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Stress in English with Pedagogical Implications

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 Stress in English with Pedagogical Implications

Mohammed Jasim Betti

Department of English , Colleges of Education for Humanities,

University of Thi-Qar

Stress, rhythm, intonation and juncture are included within the

suprasegmental phonemes. They are usually present in any utterance and
native speakers are quite unconscious bout them (Betti and Al-Jubouri,
2015: 157-158).

1. Definition of Stress

Stress (sometimes referred to as accent: see Gimson, 1973) is the

most familiar prosodic feature which is problematic in that it is difficult
to describe its actual nature (Al-Seady, 1998a: 88; Betti, 2020b: 19). In
English, phonologists are in disagreement about whether to tackle stress
from an articulatory point of view (what the speaker does in producing
stressed syllables) or from an auditory one (what the characteristics of
sounds that make a syllable seems to a listener to be stressed) (Betti and
Ulaiwi, 2018: 83; Salman and Betti, 2020: 66; Betti, 2021 a: 44).

Stress may be defined as the greater prominence that a given syllable

receives over the rest of the syllables in a domain (Betti and Mahdi, 2020:
75). This domain is the prosodic word in the case of word-level stress
(Al-Seady, 1998b: 66 ; and Hualde, 2012: 1; Betti, 2020c: 27). It is also
defined as the force of the breath in the production of speech sounds
(Nasr, 1980: 178; Al-Seady, 2002a: 24; Betti, 2021 b: 8).

Stress, from the production point of view, refers to the degree of force
or power by which a syllable is produced (Betti, 2020d: 89). From the
perception point of view, it refers to the degree of prominence a syllable
has (Stageberg, 1981: 44; Al-Seady,1998c: 56; (Betti and Mahdi, 2021:
49).

Many writers say that English word stress is a property of words

themselves and to be learned when the word itself is learned. If it is
wrongly placed, words become unrecognizable (Al-Seady, 2002b: 13;
Betti, 2021c: 12). However, it must be distinguished that in most cases
when a native speaker of English comes across unfamiliar words, s\he
pronounces them with correct stress (Betti, 1990:74). It would be wrong
to say that stress pattern is always fixed in English words because stress
position may be changed for one of two reasons (Betti, 2021d: 3): either
as a result of stressing other words which occur next to the word in the
question or as a result of the native speakers being not in agreement on
the placement of stress in some words (Betti, 1993:13).

2. Degrees of Stress

In English, some phonologists agree that there are four degrees of

stress, they are: primary, secondary, tertiary and unstressed, yet others
believe in other three ones: unstressed, stressed unaccented and accented
(Betti, 2021d: 10; Al-Seady,2002a: 11; Betti, 1998: 8). In contrast, some
phonologists mention four degrees (Betti and Al-Jubouri, 2015: 158):

1. Primary stress; It is the loudest stress.

2. secondary stress and it is the second loudest.

3. tertiary stress and it is the third loudest.

4. weak stress and is the least loud.

some others mention three types of stress only: primary, secondary, and
tertiary and others mentions; others refer to primary, mid and weak ( two
degrees of stress (primary and secondary) (Stageberg, 1981: 44; Betti,
1995:7).

The most prominent stress in an utterance is known as the nuclear

stress. In English, nuclear stress generally falls on the last word of the
utterance (Betti, 1996:121). By this, we mean that speakers tend to
perceive the last lexically stressed syllable as more prominent than the
rest (Betti, 2021e: 44). This is unlike in English, where the placement of
nuclear stress is more variable and subject to specific rules (Betti,
2002a:54).

3. Functions of Stress
In English, stress has various functions. Stress is used to distinguish
between a compound noun from an adjective followed by a noun( Betti,
2002b: 16; Igaab and Altai, 2018: 290).
 Stress is used to differentiate identical words as with the nouns
'subject and 'record and the verbs sub*ject and re*cord. The stress is
placed on a particular word in an utterance to emphasize it as in: I will
'never give in. (this is a threat) (Betti, 2021f: 96). But an unstressed word
may be stressed in order to highlight a contrast with something else:
Go *inside not *outside (Betti, 2002d:29).

Stress ion English is not phonemic or significant since it does not

bring a total new meaning with the exception of changing the
grammatical categories of some words previously mentioned like
sub*ject and ob*ject Betti, 2021g: 16; Igaab and Abdulhasan , 2018: 90).

4. Factors for Making a Syllable Prominent

There are four factors which make a syllable prominent (Betti, 2021h: 51;
A l-Seady, 2002: 58-59; Betti, 2002c: 57):

1. The length of the syllable

The length of the syllable plays an important role in stress discrimination.

Long syllables are more prominent than short ones (Al-Seady,2002b: 23;
Betti, 2002e: 4; Igaab and Kareem, 2018: 102).

2. Loudness of the syllable

Syllable which is louder is more prominent than the other syllables
(Betti, 2003: 44; Igaab and Al-Bdeary, 2016: 7).

3. The vowel quality

A syllable which contains a vowel which is different from the other
syllables which do not contain any vowel, is prominent (Betti, 2006: 48;
Igaab, 2015b: 19). A fabricated word like bibibibibiba is prominent in
the last syllable because it contains syllable which has vowel in its last
syllable (Betti and Al-Jubouri , 2009: 378; Betti, 2013: 57).

4. Pitch of the syllable

Pitch refers to the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords. There are
two types of pitches. High and low Betti, 2021i: 12). Syllable with high
pitch is stressed. Intonation is not interested in high or low pitches, but in
variation in pitches (Betti, 2007: 410).

The job of stress is to create contrast (to reduce fuzziness in speech).

Another type of stress is used to distinguish a sentence from its negation
(Betti, 2020a: 9). (Betti and Ulaiwi, 2018: 86). This is emphatic stress

5. Rules for Stress Placement

Some rules for the placement of stress include the following (Betti and
Mugeer, 2016: 18; Igaab and Al-Manhalawey, 2010: 53).
1. Placing stress (and definitely the type of tone) depend on the meaning
which is to be conveyed. So, which word to stress depends upon the
meaning the speaker wants to convey (Betti, 2015 b: 66).
2. Words are either stressed or unstressed. Unstressed words include
unimportant words and function or grammatical words such as articles,
pronouns, prepositions, demonstratives, etc (Betti and Hashim, 2018:
281; O'Connor, 1980: 91; Betti and Al-Jubouri , 2015c: 17).
3. In spite of (2) above, such grammatical words are stressed for
comparison or emphasis (Betti and Igaab, 2015: 75; Igaab, 2010a, 21).
4. all words of more than one syllable are stressed although English
speakers sometimes do not stress such words (Betti and Igaab, 2018: 30;
Betti and Ulaiwi, 2018: 84).
5. Content words which include nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are
stressed (Betti and AlFartoosy, 2019: 99).
6. If the syllable contains the vowel / ∂ /, it is unstressed (Betti and
Hasan, 2020: 59; Igaab, 2010b: 171).
7. If the word is in its strong form, it is stressed but if it is in its weak
form, it is then unstressed (Betti and Igaab, 2019: 235).
8. Stress goes to the last word in the word group (Betti and Yaseen,
2020: 45).
9. If a word consists of two syllables, stress goes to the syllable which
has a long vowel, or a diphthong or the one which ends in more than one
consonant (Betti and Ghadhab, 2020: 53).
10. It is a characteristic of English that in uninterrupted speech, the
stressed syllables tend to occur at more or less regular intervals of time
(Wilkins, 1977: 39)

6. Pedagogical Implications
1) The Arabic learners find difficulty in mastering stress forms and their
functions (Betti and Al-Jubouri, 2015: 158). This is because stress in
Arabic stress falls on the last syllable in word which consists of two long
(or short and long syllables) (Ibid).

2) In slowing down excessively, the levels of stress are going to be

produced similarly because the syllables are produced as if in isolation
(Wilkins, 1977: 40; Igaab and Tarrad, 2019: 61).
3) Arabic teachers and learners of English have to pay more attention to
stress in English because it is different from that of Arabic Betti, Igaab &
Al-Ghizzi, 2018: 255).
4) Arabic learners of English ought to have a very clear idea of the use of
stress in English because the placement, existence or absence of stress
affects meaning (Igaab, 2015a: 139).
5) Stress ought to be brought to the ground as a feature of classroom
communication throughout regarding stress in every day speech (Betti,
2015 a: 57).
6) Learners ought to have very clear idea about the similarities and
differences of stress between their mother tongue and English for helping
them to understand stress in both languages and use it (Betti, 2021j: 36).
7) Real world contexts have to be accompanied with the proposed
textbook in TEFL in Iraq in order to make the role of the suprasegmentals
clearer to the learners including stress (Betti, 2002c: 37).
8) Learners have to be taught how to use stress to achieve affective
communication (Igaab, 2010a: 21).
9) Conversation courses ought to be added to the second and fourth year
at the departments of English to enrich the learners’ speaking and
listening skills.
8) The teacher ought to use the laboratory to make the learners practise
stress (Betti and Ulaiwi, 2018: 88).

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