such as answer,
listen, happen, open, enter.

- WORDS THAT ARE NOUNS AND VERBS: Some words are both nouns and verbs
e.g.: record, object.

' Record' becomes a noun if you put the stress on the first syllable. It becomes a verb if
you put the stress on the second syllable. Other examples are: contrast, desert, export,
present, rebel.

Some exceptions to this rule are: answer, picture, promise, reply and visit. There isn´t a
change of stress if they change category.

THREE SYLLABLE AND MORE WORDS

Determining stress becomes very complicated from this point on. The rules start to
become quite arbitrary with more exceptions than can easily be explained away. One
general hint to remember is that weak syllables never carry stress.

Therefore, any syllable with a "schwa" in it will never be the stressed syllable.

There are some we can tentatively apply.

 Native words and early French adoptions tend to have the main stress on the root
syllable and keep it there, regardless of added affixes: ’stand, under'stand,
misunder’stand

 More recent additions to the language change the main stress according to the
affixation: 'Photograph, pho'tography, photo'graphic.

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  All abstract nouns ending in ’-ion' are stressed on the syllable preceding that
ending, as for example: invi´tation

 The syllable before nouns ending in "-ity”, nouns or adjectives which end in "-
ian" and adjectives ending in "-ic" are also stressed. For example: impetu'osity,
ag'rarian, lib'rarian, syste'matic.

2.3 Functional variation

Some words which can operate either as nouns / adjectives or verbs are differentiated by
their stress:

NOUN/ADJECTIVE VERB

'record /'rekɔːd/ re'cord /rɪ'kɔːd/

'perfect /'pƏːfɪkt/ Per'fect /pƏ'feckt/

'insult /'ɪnsʌłt/ In'sult /ɪn'sʌłt/

'refuse /'refjƱːs/ re'fuse /ri'fjƱːz/

In some words, there has been a tendency recently for this dual form to die out. An
example of this would be "export" used for both noun and verb.

2.4 Compound nouns

These are generally stressed on the first element, with a secondary stress on the second
element. For example: 'bathˌroom 'hairˌdryer

lf a compound is made part of another compound, the stress is redistributed to give the
same rhythm: 'lightˌhouse 'lighthouse-ˌkeeper

There are two exceptions to this general rule: words ending in "-ever" or "-self":
how'ever, him 'self

There are also some compounds which preserve the stress pattern of the phrases from
which they are derived, with main stress on the final element: town 'hall

In many cases, the stress often shifts from the second element to the first when the
compound is being used attributively in a noun phrase:

the bedroom is up ’stairs the 'upstairs bedroom

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Double stress can be used in compound adjectives whose first element is an adjective:
’quick-'thinking , ‘easy-going.

Stress builds sense. Thus, we can tell the difference between: 'blueˌbottle (compound
nouns = a type of fly) and ,blue 'bottle (noun phrase = a bottle which is blue).

Likewise: ‘black ,bird (compound nouns = a kind of bird) ,black ‘bird (noun phrase =
any bird being black).

An ‘English ,teacher (someone who teaches English)¸ An ,English ‘teacher (a teacher

who is English).

2.5 Sentence

Words that are normally stressed may become unstressed, or less stressed, when they
are together in phrases and sentences. Stress may also be moved onto another syllable
according to the relevance or meaning we want to
give them.

Overall there are two classes of words:

- Content or lexical words are those that receive

stress in a sentence: verbs, nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, and demonstrative words. E.g. That is
John.

- Form or grammatical words are the ones that do not

receive stress in a sentence: auxiliary verbs,
conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and articles.
E.g.: That is John.

WEAK FORMS

Weak forms are those words that are pronounced in an unstressed manner. Many of the
most common words in English can come in either a strong or a weak form. As it has
been said they are nearly all function words such as conjunctions, articles, pronouns,
prepositions and some auxiliary and modal verbs.

Generally the strong forms of these words are used when they are being directly quoted,
contrasted or if they appear at the end of a sentence.

The pronunciation of a weak form can be so different from the strong form that it is
barely recognizable as being the same word. If said in isolation, it would be all but
unintelligible. Usually, it is the context that makes it understandable. (see below)

The most common weak form examples are:

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• Articles:

ARTICLE WEAK FORMS AND EXAMPLES

THE ðƏ: before consonant sounds→The man did it /ðƏ mæn dɪd ɪt/

ðɪ: before vowel sounds→ The orange /ðɪ 'ɒrɪndj/

A, AN Ə: before consonant sounds →Ride a bike /raɪd Ə baɪk/

Ən: before vowel sounds→ Pick an apple /pɪk Ən 'æpl/

 Conjunctions:

CONJUNCTIONS WEAK FORMS AND EXAMPLES

AND Ən (or sometimes /n/ after t, d, s, z or ʃ)→Come and see /kʌm Ən

siː/

BUT bƏt →It´s cheap but reliable /ɪts ʧiːp bƏt rɪ'laɪƏbl/

THAN ðƏn→ better than expected /betƏ ðƏn ɪk'spektƏd/

It is possible to use only strong forms in English, and some non-native speakers do
exactly this. However, it sounds very unnatural to a native speaker and it will also mean
that a person who only uses the strong form of English will have trouble understanding
native speakers of English who use the weak form all of the time.

 Pronouns, Possessive Adjectives

PRONOUNS/POSSESSIVE WEAK FORMS AND EXAMPLES

ADJECTIVES

HIS ɪz: When it occurs before a noun→Take his coat /teɪk ɪz

kƏƱt/

HER Ə: before consonants →Take her home / teɪk Ə hƏƱm/

Ər: before vowel sounds→ Take her out / teɪk Ər 'aƱt/

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2.6 Stress in Spanish

In Spanish, like in English, syllables are divided into stressed (tónicas) and unstressed
(átonas) syllables: e-lec-tri-ci-DAD.
á t
t ó
All words take accent in their pronunciation,
o n monosyllabic words (con, de, por, etc.)
n
included, when pronounced i
in isolation: DE; CAsa de PEdro.
a c
Some words, when theys are written,
a require the stressed syllable to be marked with a stroke
over it. This stroke is called 'tilde'. We don’t mark the
stressed syllable, when written, in English. There are a
few words, usually foreign words, that have a mark but
it doesn’t necessarily mean that the syllable is stressed:
café, fiancée etc. In poetry a mark is written when the
poet wants to change the stress of a word for rhythmic
reasons.

The secondary stress occurs in Spanish as well, but it is

not prominent:

Ex: Las cuestiones tanto ‘interiores como ‘exteriores.

Although English compounds generally turn into a secondary stress the one that was the
primary in the root, and this secondary stress still keeps a considerable strength; Spanish moves
the stress to the suffixes:

Ex: ‘central / centra’lize; centrál/centralizar

In two-syllable words both languages have a preference for stressing the syllable before the last;
English tends to stress the antepenultimate syllable in three or more syllables words whereas
Spanish keeps the penultimate position for stress.

English vowels are deeply affected by their stress, whether primary or secondary. Stressed
vowels have a precise and clear pronunciation, whereas unstressed vowels have a tendency to
become indistinct.

3. RHYTHM

Rhythm concerns the pattern of stresses within an utterance, occurring at regular

intervals. Rhythm is formed by a combination of stressed syllables interspersed with
unstressed ones. Normally, the natural rhythm of English provides roughly equal
intervals of time between the stressed items, as in the sentence:

´Tom and his 'brother are 'students.

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Words that may have double or single stress vary according to rhythmic variations.
Such words could be : proper names, place names etc.

The Berlin wall. / ’bƏːlɪn / Piccadilly Circus / ’pɪkƏdɪlɪ/

He went to Berlin. /bƏ:’lɪn/ The lights of Piccadilly Circus / pɪkƏ’dɪlɪ/

3.1 Intervals of time between stressed items

As we said there is a roughly equal amount of time between the stressed items. Thus,
two sentences with the same amount of stress but with differing amounts of non-
stressed items will generally take the same amount of time to say, as in:

She 'told 'someone

She 'bought it for a 'party

In the above examples the speaker would say ’bought it for a ’ as fast as ‘told ’. But
that does not mean that English rhythm is invariably regular. Regularity of rhythm is
used for specific purposes:

Counting: ‘one, 'two,' three, ...., thirty-‘six, thirty-'seven

Lists: a 'book, a 'pen, a ‘ruler, a ’rubber

Emphasis: You should 'always 'look be'fore you ’cross the ’road

3.2 Changes

We can change the rhythm of the sentence by stressing closed class (normally weak)
items like 'and' or 'are', which generally make use of the schwa vowel. We could
therefore have:

'Tom 'and his 'brother are 'students. (not just one, both of them are students)

'Tom and his 'brother 'are 'students. ( it is not true that they are not students )

Incidentally, this stress on a normally unstressed syllable can occur within a word and
not just in a sentence:

- l think it is possible.

- Do you? l think it is 'impossible.

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3.3 Rhythm in Spanish

In English, vowel length depends to a considerable extent on the rhythm of the sentence.
There is a strong tendency in connected speech to make stressed syllables follow each
other as closely as possible at equal distances.

On the other hand, rhythm in Spanish is subjected to a smaller unit, the syllable.
Rhythm in Spanish is marked by the contrast between accentuated and non- accentuated
syllables. There is a contrast between tone and intensity accent.This makes the English
sentence sound with a greater continuity and intonation unit than its Spanish equivalent,
which sounds to the English speaker like a staccato, or short abrupt sound. Therefore, it
is essential in English to have a sentence rhythm, which does not exist in Spanish.

In an English sentence certain words that are too close to the initial rhythmic beat lose
their lexical stress. This does not happen in Spanish.

Ex: Mary´s younger brother wanted fifty chocolate peanuts.

In this example we can see the difference with the Spanish stress, in Spanish all the
words will be stressed; however, in English only the underlined bold type syllables are
really stressed, thus favouring rhythm.

The behaviour of prepositions and conjunctions differs in both languages: they are
usually stressed in English; in Spanish only the preposition "según" is stressed.

Stress also varies in English

depending on whether it is
used on strong or weak
forms of the same words.
There is nothing in Spanish
that resembles the English
strong and weak forms so
this will prove difficult for
Spanish students.

4. INTONATION

The messages that we convey to one another depend just as much on " how ” we say
something as on " what " it is that we actually say. However, it is possible to use the
same words to convey a huge variety of meanings, moods or intentions. The way we do
this is by using intonation. It is very important to realize that native speakers react to
intonation. If the wrong kind is used, the listener may misinterpret the speaker´s
intention. He will certainly be confused, and he may even be insulted. Intonation, for
example, can signify that the speaker is making a statement, or that he/she is asking a
question, or that he/she has not finished speaking.

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In the study of intonation, pitch, loudness and length are the most important factors.
They work together to give certain syllables prominence over the others. The concepts
of intonation are very closely related to those in stress, the difference being that stress is
concerned with individual words, whereas intonation extends over a phrase or utterance.
Individual sounds can be compared with the individual notes in a piece of music, the
intonation can be compared with the melody or tune.

The meaning of an utterance can be changed simply by giving more or less stress to one
word or a syllable. intonation changes can also achieve the same effect and give
prominence to those parts of an utterance on which the speaker wishes to concentrate
attention. By intonation we mean the
variations that take place in the pitch of the
level of the voice.

Every language has melody in it, only robots

or computers "speak" on the same musical
note all the time. The voice goes up and down
and these different pitches of the voice
combine to make tunes.

English intonation is different from Spanish,

French, German or any other language and a
good speaker must learn these tunes. For example, we could say 'thank you' in two
different ways. In the first, the voice starts high and ends low, and this shows real
gratitude in the second, the voice starts low and ends high, and this shows a rather
casual acknowledgement of something not very important. A bus driver will say 'Thank
you' in this second way when he collects your money, but if a friend invites you to
spend a weekend at his / her home and you reply with the second 'thank you', your
friend will be offended because you don't sound grateful.

4.1 PATTERNS

There are five clearly discernable intonation patterns that are used on a regular basis in
English: - Falling - Rising - Flat - Fall-Rise - Rise-Fall

FALLING INTONATION

This is the commonest tone in English

 Affirmative sentences: He seems very intelligent ↘

 It is also used in wh- questions: Why did you phone her? ↘

 In commands; Take it away! ↘

 In greetings and exclamations: Good evening. ↘ Good Heavens! ↘

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RISING INTONATION

This is used to suggest that what is said is not final. It could be used if a response is
needed:

 Yes/No questions:

Are you married? ↗

 Rising intonation can be used to express things like doubt, indifference,

politeness or interest. For example:

Are you coming? (doubt) ↗ // Can you come'? (scepticism)↗

 A slightly higher rise intonation could express things like surprise, concern,
anxiety or suspicion, as in:

He's coming on Monday ↗(surprise) // Can we afford it? ↗(anxiety)

FALLING-RISING INTONATION

It is mainly used for:

 Uncertainty or hesitation: Is it raining? -I think so ↘↗

 Apologizing: That’s your fault! - I’m sorry↘↗

 Expressing differences of opinion: I’d do that. - Well, I wouldn’t. ↘↗

 Irony: I don’t like a good wine. I like water. ↘↗

RISING - FALLING INTONATION

 It is rare in English and difficult to pronounce, but may be used to express

warmth, feelings of complacency, shock or surprise: That’s great! ↗↘

 Criticism or challenge: Don’t you dare! ↗↘

FLAT OR ZERO INTONATION

The zero intonation is a level pitch without significant pitch contrast. It can be indicated
with a horizontal arrow:→. It is used when there is no reason for making
communicative choices. It is used by native speakers while thinking aloud, during on-
the-spot verbal encoding and other cognitive activities, eg.: er...→, mmm....→

4.2 Question tags.

Question tags can use rising intonation when the speaker wants information or wants the
other person to give his opinion: He didn't look ill, did he? ↗

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However, it the speaker only seeks confirmation of his opinion, falling intonation would
be used: It's cold today, isn't it? ↘

O‘Connor talks about twenty-four types of tunes, but native speakers do not necessarily
always follow these rules. The only way to use intonation in a reasonably accurate way
will come with careful, regular listening and imitation, although you will probably
never have the same variety of flexibility in their use as an English speaker has.

4.3 FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION

 ATTITUDINAL FUNCTION: this function reflects the attitude or emotional state

of a person along with speed of talking, loudness, paralinguistic gestures etc. If we
consider the range of responses possible to the statement "she's going to have a
baby" a short answer such as "is she?" can convey a lack of interest with low fall;
polite interest with a low rise; surprising with a high rise, and disbelief or
fascination with a high fall.

 GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION: Here

intonation is used as a type of oral
punctuation that may or may not
coincide with the actual graphemes.
Pauses and rises mean that the
utterance is not completed, and thus
we can divide up:

- ACCENTUAL FUNCTION: highlights the most important words in an

utterance, with the help of stress and the nucleus or accented syllable. The
nucleus comes with a change of pitch: e.g. Jòhn likes fish... (although his wife
doesn't); John lìkes fish.. (so why didn't he eat)

- DISCOURSE FUNCTION: this function tells us about what's new on

information and what's not, and again it's tied to stress. Brazil (1980) states that
a rise indicates new information while a fall refers back. E.g.: this is my sister.
She is a friendly person. (Person refers to sister so is an old information and it is
de-stressed; the stress in now in friendly that is a new information about my
sister.)

4.4 Intonation in Spanish

 Spanish intonation is much more measured, so we have to teach students how to

intonate the different English elements.

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  Spanish uses the rising intonation in questions more than English.

 The falling-rising pattern is rarely used in Spanish.

 Adverbials and comment clauses are incorporated into the intonation group in
English while the Spanish system assigns a separate unit:

o e.g. : Se hace tarde ↘¿sabes ?↗ // It’s getting late, you know?↗

 Names and forms of address in English also form part of the same intonation
unit, but are separate in Spanish.

o e.g. : Hello John↘ // Hola ↗ Juan ↘

 Intonation in spoken Spanish does not rise and fall as much as in English.
Students should try and keep the voice as levelled as possible.

5. CONCLUSION

All languages have their own prosodic patterns. When a non-native speaker gets the
stress rhythm or intonation wrong, s/he can be misunderstood or sometimes
misinterpreted as sounding rude or demanding when this is not intended.

According to the CEFR and Spanish education law LOMCE, speaking (individual) and
talking (interactive) are crucial. Its RD 1105 and
D.... (según CCAA) are specially keen on the
development of oral skills and they are present
throughout the curriculum.

Skilled pronunciation teaching can do much good.

It can give life to a class because it can reveal
feelings and reactions. What can be done to
improve stress rhythm and intonation? First of all students should be aware of the
differences between English and Spanish.

Some useful techniques may be:

 Listen to as much spoken English as possible and be aware of where the voice
rises and falls. When you listen, try to consider the attitude and feelings being
conveyed. One word, for example, can be said in several different ways,
depending on the meaning you wish to convey. Podcasts can be used:
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/elementary-podcasts

 The use of ICTs in this sense is very helpful: our students can also use online
dictionaries to check pronunciation. http://es.babbel.com/, a speech recognition
tool, can be very useful. APPs for tablet computers and mobile phones such as
"Sounds, the pronunciation app" (http://www.soundspronapp.com/) can also

18
 ease the task. There are plenty of websites our
students can visit.

 Music: songs are a very good resource in this

sense. They can also watch video clips and work
with them.

 Phonetic games, tongue twisters, peer dictation.

 Stories motivate teenagers to listen and learn, and

help them to become aware of the sound and feel
of English.

 Creating Drama with poetry is an exciting language learning experience. The use
of poetry as drama in the English as a second language (ESL) classroom enables
the students to explore the linguistic and conceptual aspects of the written text
without concentrating on the mechanics of language. Through this technique,
apart from several other aspects the teacher can model students pronunciation,
intonation, stress, rhythm, and oral expression.

 Apps to improve pronunciation. An example can be "The Pronunciation App"

 Websites like "Pronounce it Right" or "Rachel´s English" encourage good

pronunciation.

 We have to take into account all the differences existing between L1 and L2
patterns of stress, rhythm and intonation, and try our students to differentiate
them so that English people can understand their speaking.

Teachers taking the time to stress the importance of phonetics and phonology will help
students to better communicate in the English language, enabling them to more fully
express and understand the feeling and implications behind the words of the English
language. Student´s will feel more confident and will develop not only a good
pronunciation, but the linguistic competence as a whole (reading, writing...). The
teaching of pronunciation should, therefore, aim to give students communicative
efficiency.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY

-Alcaraz, E. and Moody, B., Fonética inglesa para españoles, Alcoy, Marfil,1999.

-Crystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language (3rd ed.). C.U.P, Cambridge,

2010.

-Gimson, A.C., An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English, Edward Arnold,

London, 1978.

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Hancock, M., English Pronunciation in Use (+CD), C.U.P., Cambridge, 2012.

-Jones, D., An Outline of English Phonetics. Heffers, Cambridge, 1950.

- Roach, Peter, English Phonetics and Phonology (+CD), C.U.P. Cambridge, 2000.

- Walker, Robin, Teaching Pronunciation of English as Lingua Franca, O.U.P.,

Oxford, 2010.

- Wells, J. C. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, Longman, London, 2000.

- http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/ British Library sound archives – wide range

of varieties of English with audio recordings and
descriptions.

- http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/ International Phonetic
Association (IPA) and the IPA alphabet.

- www.cambridge.org./elt/peterroach website for Roach

(2009) with a variety of material including a clickable
glossary.

- http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/~jcoleman/phonation.htm Simplified illustrations of the

speech mechanism.

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