point and counterpoint
Teaching focus for conversational use John M. Levis
The skilful use of focus, or intonational prominence, to create meaning is essential for learners of English. To take full advantage of this resource, students must learn to perceive, produce, and predict how focus is used. The last of these areas—prediction—is usually taught with reference to word class and new/given information. This paper presents an alternative approach to predicting focus which appeals to functional and meaning regularities which do not depend on extensive written input, and are more easily applicable to normal conversation. Analysis and possible exercises for three regularities are presented: focus in answers to questions, the correction of misinformation, and focus in repeated questions. Appealing to these and other functional regularities will help in bridging the gap between classroom instruction and the conversational use of focus.
Introduction
Pronunciation instruction usually includes a variety of topics, such as rhythm, final intonation, vowel and consonant sounds, and the placing of intonational prominence, or focus. The last of these topics is essential to any pronunciation course because of its role in highlighting information that is important in the discourse. Focus, which has also been called emphasis, sentence stress, nucleus, main stress, and tonic accent, represents greater length, pitch movement, and loudness on a syllable, causing it to be more prominent than other syllables in a phrase (Dalton and Seidlhofer 1994). An example with the focused syllables in capital letters is given in (1): (1)
A: Last week, I went to the beach. B: really? How long were you there?
Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) say that focus is ‘maybe the most important function of intonation, and almost certainly the most teachable one’ (p. 81, their emphasis). Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996) say that ‘contextually appropriate control of stress [i.e. focus] and intonation is an essential part of oral communicative competence that is not usually selfevident to nonnative speakers’ (p. 218). Jenkins (1997), in attempting to divide the essential from the expendable in teaching English as an international language, listed focus as the single most important element ELT Journal Volume 55/1 January 2001 © Oxford University Press
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to teach. In contrast, she said that stress timing, rhythm, and the final pitch movement of an utterance (i.e. its intonation) are not essential.
Predicting focus
A complete treatment of focus involves three areas: perception, production, and prediction (Dickerson 1989). Perception and production have been emphasized by many writers in both textbooks and articles. Prediction is much less commonly addressed, but when it is, it usually occurs in the following ways, both of which have had an important role in teaching.
The word class approach
The first way that focus can be predicted is through word class. Typically, content words (nouns, most verbs, adjectives, adverbs) are potentially in focus, since they carry the greatest semantic weight in what is said (Dalton and Seidlhofer 1994). Neutral focus falls on the last content word of a phrase or sentence, as in (2). This way of predicting focus has a long history, and works very well for isolated sentences.1 (2)
The new information approach
I went to the beach.
The major problem with predicting focus by word class is that it does not always work well in context. The word class approach for (3) predicts that shoes would have tonic accent every time it appears. This does not happen, obviously, because focus in context is closely related to information structure, that is, given or new information (Halliday 1967). In a new information approach, focus is usually presented through dialogues and paragraphs, as in (3), that shows new information receiving focus. (3)
X: Y: X: Y: X:
I’d like some shoes. What kind of shoes? The beautiful kind! black or brown? Neither. I’m tired of black and brown. I want red shoes. shiny red shoes! (Gilbert 1993: 88)
Dialogues like (3) show learners how native speakers tend to place tonic accent in discourse. The written presentation allows for careful construction and explicit analysis, and allows learners a chance to follow a clear model in practice. Predicting focus as a function of new information is also a significant improvement over prediction by word class. Example (3) su¤ers from a basic flaw in encouraging transfer to speech, however. Like many other pronunciation exercises, it assumes that learners can easily transfer production from a written text to free speech. There are at least two reasons to question this assumption with respect to focus: one is a cognitive limitation, and the other a planning limitation.
A cognitive problem with the approaches
Although carefully constructed dialogues lead learners to believe that the determination of new and given information is simple, it is often not transparent. Dickerson (1989) shows that new information does not mean all new information, but rather the last piece of new information in
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a phrase, as in (4). Although there is a lot of new information, usually the focused element will be near the end of the phrase. The new information in B’s utterance is highlighted in italics, and the focus is in capital letters. (4)
A: I just got back from the beach. B: really? Jim told me that you were going to the moun tains.
Using new information to teach focus also assumes that learners know that new information does not include grammatical, or function, words. In (5), for instance, Who, go, and with are all new information, but with is unlikely to be the focus, because it is a function word. (5)
A: I just got back from the beach. B: really? Who did you go with?
There are also common, systematic exceptions to the given/new regularity of adverbials of time, for instance, as in (6) (Cruttenden 1990). Normal focus, even in isolated sentences, is not on the final content word when it is part of a time adverbial. To a student, this is simply a place where the rules do not work very well. (6)
A: Hi. What have you been doing recently? B: I was at the beach for a while. I just got back.
In my experience, I have also found that learners find it diªcult to think in terms of new and given information. For instance, although Halliday’s (1967) insights about tonic accent and new information state a systematic regularity for English, the details of the system are not always transparent. This means that while new and given information are valuable concepts for analysis, students will often have diªculty applying them to dialogues, paragraphs, and free speech.
A planning problem with the approaches
Lack of ability to plan a speech ahead of time is the second major limitation for learners. Although people who give speeches and teach classes have some opportunity to prepare in advance, and to speak from a prepared text, speakers and listeners in conversation do not. They make decisions about focus as they go along, responding to other people’s speeches, and making their own choices about what information to highlight. They cannot refer to a pre-planned written or memorized text. Because of this, predicting focus only in terms of new and given information gleaned from planned-out examples is likely to be of limited value in transfer to speech.
A functional approach
Because learners face significant cognitive and planning problems, they need exercises that do not only depend on their ability to define word class, their understanding of information structure, or their ability to plan. They also need exercises that exploit common functional uses of focus, and provide practice that will more easily transfer to conversation. This paper presents three common functional uses of focus that can supplement instruction using information structure and word class: focus in answers to questions, focus in correcting misinformation, and focus in repeated questions. Each can be used to supplement dependence on information structure as the explanation for focus Teaching focus for conversational use
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placement. I have consistently found these to be e¤ective ways to predict and practice focus. I have also found that their transfer to speech is much better than equivalent amounts of time spent in teaching through word class or new information approaches. A brief description of the issues involved in each functional regularity will be followed by example teaching exercises.
Focus in answers to choice questions
In general, answers to questions receive focus. This regularity is especially apparent for choice (alternative) questions and information questions. It is less apparent for yes/no questions, which allow a much greater variety of answers, many of which may not explicitly require the answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but which are still reasonable based on cooperative principles of conversation (e.g. A: ‘Are you going to the game?’ B: ‘What do you think?’, or B: ‘Do you think it will rain?’, etc.). Choice and information questions, on the other hand, seek specific information which receives the focus. Choice questions illustrate the principle that answers to questions are accented because they give hearers the information they want to know. Choice questions also have a clear focus pattern on each choice. Practice exercises for choice questions include interviews, the ‘20 Questions’ type of game (usually used for yes/no questions, but easily adapted to choice questions), and dialogues. To introduce this type of focus it is helpful to use grammatically-simple choice questions. The cartoon in (7) gives several simple choice questions, and provides the basis for a good introduction to this use of focus.2 (7)
Activity 1: Create a conversation This activity asks students to create choice questions, answer them, and add comments or extra information to make the interaction more realistic. Directions Find out something about another student. Student A asks a choice question about the two items after item 1. Student B answers the question and adds more information. Student A responds to the information from 50
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Student B. Continue the conversation for about 1–2 minutes. Then switch roles, with Student B asking a question from item 2. 1 2 3 4
Indian food/French food chicken/beef action movies/romantic movies warm weather/cold weather
Example Student A: Student B: Student A: Student B:
beer / wine Do you like beer or wine better? wine. I don’t really like the taste of beer. Oh, really? I thought almost everyone liked beer. Not me. I’ve never liked it much.
This activity provides practice which is both controlled and meaningful. It creates an opportunity for the students to practice focus in a welldefined functional context, while at the same time asking them to concentrate on meaning in the developing conversation.
Focus in answers to information questions
Information (WH) questions, with the exception of ‘why’, usually follow the principle that answers to questions are in focus. The WH word asks for specific information, and it is usually evident to learners that the answer to the question should have a tonic accent, as in (8), in which Where is answered by bank. (8)
A: Where did John go? B: To the bank.
Even when focus is not on the last content word of the answer, as in (9), the answer to the question receives the focus. (9)
A: When do you want to go? B: Would seven be good?
Although the new information approach will often help a learner to correctly place focus for the answers, knowing that the answer to the question word will carry the focus better meshes with the conversational goal, to provide the information asked for by the questioner. This simplifies the predictive burden for the learner, and encourages an appropriate response in conversation. Activity 2: Questions I like, questions I hate This exercise, adapted for pronunciation practice from Gerngross and Puchta (1992), raises awareness of the connection between focus on the answer and the question. To start, the teacher writes the answers to four personal questions about himself/herself on the board, marking the focus. Students, in small groups or as a full class, try to guess what the questions are. The teacher can help the students to guess the questions by using mime or actions. example:
Answers
Questions (Written after being guessed)
It’s brown. For years. WyOming. michael.
(What color is your car?) (How long have you been a teacher?) (Where do you like to go on vacation?) (What’s your middle name?)
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After the teacher’s questions have been discovered, the focus connection between the answer and the question is pointed out. Then, working in groups of 3–4, each of the students writes the answers to two personal questions, starting with words like who, where, when, what, how many, how much, or how long. The answers carry the focus, because they match the WH word in the questions. The other students try to guess the questions. This activity provides an opportunity for students to learn how focus is used to provide specific information in answering questions, an awareness that is crucial when using focus in unplanned speech.
Focus in correcting misinformation
Correction of misinformation appears in textbooks and resource books in a variety of ways. Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996: 210) classify correction as part of a larger category of contrastive stress, as in (10). The words in regular capital letters are syllables with focus; the bold capital letters signify emphatic focus. (10)
Alice: Betty: Alice: Betty:
It’s cold. It’s not cold. It is cold. Come on … It’s R eally not THAT cold.
Contrastive stress, a concept which is intuitively appealing to native speakers of English, and which makes sense to students almost immediately, is poorly defined, and includes a large number of di¤erent phenomena, such as explicit contrast, comparison, and contradiction. However, contrast also appears to be a good way to describe many uses of focus. In (11), B’s appropriate response to A’s first utterance, with focus on got, is a repetition of A’s words. From a learner’s perspective, there is no new information. Got is in focus because it contrasts with part of a larger assumption of A’s utterance. (11)
A: We must get some flowers. B: I’ve got some flowers. Bradford (1988: 9)
Thus, although contrast may be a wide-ranging explanation for focus placement, it is more useful to teach specific uses of contrast, such as correction, rather than contrast in general. Activity 3: Spokesperson and aide In this activity, adapted slightly from Kenworthy (1988), one speaker corrects erroneous statements made by another. Two students take the roles of a company spokesperson and an aide preparing for a public briefing. They each receive cue cards with di¤erent information. The spokesperson practices his or her presentation, which the aide politely corrects when the information is wrong. Kenworthy states that some rehearsal of appropriate forms (e.g. ‘Excuse me for interrupting’, etc.) will probably be needed. Below are example cue cards, and a dialogue.
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Spokesperson
Aide
Factories closing: 3 Jobs lost: 500 Managers’ jobs lost: 52 Decrease in costs: $300,000 Increase in profit: $700,000
Factories closing: 2 Jobs lost: 700 Managers’ jobs lost: 42 Decrease in costs: $330,000 Increase in profit: $800,000
Spokesperson: Aide: Spokesperson: Aide:
We’re closing down three of our factories. Excuse me, but it’s only two factories. This will mean the loss of five hundred jobs. In actual fact, we think about seven hundred jobs will be lost. Focus in the above activity is controlled by the information on the cue cards, but the activity is demanding. Students not only have to use focus to correct, they also have to listen carefully enough to know which piece of information needs to be corrected. In addition, the need for polite forms and discourse strategies indicating disagreement brings the activity much closer to unplanned speech.
Focus in repeated questions
The last functional use involves focus on function words, especially pronouns. This is a useful part of many common speech routines, such as greetings and small talk, where there is a predictable focus placement. This kind of focus placement is exemplified by the common English greeting in (12). (12)
A: H ow are you? B: fine. How are you?
In traditional accounts of focus, which appeal to content words and new information, there is no satisfactory way to account for the focus of function words on these questions. But by treating the focus placement as a part of fixed functional routines, the simplicity of the regularity also makes it much easier to apply in spontaneous speech than appealing to word class and information structure. The high functional load and predictability of these questions also make them a useful topic at an early stage in a pronunciation course. Activity 4: The cocktail party This activity provides an opportunity to practice the focus shift on repeated questions. It takes advantage of a situation in which repeated questions are very common, when we meet someone new, or see a somewhat unfamiliar acquaintance. The activity minimizes written input, and places the questions in a normal conversational context. The teacher writes common repeated questions on slips of paper, one for each student (e.g. Where are you from? How are you? What have you been doing?). Students walk round the room, as at an informal gathering. When they meet another student, they begin a conversation, and one of them asks his or her question. The other person responds, then repeats the question with the new focus. This is followed by a response, then additional conversation. After a short time, the teacher calls for students to meet someone else. At the end, students may be called upon to perform conversations. Teaching focus for conversational use
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Example conversation Person 1: Hello. Person 2: Hello. Have you been here long? Person 1: A little while. Have you been here long? Person 2: No, I just got here. What’s your name? Person 1: Tony Lancia. What’s your name? Person 2: etc. This activity is especially good as a follow-on to work on selfintroductions. Students usually understand the focus shift with little trouble. This awareness makes spontaneous production of the focus much easier for them.
Conclusion
The ability to use focus is an essential skill in speaking English. However, the traditional ways of helping students to predict focus rely too heavily on repetition of pre-planned, written texts which can be diªcult to apply to spontaneous speech. Minimizing the role of written texts means that there must be alternative ways of presenting and practicing focus, ways that take advantage of common functional uses of language that have clear focus regularities which can be readily applied during the course of speaking. Such alternatives are much needed by learners as a supplement to the traditional approaches to learning focus, and as a bridge between classroom instruction and unplanned communication. Revised version received March 1999
Note 1 I assume that students can correctly stress multisyllabic words, thus clearing the way for clear use of focus. While this assumption is open to question, I will not address the prediction of word stress, a topic which requires its own discussion. 2 The author is grateful to Nina Ito for this example. References Bradford, B. 1988. Intonation in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Celce-Murcia, M., D. M. Brinton, and J. Goodwin. 1996. Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cruttenden, A. 1990. ‘Nucleus placement and three classes of exceptions’, in S. Ramsaran (ed.). Studies in the Pronunciation of English: A Commemorative Volume in Honour of A. C. Gimson. London: Routledge. Dalton, C. and B. Seidlhofer. 1994. Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dickerson, W. B. 1989. Stress in the Speech Stream. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 54
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Gerngross, G. and H. Puchta. 1992. Creative Grammar Practice. Harlow: Longman. Gilbert, J. 1993. Clear Speech (2nd edn.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. 1967. Intonation and Grammar in British English. The Hague: Mouton. Jenkins, J. 1997. ‘Teaching intonation for English as an international language: Teachability, learnability, and intelligibility’. Speak Out! 21: 15–26. Kenworthy, J. 1988. Teaching English Pronunciation. London: Longmans. The author John Levis received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. He is Assistant Professor of ESL in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at North Carolina State University. His interests include how suprasegmentals a¤ect judgments of intelligibility, and the integration of pronunciation into oral communication curricula. Email:
[email protected]
