GUIDE ENGLISH GRAMMAR BOOK

7 SPOKEN ENGLISH AND WRITTEN ENGLISH PAGE 66
2 Here is an example of written English.
CYCLING
The rising cost of petrol and increasing traffic congestion in towns have brought
back for the bicycle some of the popularity it was beginning to lose. Cycling is
healthy, practical, and, for many people, a popular recreation.
(from H. Turner The Consumer's A-Z)
This is typical of a written textbook style. A spoken version would be different.
'Well, the cost of petrol is going up, and there is so much traffic in towns these
days, isn't there? And so bicycles have become more popular now after a time
when not so many people were using them. I think cycling is good for you, and it's
practical, and lots of people enjoy it.'
One important difference is that a writer often expresses in a noun phrase what a
speaker expresses in a clause.
Written
Spoken
the rising cost of petrol ' the cost of petrol is going up'
a popular recreation ' lots of people enjoy it'
For more details about nominalization, • 149.
54 Stress and intonation
1 Stress
In speech some words have greater stress than others; they are spoken with greater
force.
I'll 'see you next 'week.
They've 'built an e'normous new 'shopping centre.
The stress usually falls on the vocabulary items, the nouns, verbs, adjectives and
adverbs, e.g. week, built, enormous. It does not usually fall on the 'grammatical
words', e.g. I'll, an.
If the word has two or more syllables, there is still only one stressed syllable,
e.g. e'normous.
NOTE
We can give a word extra stress to emphasize it. • 51 (1)
They've built an enormous new shopping centre.
2 Intonation
a
Syllables with a fall or rise
The voice can rise or fall on a stressed syllable. The greatest movement of the voice
is usually on a word near the end of the clause.
I'll see you next m week.
They've built an enormous new m shopping centre.
Have we got k time'?
Here the voice falls on week and shopping and rises on time.