Module 4: British vs. American Stress Patterns

One of the first things an Americans notice when travelling to Great Britain is that people there just don't say words the same way as as speakers do in the United States. But what accounts for this easily observable difference?

One of the biggest reasons speakers of the two dialects sound different is that speakers of the British dialect place the stress on different parts of words than do speakers of the American dialect. Stress patterns describe which syllable in the word receives the greatest emphasis when spoken. An iamb refers to a two syllable word where the stress is placed on the second syllable resulting in a weak-strong pattern. A trochee refers to a two syllable word where the stress is placed on the first syllable of the word resulting in a strong-weak pattern. 

Speakers of the British dialect tend to pronounce many two syllable words differently. Below are some examples where speakers of the British dialect pronounce the words as trochees whereas speakers of the American dialect tend to pronounce them as iambs. The symbol - is used to denote a syllable boundary. Bold indicates which syllable is stressed. 

Ballet

British: /ˈbæl-ej/

American: /bæl-'ej/

Cafe

British: /ˈkæf-ej/
American: /kæf-'ej/

The examples above were chosen because they illustrate differences in pronunciation purely due to stress pattern variation. Other differences arise based on phonetic variation as well. 

It is worth noting that within each of the two dialects (British and American) there is substantial variation. The general stress patterns mentioned above may not accurately depict the way speakers of all British and American dialects pronounce their words. 

References 

Harley, Heidi. 2006.  English Words: A Linguistic Introduction.  Malden, MA. Blackwell.

Word Stress Rules. 2016. British and American Differences. WordStressInfo. http://www.wordstress.info/word-stress/differences-english-varieties/stress-differences-between-american-and-british-english/ (accessed September 14, 2016)