Podcast 103 B2 - Intonation in English 3

Intonation uses

Hello. And welcome back to Practising English. Today I'm continuing on the theme of intonation. This is another intonation podcast in the series starting with podcast 43, where I talked about English as a stress-timed language. And then podcast 97, where I gave some practical examples of stressed and unstressed words in a sentence.

Today I'm going to talk about how changes of stress on words can change the meaning of the same sentence. This is probably more suited for B2-level students. Here we go...

Up to now, in the previous podcasts, I've said that in English, certain words take stress. That means that they sound a little louder and they are pronounced for a little longer that unstressed words in the sentence.

I've been trying to call you at your office all day!

These words are usually key meaning words like verbs, nouns, negative words or important adjectives and adverbs. I also said that what really makes the stressed words stand out is that we shorten the unstressed words, and the vowel sounds in them are often very brief. We use a neutral vowel sound very often called a schwa, which is written - �?. So,

I haven't been to see my mother for a long time.

becomes,

I haven't bin t�? see m�? mother f�? �? long time.

Stress on different words changes meaning

However, intonation in English frequently changes the meaning of a sentence. So different stress on different words are used to say different things about the words in a sentence.

Imagine your name is Maria. You're an English student studying at a language school. You've been studying English during one lesson and then you go out of the classroom for a half-an-hour break. You sit down at your desk, after the break, and notice that your English notebook has gone. There's an English exam tomorrow and, as you're a good student, you have lots of important notes in that notebook to help you revise. There's another girl in the class, Sara, who doesn't come to class very much and, not only that, she's a lazy student, who doesn't take notes in class. You now see that Sara has a notebook in front of her that looks a lot like yours! So, you accuse Sara. You say,

Intonation in English - notebook

You've stolen my notebook, haven't you, Sara?

She denies it. She answers,

I didn't steal your English notebook, someone else must have!

By stressing the 'I' and the word 'else', Sara is clearly saying that she is not guilty of the crime!

But let's say that what actually happened was a little different. Sara says,

I didn't steal your English notebook.

By placing more stress on the verb, Sara is now saying that she took the notebook but she didn't steal it. The emphasis is on the action. She then follows with:

I just borrowed it for a few minutes. Sorry!

Now here is another version. Another student, Angela, in the class says,

Sara didn't steal your English notebook.

We know by the intonation stress on 'your' that somebody else's book was stolen. Angela continues with,

She stole my notebook! That notebook is mine! I don't know where your notebook is, Maria.

So now the emphasis is on the possession of the notebook and not on who stole it or the action - if it was stolen or borrowed.

But Angela has something else to say:

Not only did Sara steal my English notebook...

Angela has now put emphasis on the adjective, 'English'. We now know she is going to accuse Sara of stealing another type of notebook. Angela says:

...she also stole my German notebook!

It seems that Sara has a lot of explaining to do to her fellow classmates!

Basically, we can see that the words stressed in a sentence refer to the people, actions, adjectives, adverbs etc. that we are concerned about. They may just be single words in any one sentence, and these single words take more stress than all the others.

As a student of English, do you need to bother about intonation? Can't you just leave that for the native speakers? As a teacher of English, I would say that if you are using English in the real world, it is essential to try to use intonation correctly. Not only that, in Cambridge exams like First Certificate, intonation is one of the criteria you are assessed on during the speaking test. The better your intonation, the better your mark will be.

Sometimes, people might not understand you if you do not use intonation correctly. Here's an amusing example of where incorrect intonation can completely change the sentence meaning:

I've eaten Grandmother. I'm not hungry now.

You've eaten your grandmother! What a terrible thing to do! Why didn't you have a hamburger instead?

Of course, what you really meant was,

I've eaten, Grandmother. I'm not hungry now.

That's all for now! Until next time. Goodbye!