Job Discussion Forums

[Woodman09]

Hello -- Below is the phonology section of the Celta application task-- (some of the symbols did not paste correctly). I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do-- I don't understand the example given. Thanks in Advance



Indicate the number of syllables and the main stress in the following words, using:
 stressed syllable
O unstressed syllable


example: geological oooo sensitive oo

temperature _________ milk bottle _________ demand _________

(a) present _________ (to) present _________ advertise _________

photographic _________ colleague _________ photograph _________

[fluffyhamster]

You're being asked to indicate where the main stress (the syllable that sounds loudest in a word) falls in the nine remaining words, on the basis of the two examples; obviously you should use the same notation i.e. a bigger square to represent that main stress, as opposed to smaller circles for "unstressed"/comparatively less-stressed (now would be a good time to read about secodary stress though; see first of links below). (An alternative notation however would be to use a bigger and/or darker/filled circle-blob - easier to draw and fill than any square! - for the main stress; that is, I doubt if unfilled squares are going to be visible on a blackboard, from the back of a classroom).

So, 'geological' has five syllables, and the main stress falls on the third. 'Present' has two syllables, and as a noun has the stress falling on the first, but as a verb, has the stress falling on the second instead (the difference in pronunciation doubtless aids comprehensibility). And so on.

You can also represent stress with caps, thus (just making sure you understand - don't use this yourself to complete the task, the squares and circles that your tutors have suggested are fine and more importantly what they want from you!):

geoLOgical
PREsent
preSENT

Underlining could also work as a quick, rough and ready initial "convenience".

[The problem with using cap letters (or underlining or other equally ad-hoc methods) however is that syllable boundaries may be difficult to represent quite well enough e.g. would geoLOGical be better? But then, 'log'?! (Such problems partly explain why, in the original task as presented to you, the circles and squares were not placed over the words, but simply after them, despite the risk that that would not make things 100% clear to everyone. I seem to recall that the first time I saw such symbols myself, it took me a minute or two to appreciate their potential utility...but ultimately you can't beat IPA, for which, continue reading!). What we should be after is a "lodge"-like sound-representation...which is possible actually, if we use the phonetic symbol inventory (i.e. the partial English-specific selection from all the available IPA symbols) in learner dictionaries to represent the phonemes/phonology of (whatever national standard variety of) English (e.g. British as opposed to American English). Note that main stress is usually represented in such dictionaries by means of a ' before the phonemes representing that particular syllable: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=734707#734707 ; http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=CALD&key=32574&ph=on (probably the clearest IPA font available in an online dictionary); http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=714636#714636 ].

[Woodman09]

Thanks Fluffy

I have never seen that kind of symbol arrangement-- Each circle is a syllable-- - I did not have a clue

[fluffyhamster]

Heh, no worries, Woodman! Welcome to the forums, by the way!

[nickpellatt]

And if you want to cheat ... most dictionaries do show the number of syllables and word stress. Not that I really think this is cheating, with a concept that is so new to you ... becoming familiar with it via a dictionary isnt a bad idea anyway.

On an interesting (to me at least) side note. I finished my Trinity course and was pleased to have learnt about word stress. So pleased I prepared a class activity with a 'stress maze'. After eliciting a few words in class and confirming where the stress fell on those words ... I presented my intermediate German students with a carefully constructed maze / map I had made, and they had to find their way through the maze by following a set stress pattern (which was identifying the words with the stress falling on the second syllable).

I had test driven this activity in my head several times prior to class ... it was designed to be a really productive 30 minute activity. I took it into 3 seperate classes and it failed, totally failed, in each class!

Why? None of my German students (who came from different parts of Germany and different schools) had ever been taught, or had encountered, word stress in any formal language teaching!

I guess this is partly why they all sound a little like Arnie Schwarzenneger when speaking English.