Unit 9 Lesson Plan (With Notes for Teachers) Stressed Words & Unstressed Words in a Sentence Date: Nov., 11-15 Class: Classes 1, 2 & 3, Grade 2002 Subject: English Pronunciation for Communication Purpose: The students will learn stressed words & unstressed words in a sentence in English. Objectives: Students will be able to: Define - in their own words a definition for stressed words & unstressed words in a sentence. It is a revision and therefore, easy for most of the students; Compare – based on the understanding of the basic concept, compare stressed and unstressed syllables in words and sentences; Practice – imitate the stress patterns and do practice. Resources/Materials: Textbook: Wang, Guizhen, An English Pronunciation Course, Higher Education Press, Beijing, 2000; Handouts: illustration of stress patterns and rhythmic pattern; Recordings of native speakers Activities and Procedures: Stimulating: Begin by asking the class to find out how much the students know about what they are required to learn. Make sure that it serves the purpose of stimulating the students to think about the issue and have the desire to find out the answers themselves. Display examples by playing the recording of the native speakers showing the typical pronunciation in English. Ask the students to listen to the tapes to make a good discrimination of the stress in focus. Have the students imitate the stress patterns in focus. Have the students share what they have learned by reading out the practice materials in pairs. Have the students listen to the conversations recorded by native speakers of English and try to get the stress correct in their pronunciation. Have the students practice the guided conversation. Ask them to pay special attention to the stress in speech. Highlight the language function in the conversation in the practice. Have several pairs of the students present their conversation in the class. Comment on the students’ performance by highlighting the achievement of the students and the efforts they need for the improvement. Ask the students to do more practice after class and get ready for presentation during the next session. Notes for Teachers Stressed Words & Unstressed Words in a Sentence In this unit we will learn how to pronounce stressed and unstressed syllables together in sentences. We have made some general observations regarding the location of stress in isolated words. But since speech is made up of words strung together, we must also look at these words in groups, in phrases, or in sentences in order to observe what happens to the stress pattern. Sentence stress refers to the word or words in sentence that receive a strong accent. In most sentences you will find a series of both stressed and unstressed words. In a sentence, English speakers joint stressed and unstressed syllables together smoothly. Stressed syllables are long, have a pitch change and have full vowel sounds while unstressed syllables are short and often have a reduced vowel sound. A reduced vowel sound is a short, unclear vowel sound. The short vowel sound in unstressed syllable is very often the sound /(/, which is the most common of all sounds in English. Now, say the following words: leader lecture marker These words all contain the schwa /(/ in the second syllable. Try to pronounce it as a relaxed and easy sound. And since it is in the weak syllable, /(/ is much shorter than the vowel in the stressed syllable. Any English vowel letter can be pronounced with the schwa /(/: allow a firemen e possible i /(/ command o support u What to stress in a sentence? In an English utterance, stressed words give information to the listener and unstressed words join the information words together. Correct pronunciation of stressed and unstressed words is thus extremely important for effective communication in English. Information words and function words Information words are usually nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They give information about who, what, when, where, why, and how. They express the main idea or content of the phrase or sentence. They carry the message and therefore usually stressed. Unstressed words are usually function words like articles, pronouns, possessives, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and conjunctions. These words connect the information words to form grammatical sentences. If you stress all the words in an utterance, you may sound unpleasant or even cause misunderstanding because: You are giving too much information, and English speakers usually stress all words only when they are impatient or angry. 句子重音 本单元介绍的是英语的句子重音。英语句子，跟英语单词一样，也有重音，叫句子重音。有句子重音的音节听起来清晰有力,无句子重音的音节听起来较为含糊。句子重音总是落在单词的重读音节上。句子重音对于表达思想和感情起着重要的作用，所以也是英语语音学习的重要方面。 在一个句子中，音节之间的衔接应该自然而流畅。句中的重读音节通常显得长一些，元音清晰完整，语句的语调变化也通常落在重读音节上。非重读音节则通常显得较为轻、快，音节中的元音亦较为含糊。正因为如此，非重读音节中的元音多为/(/。这是英语音素中出现频率最高的音素, 所有的英语元音字母在非重读音节中均可读作/(/: allow a firemen e possible i /(/ command o support u 在这些单词中，元音字母都处于非重读音节中，因此都读成/(/. 句子中哪些单词需要重读？ 我们知道，重音的其中一个语义功能是可以通过重音进行强调, 就是说，具有语句重音的词通常是说话人想强调的词。换句话说，单词之所以重读,是因为说话的人表达特定信息的需要。因此，正确地选择重读音节，将重读音节与非重读音节自然流畅地连接起来，是实现语言交际的需要。英语重音的一般规律是：实义词通常重读,虚词通常不重读. 也就是说，我们可以将英语的单词分为两大类：实义词和虚词。所谓实义词，是指名词、动词、形容词、副词、数词等表示“谁”“什么”、 “何时”、“何地”、“为什么”、“怎么样”等信息的词,也叫做信息词。这些词担负着表达信息的重要任务，因此通常是句中的重读单词。虚词亦称功能词,含冠词、代词、介词、助动词、连词等。这些词将信息词连接起来，形成符合语法的句子。 但是，英语重音的一般规律并不是一成不变的。为了表达的需要，一些通常接受句子重音的词,可能失去句子重音；而另一些通常不接受句子重音的词又可能获得句子重音。以实义词为例, 实义词通常是句中重读的单词，但如果在本句或前面一句已出现过,不再含有重要的信息，此时一般不再重读: The truck was hit by a(nother truck. – How many times have you seen the film? – (Three times. 再来看看功能词。功能词通常是句中的非重读单词,但由于信息表达的需要亦完全可以以重读的形式出现。-- Did you say “bread”? Here you are. – I said “bread (and butter”. "and” 在句中通常不重读，此处重读明显地是为了强调。可见，为了信息表达的需要，句中几乎每个单词都可以有句子重音。 总而言之，在话语中，重音的位置主要取决于说话人的意愿和他希望表达的意思。通常，句中重要的词才具重音--实义词之所以重读是因为这类词本身含有重要的词汇意义，而虚词通常只是起功能作用。当实义词在句中不具重要信息，而虚词反而含重要意义的时候，重读的就该是虚词而非实义词。