Chapter intensive Reading Introduce the topic

CHAPTER 1. . Intensive Reading
1.1 Introduce the topic
Although there is no cognitive influence at the stage of first language acquisition, or what is known as the critical period hypothesis, Troike (2006) points out that there are other factors affecting the individual's first language acquisition during the “Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH). Robinson (2013) explains that the "critical period hypothesis" is the period in which the individual is exposed to their mother tongue for the first time. According to this hypothesis, first exposure to a language that takes place within the critical period results in normal levels of attainment in the case of first language (L1) acquisition and (in most cases) native like levels of attainment in the case of second language (L2) acquisition. However, if first exposure to a language takes place after the critical period, the end result will be non-normal/non-native like in the case of L1 and L2 learning, respectively. At first we have to find out the meaning of the notions: word stress, intonation, accent. "Different authors define stress differently. B.A. Bogoroditsky, for instance, defined stress as an increase of energy, accompanied by an increase of expiratory and articulatory activity. D. Jones defined word stress as the degree of force, which is accompanied by a strong force of exhalation and gives an impression of loudness. H. Sweet also stated that stress, is connected with the force of breath. According to A.C. Gimson, any or all of four factors achieve the effect of prominence: force, tone, length and vowel color.
For native English listeners, the most important syllable in a word is the stressed syllable, the primary cue for identifying the word. This makes stress the most important pronunciation topic. In addition, the characteristics of stressed and unstressed syllables in single words are mirrored in rhythm. Word stress is described as a communicatively important pronunciation topic, bridging the continuum between segmentals (consonants and vowels) and suprasegmentals (rhythm and intonation)" ²
Strelnikov A.M. suggested another description. He states that "the word stress can be defined as the singling out of one or more syllables in а word, which is accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the vowel sound" [4].
Still the most full and correct definition can be found in the Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. "A term used in phonetics to refer to the degree of force used in producing a syllable. The usual distinction is between stressed and unstressed syllables, the former being more prominent than the latter (and marked in transcription with a raised vertical line, [c]. The prominence is usually due to an increase in loudness of the stressed syllable, but increases in length and often pitch may contribute to the overall impression of prominence. In popular usage, `stress' is usually equated with an undifferentiated notion of `emphasis' or `strength'" [13; 454].
The notion of stress is supposed to close enough to the meaning of intonation. Still there exists a huge difference. The difference between stress and intonation is that " …stress is the relative loudness of parts of speech where intonation is the variation in the pitch of different parts of speech. Linguists generally believe that there are about 3 to 4 levels of stress in the English language. In most cases, stress does not really change the meaning of words and is more or less associated with the dialect or accent being used" [8; 138]. There are some cases where this assumption is not valid - see the table 1.1.
Table 1.1. Examples in English, where the stress changes the meaning of the word
Although Loudness has an inherent pitch component, stress, as the relative loudness, sometimes has an added pitch variation. This extra pitch variation is called a pitch accent. An example of a language, which contains a pronounced level of pitch accent is Turkish. Pitch variations are used to change the stress level of a word mostly due to rhythmic constraints imposed by the language.

As long as we are discussing the notion of accent, it is reasonable to define its meaning. Accent was originally a loan translation from Greek into Latin (a loan translation is when each constituent of a compound in one language is translated into its equivalent in another, and then reassembled into a new compound). " … Greek prosфidiв (whence English prosody) was formed from pros `to' and фidй `song' (whence English ode); these elements were translated into Latin ad `to' and cantus `song' (whence English chant, cant, cantata, canticle), giving accentus. The notion underlying this combination of `to' and `song' was of a song added to speech - that is, the intonation of spoken language. The sense of a ³particular mode of pronunciation did not arise in English until the 16th century" [6; 4].
In the Britannica Encyclopedia exists the following meaning of the accent notion. " … in phonetics, that property of a syllable which makes it stand out in an utterance relative to its neighboring syllables. The emphasis on the accented syllable, relative to the unaccented syllables may be realized through greater length, higher or lower pitch, a changing pitch contour, greater loudness or a combination of these characteristics" [10;54].
"The emphasis which makes a particular word or syllable stand out in a stream of speech - one talks especially of an accented sound/word/syllable, or the accent(ual) pattern of a phrase/sentence. The term is usually found in a discussion of metre (metrics), where it refers to the `beats' in a line of poetry - the accented syllables, as opposed to the unaccented ones. But any style of spoken language could be described with reference to the relative weight (accentuation) of its syllables: one might talk of the `strongly accented' speech of a politician, for instance.
Technically, accent is not solely a matter of loudness, but also of pitch and duration, especially pitch: comparing the verb record (as in I'm going to record the tune) and the noun (I've got a record), the contrast in word accent between re`cord and `record is made by the syllables differing in loudness, length and pitch movement. The notion of pitch accent as also been used in the phonological analysis of these languages, referring to cases where there is a restricted distribution of tone within words (as in Japanese). A similar use of these variables is found in the notion of sentence accent (also called `contrastive accent'). This is an important aspect of linguistic analysis, especially of intonation, because it can affect the acceptability, the meaning, or the presuppositions of a sentence, e.g. He was wearing a red hat could be heard as a response to Was he wearing a red coat?; whereas He was wearing a red hat would respond to Was he wearing a green hat? The term stress, however, is often used for contrasts of this kind (as in the phrases `word stress' and `contrastive stress'). An analysis in terms of pitch accent is also possible.
The total system of accents in a language is sometimes called the accentual system, and would be part of the study of phonology. The coinage accentology for the study of accents is sometimes found in European linguistics. (3) In graphology, an accent is a mark placed above a letter, showing how that letter is to be pronounced. French accents, for example, include a distinction between e, e and e. Accents are a type of diacritic"
Most linguists believe that syllabic and lexical accents do not change the meaning of words in English. However, we know that syllabic and lexical accents are also components of linguistic stress along with other concepts such as syllabic and lexical sonority variations and metrical variations. English word stress is traditionally defined as dynamic, but in fact, the special prominence of the stressed syllables is manifested in the English language not only through the increase of intensity, but also through the changes in the vowel quantity, consonant and vowel quality and pitch of the voice. The analytical question here, which attracted a great deal of attention in the middle decades of the twentieth century, is how many degrees of stress need to be recognized in order to account for all such contrasts, and to show the interrelationships between words derived from a common root, such as `telegraph, tele`graphic and te`legraphy.