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Fact 1: There is much more to the pronunciation of English than its individual 
sounds. How these sounds are organized plays a greater role in communication than 
the sounds themselves. Two major organizing structures are rhythm and intonation. 
The Rhythm of English is created by the contrast in syllable lengths within 
words as well as across word boundaries. For example, in the word ‘English’, the first 
syllable Eng – is pronounced longer than the second syllable ish. 
When we focus on the timing of syllables, we can see that the rhythm of the 
word ‘English’ is identical to the rhythm of the word ‘after’. Not only can words 
have identical rhythms but the rhythm of a word can be identical to the rhythm of a 
phrase; for example, ‘festival’ and ‘first of all’. Learners of English can write 
‘festival’ when they hear ‘first of all’. Sometimes, English speakers pay attention to 
the rhythm more than to the sounds. 
A San Francisco newspaper reported once that a student went to the library to 
ask for a copy of John Steinbeck’s novel “Of My Cement”, when the actual title was 
“Of Mice and Men”, the rhythm is identical. 
The lengthening of a syllable is conditioned by stress. Equally important as 
stressing a syllable is not stressing a syllable. For example, in the word ‘tumor’ the 
first syllable is stressed, if the second syllable is stressed, then a listener may hear 
utterance of two words, as ‘two more’. When syllables are unstressed the 
pronunciation of the vowel in that syllable sometimes changes. 
So, it is not enough to know how a sound is pronounced, because its 
pronunciation can change when it occurs in different contexts. 
Intonation can be compared to a pointer. Instead of using a finger to do the 
pointing, speakers use their voices to draw attention to important words. 
Fact 2. Pronunciation is an integral part of language learning. As the scope of 
pronunciation is much broader than an inventory and description of sounds, the 
learner needs to learn the rhythm and intonation for communicative purposes. 
The importance of pronunciation takes on even greater significance when we 
understand the connection between pronunciation and other aspects of language use. 
Pronunciation and listening comprehension. 
As listeners expect spoken English to follow certain patterns of rhythm and 
intonation, they need to employ this pattern to communicate effectively. 
Similarly, listeners need to know how speech is organized and what patterns of 
intonation mean in order to understand speech accurately. Thus, learning about 
pronunciation develops learners’ abilities to comprehend spoken English. 
Pronunciation and spelling. 
Learning about pronunciation also helps learners with the spelling system of 
English. Learners expect to find a one-to-one correspondence between a sound and its 
spelling. However, the letter ‘a’, for example, can be pronounced five different ways, 
as these words demonstrate: same, sat, father, call, about. Often, a speaker has 
difficulties with pronunciation because of a misinterpretation of the spelling system 
rather than difficulty with the pronunciation of the sound. 
Pronunciation and grammar. 
Pronunciation can convey grammatical information. Consider the following 
sentences: 

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a)
I’m sorry. You can’t come with us. 
b)
I’m sorry you can’t come with us. 
The difference between (a) and (b) can be seen in writing, but how can this 
difference be shown in speech? What punctuation and capitalization do in writing, 
rhythm and intonation do in speech. 
In (a), a rise and fall in pitch on sorry, followed by a pause perform the same 
function, as a period. This tells the listener that I’m sorry is one idea and the next set 
of words constitutes a second idea. In (b) the rise and fall on come indicates that there 
is only one idea in the sentence. This example shows how rhythm and intonation can 
perform grammatical functions. 
Pronunciation and reading. 
A lack of knowledge of pronunciation can even affect reading 

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