Yes, if you are a non-native speaker speaking to a native English speaker (classified as English speakers from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and North America).
No, if you are a non-native English speaker speaking to another non-native speaker (classified as... everybody else).
Let me explain.
English language teaching theory has traditionally been based on native English forms, more specifically British and American English varieties. In today's international community however, where more than 1 billion non-native English speakers use English as a lingua franca, teaching theory is changing to focus on English as an International Language (EIL).
According to linguist Jennifer Jenkins' research on the English language, there are certain factors in English pronunciation that can influence the degree of intelligibility between a speaker and listener. Word stress is one of these factors if you are speaking with a native English speaker, but Jenkins has found that when two non-native speakers interact in EIL, word stress has little influence on intelligibility.
So why are native speakers so stressed about word stress?
Stress indicates identity
Anyone who has ever zapped between BBC and CNN has probably noticed the differences between standard British and standard American word stress. It has caused quite a CONtroversy (US), or should I say, "conTROVersy" (UK).
To a native English speaker, a certain word stress is considered appropriate or inappropriate depending on where the person is from. "Inappropriate" word stress can really rub listeners the wrong way because it deviates from their norm and indicates that the speaker is an "other" - an outsider. This can be quite FRUStrating (US)/frusTRATing (UK) for the non-native speaker who is just trying to get his point across.
After hours spent in a language LABoratory (US), or laBORatory (UK) if you prefer, non-native English speakers are still at a loss when it comes to speaking to native speakers internationally.
"So which variety is correct?" This is the most common question I am asked in my language courses. And I always have the same answer, "It depends who you ask!"
Stress indicates different meanings of identical words
In one case however, word stress can cause problems whether you are a native speaker or non-native speaker of English: words which are spelled the same, but have different meanings (and different word stress).
A pilot once told me a story about a member of his cabin crew informing him that they had an inVALid passenger on board. The pilot was a bit confused and wondered if the passenger didn't have a ticket or wasn't on the roster. He couldn't figure out what the problem was. Is wasn't until the flight attendant continued to explain that the passenger was in a wheel chair and had special needs that the pilot realized he meant to say INvalid!
This is a perfect example of how inaccurate word stress can cause problems. And in this case, both the pilot and the flight attendant were non-native English speakers.
Stress indicates parts of speech
Word stress can also differentiate a word's part of speech - more specifically whether the word is a noun or a verb. There are many examples of words which in their noun form take their stress on the first syllable, but in the verb form are stressed on the second syllable.
Say the following words out loud: PROgress - proGRESS, OBject - obJECT, REcord - reCORD.
We would never say, "She wants to REcord a REcord one day," but rather, "reCORD a REcord."
Unfortunately this isn't a blanket rule, and there are plenty of English words which sound the same both as verbs and as nouns: travel, picture, promise and visit are a few examples.
So what is the non-native English speaker to do? I always recommend sticking to the form you are most comfortable with. You might make an American VIP cringe when you call him a DIGnitary instead of a DIGniTARy, but he'll also cringe when you call French fries "chips" and cookies "biscuits!"
Communication is a two-way street with compromise and understanding at both ends. If you meet people who can't accept the way you speak, then they're probably not worth speaking with anyway!
It Doesn T Really Matter Lyrics
It is widely felt that duplicate content does matter and, though one well known search engine optimization expert recently expressed the opposite view, even a cursory trawl through the mountain of material that has been written on this subject in recent weeks will clearly demonstrate that this is very much a minority opinion.
If we agree that duplicate content does matter, then how are we going to go about defining duplicate content? If I produce an original article for submission to an article directory and then alter that same article for submission to a second article directory how are the search engines going to analyze my two articles and decide whether they contain duplicate content? The answer is quite simply that we do not know, but here is this writer's opinion.
When checking for duplicate content was first done by the search engines it was very much a matter of looking at one web page as a whole against another and no attempt was made to start to cut apart the two pages and compare individual page elements. Back then you could make use of identical content and just add an introductory and concluding paragraph to one of the two pages to avoid the problem of duplicate content. Unfortunately for many publishers these days are now a distant memory.
The search engines now dissect the two pages to permit them to examine individual elements and it is this which is the core of today's argument. It is generally accepted that attention is now concentrated on the informational content of a page rather than the structure of the page. Many website designers use templates to create their pages which set the structure of each page including such things as navigation bars, headers and footers. This is widely considered to be quite acceptable and the search engines do not view this as duplicate content. What the search engines are examining is the central content that is contained within the body of the page. But exactly how do they go about their examination of this page content?
Some people believe that this comparison is done at 'block' level (checking individual sentences or paragraphs), although other people think that filters search for phrases or even individual words. Nobody really knows the answer but it might seem reasonable to conclude that the most likely basis of checking would be to use either phrase or sentence matching.
Sentence matching is reasonably straightforward and simply involves cutting both pages up into chunks on the basis of the punctuation of the page. Take, for instance, this sentence:
It is relatively easy to get a good deal on a health insurance plan, providing you know what to look for.
This could be classed as either one single sentence or two sentences, depending upon whether you use the strict definition of a full-stop as indicating the end of a sentence or adopt a flexible approach and make use of other punctuation marks, like commas.
Matching at the phrase level is somewhat more difficult. What is the definition of a phrase? Should it be 2 words or 3 words or 4 words or�?
For the moment let us say that we are going to define a phrase as 3 words. If this were the case the following phrases would all be seen as duplicate content if they appeared on two pages which were being checked:
In those days
Take a look
In the end
One way to
You can get
At that time
Day to day
All of these phrases are normal everyday phrases that could be used on pages about building a greenhouse, flying kites, autoresponders or anything else you care to mention. Now there are some people who would say that the search engines do check pages down to this level. For example, when I questioned the support staff of one popular duplicate checker (Dupecop) about the basis on which they checked for duplicate content they said:
"DupeCop compares both individual words and 3-word phrases. It also ignores all punctuation and scans across sentences"
It was not a surprise therefore that when I ran a number of articles through this system (comparing articles on the subject of Christmas dec�r against articles about gun dogs) I found they had an average of 25% duplicate content!
Taking this into account, I think it would be ridiculous that the search engines would have their filters set to this level. But where might the level be set? Should they be at 4 words or 5 words or�? Quite honestly, your guess would be as good as mine.
Over the years I have written and published hundreds of articles and watched the results in terms of duplicate content penalties, as far as it is possible for anyone to do this. Based upon my own experience I would say that filtering is not carried out down to the level of 3 or 4 word phrases but almost certainly ends at sentence level. As a result, as long as you are re-writing content down to sentence level, you should have no problem in escaping the content filters. Indeed, even if a couple of sentences are duplicated you will still be okay.
Both Heather Hansen & Don Saunders are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Heather Hansen has sinced written about articles on various topics from Public Speaking, Writing and Language. Heather Hansen, founder of Singapore-based Hansen Speech & Language Training, is an executive speech and language coach, writer and trainer. Become a star speaker! Visit her website. Heather Hansen's top article generates over 1900 views. Bookmark Heather Hansen to your Favourites.
Don Saunders has sinced written about articles on various topics from Types of Cancer, Sleep Apnea and K 15. WebMarketingCentre.com provides information on article writing and article submission and is also an article directory where you can pick up free articles for your web. Don Saunders's top article generates over 8100 views. Bookmark Don Saunders to your Favourites.
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