Features of Spoken English

1. Introduction

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In this lesson, you will learn about the characteristics of spoken language including: 

Speed

Intonation & Stress

Rhythm 

Pausing

2. Top Tip

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3. Speed

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Speed of Speech can change with emotions.

When people are excited, they  speak faster because they want to get the message out as fast as possible.

When people are angry, they try to emphasize certain words so the listener knows what the problem is.

Listen to the following recordings and guess the feelings of the speakers.

SPEAKER ONE 

SPEAKER 2 

The first speaker in the recording is excited to talk about her adventure at the fare. She wanted to roll out the whole story quickly to get to the end. 

The second speaker is mad. She wasn’t speaking very fast because she wanted to make sure that every word is heard and understood.

4. Sentence Stress

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Read this sentence out loud. 

When you get to the words that are important, say them louder, clearer and slower than the other word. 

My guest this evening is advertising expert Gary Phillips, who's going to tell us how advertising works. 

This helps the listener get the main idea.

Listen to the sentance and see how you did.

Repeat the sentence again after listening. 

Now listen and check

5. Intonation + Stress

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Every english sentence has stressed and unstressed words. Stressed words are pronounced louder and longer than unstressed nouns. The pitch increases or decreases depending on the level of stress you want to put on certain words.

The variation of stress and pitch is called intonation. Words are stressed to make a certain emphasis. A sentence can be spoken differently depending on what the speaker wants to say.

Listen to the following sentences and try to figure out what the speaker wants to say. 

• "Didn't" is slightly stressed. 

• The speaker might be giving her opinion in a casual conversation. 

• There is a flat intonation with no clear rising or falling in sound. 

• The speaker wants the listener to know she really didn't like it. 

• Pronouns are usually not stressed unless the speaker wants to emphasize authority or having a different opinion.

• The stress on the pronoun “I” creates a rising and falling sound followed by a straight rhythm in the rest of the sentence. 

• The speaker meant: "Unlike you, I didn't like it." 

• Here, the speaker wants to make it clear that she did not like the commercial. 
• Probably, everyone else likes it except her. 
• The pitch increases, and stress is applied, on the word that holds the intended meaning. 

• Here, the speaker wants to emphasize why exactly she didn’t like that commercial.
• Stress is applied on the words that hold the intended meaning. 
• Intonation changes while speaking those two words to emphasize them. 

When intonation changes, meaning changes too 

Watch this video for more examples on how intonation changes the meaning of a sentence. 

6. Rhythm

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Certain words do not get any stress in English, such as pronouns. 

English speakers only stress keywords that carry meaning. 

Because of this, sentences have a "rhythm."

Watch this quick video for a quick demonstration. 

Read these sentences while stressing the keywords.

I watched TV. 

I watch TV in the morning. 

I watched a commercial. 

I watched a commercial about buying insurance. 

Commercials about insurance are boring. 

7. Pausing

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Think of pausing as your punctuation tool while speaking. 

Pausing acts like the comma or a period in writing. 

If you do not pause properly, the listener might not understand your message. 

If you do not pause, your sentence will sound like this:

"Anne finds pleasures in cooking her dog and her cat."

The speaker did not use appropriate pausing which causes the listener to misunderstand the message. According to this speaker, Anne likes to cook her dog and cat.   

With pausing, it will be easier for the listener to understand. 

Listen to the script again.

Because the speaker used appropriate pausing, it is easy to understand that Anne likes three things: cooking, her dog, and her cat.

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The following transcript is spoken without any pauses, which makes it almost impossible to understand. 

When you add commas and periods, the text is going to be much easier to understand. 

listen to the transcript again with appropriate pausing.

8. Lesson Wrap Up

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There are so many features of spoken English that native speakers do not think about while speaking. 

You, as a language learners, need to practice these features to sound fluent. 

• You will not loose marks because of an accent but you still need to use proper stress, intonation, rhythm, and pausing. 
• Inappropriate use of these features can cause misunderstandings. 

Listen to English speakers every day to improve your understanding of spoken English features. 

Watch videos on Youtube of native speakers talking about general topics. 

Pause the videos and repeat their sentences using the same intonation and rhythm. 

9. Try It

Next activity: Speaking Portfolio: Part 3 - Advertising

Use appropriate tone, rhythm, intonation, pausing, and stress