American Accent Training the second word. If you stress both or neither, it's not clear what you are trying to say. Stress on the first word is more noticeable and one of the most important concepts of intonation that you are going to study. At first glance, it doesnt seem significant, but the more you look at this concept, the more you are going to realize that it reflects how we americans think, what concepts we have adopted as our own, and what things we consider important Set phrases are our"cultural icons or word images; they are indicators of a deter mined use that we have internalized. These set phrases, with stress on the first word, have been taken into everyday English from descriptive phrases, with stress on the second word As soon as a descriptive phrase becomes a set phrase, the emphasis shifts from the second word to the first. The original sense of each word is more or less forgotten and the new meaning takes over. Set phrases indicate that we have internalized this phrase as an image, that we all agree on a concrete idea that this phrase represents a hundred years or so ago, when Levi Strauss first came out with his denim pants, they were described as blue jeans. Now that we all agree on the image, however, they are blue jeans A more recent example would be the descriptive phrase, He's a real party animal This slang expression refers to someone who has a great time at a party. When it first be came popular, the people using it needed to explain(with their intonation) that he was an animal at a party. As time passed, the expression became cliche and we changed the intona- tion to He's a real party animal because"everyone knew"what it meant. Cliches are hard to recognize in a new language because what may be an old and tired expression to a native speaker may be fresh and exciting to a newcomer. One way to look at English from the inside out, rather than always looking from the outside in, is to get a feel for what Americans have already accepted and internalized. This starts out as a purely lan- guage phenomenon, but you will notice that as you progress and undergo the relentless cultural indoctrination of standard intonation patterns, you will find yourself expressing yourself with the language cues and signals that will mark you as an insider--not an out side When the interpreter was translating for the former Russian President Gorbachev about his trip to San Francisco in 1990, his pronunciation was good, but he placed himself on the outside by repeatedly saying, cable car. The phrase cable car is an image, an established entity, and it was very noticeable to hear it stressed on the second word as a mere description An important point that I would like to make is that the" rules" you are given here are not meant to be memorized. This discussion is only an introduction to give you a starting point in understanding this phenomenon and in recognizing what to listen for Read it over; think about it; then listen, try it out, listen some more, and try it out agall a As you become familiar with intonation, you will become more comfortable with American norms, thus the cultural orientation, or even cultural indoctrination, aspect of the following examples Note When you get the impression that a two-word description could be hyphenated or even made into one word, it is a signal that it could be a set phrase- for example, f light, flash-light, flashlight. Also, stress the first word with Street(Main Street)and nation ilities of food and people (Mexican food, Chinese girls
Chapter 1/ American intonation Exercise 1-28: Sentence Stress with Set Phrases CD 1 Track 4 Repeat the following sentences Noun Noun/Adj. Set Phrase 1. Its a finger It's a nail It's a fingernail. It's a pa It's a cake Its a pancake. 3. It's a tub It's hot It's a hot tub (Jacuzzi) 4. It's a drive It's hard It's a hard drive 5. It's a bone It's in back It's the backbone (spine) 6. It's a card It's a trick It's a card trick 7. It's a spot Its a light. It's a spotlight. 8. It's a book It's a phone It's a phone book. Pause the CD and write your own noun and set phrase sentences, carrying over the same nouns you used in Exercise 1-25. Remember, when you use a noun include the article (a an,the), when you use an adjective, you don' t need an article 9. It's a It's a Its a 10.It’sa It's a It’sa 11.It’sa It’sa Its a Exercise 1-29: Making Set Phrases CD 1 Trad Pause the Cd and add a noun to each word as indicated by the picture. Check Answer Key, beginning on page 193 1. a chair F+9 a chairman 11. a wrist c 2. a phone 3. a house 13. a high鼎 4. a base g a hunting 15. a dump 6. The White血 16. a jelly 7. a movie☆ 17. a love Ea 8. The Bullet 20& 18. a thumb 平 19. a lightning N 10 a coffee re 20. a pad o
American Accent Training Exercise 1-30: Set Phrase Story-The Little Match Girl CD 1 Track 43 The following story contains only set phrases, as opposed to the descriptive story in Exer- cise 1-27. Stress the first word of each phrase The little match girl was out in a snowstorm. Her feet were like ice cubes and her fingertips had frostbite. She hadnt sold any matches since daybreak, and she had a stomachache from the hunger pangs, but her stepmother would beat her with a broomstick if she came home with an empty coin purse. Looking into the bright living rooms, she saw Christmas trees and warm fireplaces. Out on the snowbank, she lit a match and saw the image of a grand dinner table of food before her. As the matchstick burned, the illusion slowly faded She lit another one and saw a room full of happy family members. On the last match, her grandmother came down and carried her home. In the morning, the passersby saw the little match girl. She had frozen during the nighttime, but she had a smile on her face Contrasting a Description and a Set Phrase We now have two main intonation patterns-first word stress and second word stress In the following exercise, we will contrast the two Exercise 1-31: Contrasting Descriptive and Set Phrases CD 1 Track Repeat after me Descriptive Phrase Set Phrase 1.It’ s a short nail It's a fingernail 2. It's a chocolate cake Its a pancake 3. It's a hot bath It's a hot tub 4. It's a long drive.←b It’ s a hard drive 5. It's the back door It's the backbone 6. There are four cards It's a card trick 7. It's a small spot It's a spotlight 8. It's a good book It's a phone book Pause the Cd and rewrite your descriptive phrases(Ex 1-25) and set phrases(Ex 1-28) 9.It’sa It's a I0.It’sa Its 11. Its a It's a
Chapter //American Intonation Exercise 1-32: Two-Word Stress CD 1 Track Repeat the following pairs Descriptive Phrase Set Phrase a light bulb a light bulb blue pants blue jeans gis a cold fish a goldfish 欠 a gray hound n a greyhound an old key an inn key a white house The White House a nice watch a wristwatch a sticky web a spider web 忠 a clean cup a coffee cup a sharp knife a steak knife a baby alligator a baby bottle a shiny tack thumbtacks a wire brush a hairbrush a new ball a football a toy gun aa machine gun ae a silk bow Q朋 D a band-Aid ☆ a bright star a firecracker Mary Jones 4 a mailbox Bob Smith a spray can s3 foreign affairs a wineglass $ down payment o a footprint 圈围^ N New York a strawberry sSS Social Security a City Hall an Ice cream
American Accent Training Summary of Stress in Two-Word Phrases First Word set ph light bulb Main street O or corp. Xerox Corporation nationalities of food Chinese food nationalities of people French guy sec。ndw。 rd descriptive phrases road designations Fifth Avenue modified adjectives really big place names and parks New york, Central park institutions or Inc Oakland Museum, Xerox Inc personal names and titles Bob Smith, Assistant Manager personal pronouns and possessives his car, Bob's brother articles e bus a week an hour initials and acronyms U.S., Ic chemical compounds zinc oxide red orange, 26 most compound verbs go away, sit down, fall off percent and dollar 10 percent, 50 dollar hyphenated nationalities African-American descriptive nationalities Mexican restaurant Nationalities When you are in a foreign country, the subject of nationalities naturally comes up a lot. It would be nice if there were a simple rule that said that all the words using nationalities are stressed on the first word. There isn't, of course. Take this preliminary quiz to see if you need to do this exercise. For simplicity's sake, we will stick with one nationality--American Exercise 1-33: Nationality Intonation Quiz CD 2 Track Pause the Cd and stress one word in each of the following examples. Repeat after me 1. an american an American restaurant 3. American food 4. an American teacher 5. an English teacher When you first look at it, the stress shifts may seem arbitrary, but let's examine the logic behind these five examples and use it to go on to other, similar cases