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Teaching Pronunciation Differently

Week 2

Sentence stress:
the right actions
Piers Messum

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Two meanings of Lexical stress vs.
Sentence stress
stress
What aspect of sentence stress
should we use to teach
Two ways of looking pronunciation:
at sentence stress: the acoustic cues to stress?
how it sounds or its production correlates?

how to produce it In an Articulatory Approach, we

teach the second of these.
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stressed syllables are

produced with greater effort than
unstressed, and this effort is
manifested in the air pressure
generated in the lungs for
producing the syllable .

These effects of stress produce

in turn various audible results:
[pitch length loudness].

Roach (2003)

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Stress is initiator power

Catford (1977, 1988)

[For English, the respiratory

system is the principal initiator.]

Illustrations from Thyme, K., and Frkjr-Jensen, B. (2001) The Accent Method:
A Rational Voice Therapy in Theory & Practice. Bicester: Speechmark. 6

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Front view of the torso: showing the
action of the diaphragm

Notice how the heart makes the shape of

the diaphragm asymmetric.

Inspiration is via flattening, which is an

active process: the contraction of the
diaphragm increases the volume of the
space above it, pulling air into the lungs.

For expiration the diaphragm has to push

into the space above it. This doming is a
passive process: the diaphragm is pushed
upwards by the contents of the abdomen
(the belly), which are being squeezed by
the abdominal muscles. This pushes air out
of the lungs.
Drawing from Hixon et al. (2008) Preclinical Speech Science.
San Diego: Plural Publishing
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Think about pushing toothpaste out of a

tube by squeezing at the bottom.

And watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGZoz
ak9fw0

to see the same thing happening with a

musician.

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Illustrations from Thyme, K., and Frkjr-Jensen, B. (2001) The Accent Method:
A Rational Voice Therapy in Theory & Practice. Bicester: Speechmark. 9

This is the illustration from the

first Week 2 video.
The most fundamental
distinction in English is
between stressed syllables
below the dashed line and
unstressed syllables above.
Stressed syllables are created
with a push from the
respiratory system, best
experienced with the
abdominal muscles.
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