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Iclearwater Posted 9 years ago
Vocabulary

Tonality in spoken English

Hi,

I have been puzzling about the tonality about reading out a sentence by a native speaker. I was told my tonality is very flat. In other words, it is one of my flaws in spoken English.

For example: I went to the town yesterday.

It seems to me that every word can be stressed.

I went to the town yesterday.

I went to the town yesterday.

I went to the town yesterday....


I would like to know how native speakers unconsciously choose the word they would like to stress in the above stence. I would read out every word with same tonality mostly if I just want to convey this message. I;m able to stress a certain word if I find it necessary, but such is rare.

Thank you!


  

Top answer

It seems that you are asking about patterns of stress or emphasis rather than "tonality". The default for your sentence would be a stress on the word "town" and secondary (weaker) stress on "went". Probably this is because, in the absence of any reason to think otherwise, "town" is perceived as the most important word, followed by "went".

— GPY

  • It seems that you are asking about patterns of stress or emphasis rather than "tonality".
  • The default for your sentence would be a stress on the word "town" and secondary (weaker) stress on "went".
  • Probably this is because, in the absence of any reason to think otherwise, "town" is perceived as the most important word, followed by "went".
  • If another word is stressed then it is normally to contrast that word with other possibilities.
  • : A: Did I hear that your mother went to the town yesterday?
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1 Answers
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It seems that you are asking about patterns of stress or emphasis rather than "tonality". The default for your sentence would be a stress on the word "town" and secondary (weaker) stress on "went". Probably this is because, in the absence of any reason to think otherwise, "town" is perceived as the most important word, followed by "went". If another word is stressed then it is normally to cont

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