Browsing this site recently, I noticed a lot of discussion, not to say bickering, about whether some languages are more expressive or nuanced than others. It reminded me of a question I had in my head long before I discovered Stack Exchange: how do languages that don't use stress for emphasis convey shades of meaning? An example [paraphrased from memory] from an almost-forgotten BBC radio show :-
Patient: I was at an orgy the other night ...
Doctor: An orgy you say?
Patient: Yes, I live in Purley.
Now, if the patient had said, "Yes, I live in Purley", it would have been mildly funny, suggesting that Purley is a place where orgies often happen. But by stressing the word 'live', he's saying that it's understood that Purley is the place for orgies, but because he lives there, it's easy for him to get to them.
My question is, Can this nuance be expressed in other languages, whether by emphasis or by re-phrasing? I know, for example, that in French, "I live in Purley might be expressed as something like "C'est a Purley que j'habite", but I can't see how you'd exactly translate "I live in Purley". [By the way, I asked this question of a multi-lingual EU translator, and he couldn't get past finding different countries' equivalents of Purley.]