Prosody Quiz: Test Yourself!
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The Importance of Prosody
What makes for natural speech? What is prosody?
Syllable Stress
To speakers of many other, more "flat"-sounding languages, English speech can sound sound rather melodious and varied in its delivery. Learners of English are often especially surprised by how "exaggerated" Americans make some of their words appear! One of the main reasons behind this is syllable stress.
Thought Groups and Pausing
What is a thought group?
Content and Function Words
Not all words are created equal. In spoken English, we can can be generally put words into two categories:
Word Prominence
Prominence refers to the words in spoken language that the speaker wants to highlight, or put the focus on. Prominent words are stressed by speaking slower, louder, and usually at a higher pitch. Sometimes promincence is used to put emphasis on a particular idea, for example to contrast it with a word that came before. However, we actually use prominence every time we say something: every spoken utterance, no matter how short and how neutral in its intent, will include a prominent word.
Intonation
Intonation describes the movement of pitch (or "glides") within syllables and reflects the speakers' mood and attitude. Intonation also gives us more information about how each phrase fits into a conversation.