Unit 57. We Expected Profits to Drop, but They Rose.

Step-ups - Contrasts and New Topics
Unit 57; Part A
Contrasts We can use a step-up (see Unit 47) toa relatively high pitch to show that information contrasts withprevious information or what was expected. The step-up is in the firstprominent word of a speech unit (see Unit 32) which includes the contrasting information. In these examples step-ups are marked with ⇑: We expected profits to drop this quarter, //but they ⇑ ROSE by a THIRD//. - a contrast between an expected drop and an actual rise Patients are now encouraged// to ⇑ EXercise// instead of rest after their operations. - a contrast between the past encouragement to rest and the new practice of encouraging exercise Although many people think of ants as a nuisance, they play// a ⇑ VItal ROLE// in many ecosystems.- a contrast between the common belief that they are a nuisance and their actual vital role We know that vegetarians have low rates of heart disease,// but we ⇑ DON'T fully understand WHY//. - a contrast between what we know to be the case and our lack of understanding Rather than wait for the authorities to solve the problem,// we should ⇑ ACT NOW//. - a contrast between waiting and acting now |
Unit 57; Part B
New topics Step-ups are also used, particularly in prepared speech, to showthat we are starting a new topic. Here is the beginning of a speechmade by a senior manager from the car company Rovoda to a conference ofscientists discussing environmental problems. Notice how step-ups areused at the beginning of new topics: ![]() |
Exercises
![]() | Unit 56 Unit 57 Unit 58 | ![]() |
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