Cover of the textbook New Total English Upper-Intermediate - Students' Book

The key answer of exercise 13

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 7.2 - Buy, buy, buy for the textbook New Total English Upper-Intermediate - Students' Book with authors Araminta Crace and Richard Acklam from Pearson Education

Question

When we want to emphasise what we're saying, we can put more stress on particular words and use a higher range of intonation. Look at the underlined part of the conversation in audioscript 2.16 on page 171 and listen to two versions. What different effect does each version have on the listener? Why?

Answer

The speakers in version 2 stress key words (e.g. Woman → complain, promised, two weeks, acceptable; Man → terribly sorry, little later, apologies) to give emphasis to what they are saying. There is also a higher range of intonation in version 2. This has the effect of making the speaker sound confident, assertive and sure of themselves. Version 1 is spoken in a rather flat, emotionless way.