BOUNDARY MARKING
In normal speech, words and phrases simply do not have little pauses between them. In fact, a spoken sentence will definitely appear like a very long word to a person who is not familiar with the language. In such a situation, stress or prominence can help indicate where the boundaries are. This will make life easier for the listener.
In this connection, it is interesting to notice that a language like French usually gives prominence to the syllable at the end of a word or phrase. Persian, too, appears to follow a more or less similar pattern except for its Yazdi accent. Many other languages, however, give prominence to the initial syllables of words (e.g., Icelandic, Hungarian). There seems to be a bias for English listeners to interpret a stressed syllable as the beginning of a new word. As such, stress is a good help for listeners.
In many languages, changing which syllable is stressed can change the meaning of a word. Take the following examples:
Here again, the job of stress is to help the listener determine what the speaker means. Therefore, stress is important in the process of speech perception.
Listening is not the only aspect of your language learning which is affected by stress. Stress is also important in the articulation of speech. Let us take an example to demonstrate how stress affects speech:
Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are 5 stressed words in each sentence. From this example, you can see that you do not need to worry about pronouncing every word clearly to be understood (native speakers certainly do not). You should however, concentrate on pronouncing the stressed words clearly.
Now, you can do some listening comprehension or speak to your native English speaking friends and listen to how they concentrate on the stressed words rather than giving importance to each syllable. You will soon find that you can understand and communicate more because you begin to listen for (and use in speaking) stressed words. All those words that you thought you did not understand are really not crucial for understanding the sense or making yourself understood. You can safely conclude that stressed words are the key to excellent pronunciation and understanding of English. Stress in English will help you to improve your understanding and speaking skills.
