Text 5 Stand up for oneself

HE LOOKS like somebody important, I remember thinking about a middle-aged man standing at the checkout counter. Something set him apart. Even the boy bagging groceries seemed to sense it, for he did a speedier-than-usual job for him. As I tried to pinpoint what was different about the man, I found that he looked quite ordinary. Although he gave the impression of being tall, I could see he was actually a little shorter than average. His features weren’t particularly outstanding, and he was wearing ordinary weekend sports attire. Not until the man was leaving did it strike me. He carried himself as if he were somebody worth caring about. Head up and chest out, he walked proudly out of our store. What a contrast to the rest of us! The other shoppers slouched, leaned and drooped over their baskets. And me? In the glass of the store’s side doors, I saw reflected a worn-out hausfrau who looked as if she’d carried too many bags of groceries. Suddenly, the words I’d heard my mother repeat hundreds of times as I was growing up held new meaning. “ Stand up straight! Lift yourself by pretending strings are pulling you from the tops of your ears”. I thought of myself being pulled up, and my head and upper torso lifted automatically. I felt taller as I approached the front doors. This time I saw reflected a woman who looked as if she knew where she was going! But as I was rushing home in five o’clock traffic, unloading my groceries, and fixing dinner, before a seven o’clock meeting, my good posture vanished.

As I tried to pinpoint difference about the man, I found that he looked quite ordinary. (this utterance represents a combined tune consisting of 2 adjacent intonation groups which are in subordinative relations, which means that the subordinate part is semantically and grammatically incomplete without the continuation. This is an example of preposed subordination, which presoposes that we should use the Low Rising tone to show that there is a continuation which follows. The speaker’s attitude is neutral, as it’s just a straightforward statement.)

What a contrast to the rest of us! (this utterance is emotionally colored and the speaker’s attitude is quite energetic, that’s why the best tone to be used here is the high emphatic falling tone to express its lively meaning. Besides, it’s better to use a compound tune here, to make several notional words – contrast and rest – more prominent.)

Stand up straight! (this utterance is an emotional command, it consists of just 1 intonation group, and the typical tone here is high falling tone, which can also be emphatic to sound more prominent.)

stand up - also a composite word. Here it’s a phrasal verb, which is usually double stressed in English, but due to the rhythmic variation one of the stresses may be lost in speech. The stress is usually given to the verb itself, as it’s a notional word.