Stress / Intonation Signal
What does the voice highlight or signal?
Signification
Meaning expressed by pitch, stress, rhythm, pauses, melody, sentence accent, or intonation contour.
Comment le repérer
Listen for which word is emphasized and whether the sentence sounds like a statement, question, surprise, or contrast.
Exemples
rising tone|word stress|sentence stress|pause
really? | I said JOHN | yes, but...
You bought this?
Visual guide
words: You bought this voice layer above: stress -> highlights a word rise -> question/surprise pause -> boundary Meaning rides above words.
Same words, new signal: YOU bought this? = not me? You BOUGHT this? = not borrowed? You bought THIS? = this item? Contour: fall: You bought this. rise: You bought this?
Vue par langue
Dans votre langue
Intonation distinguishes questions, emphasis, emotion, and discourse flow; stress is less lexical than in English.
Tu as acheté ça ?
You bought this?
Dans la langue d’apprentissage
Vietnamese lexical tones are meaning-distinguishing; intonation and particles also shape sentence mood.
Má, mà, mã, mả, mạ khác nhau.
ma words with different tones differ
Learners may ignore tone contours or let sentence intonation distort lexical tone.
Same block, different coding
Both languages use this block strongly, but they signal it differently. Focus on form changes, not only meaning.