Rhythm as a linguistic notion. English speech rhythm. Types of rhythmic units. Guidelines for teaching English speech rhythm.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 462.

Rhythm is the arrangement of spoken words alternating stressed and unstressed elements. Rhythm is a product of sentence stress and what happens to the words and sounds between the stresses. The rhythm of speech in English is dependent on the stress patterns of the words. It has often been claimed that English speech is rhythmical and that the rhythm is detectable in the regular occurrence of stressed syllables. The theory that English has stress-timed rhythm implies that stressed syllables will tend to occur at relatively regular intervals whether they are separated by unstressed syllables or not; this would not be the case in ‘mechanical speech'.

The stress-timed rhythm theory states that the times from each stressed syllable to the next will tend to be the same, irrespective of the number of intervening unstressed syllables. Some writers have developed theories of English rhythm in which a unit of rhythm, the foot, is used; the foot begins with a stressed syllable and includes all following unstressed syllables up to the following stressed syllable. Many foreign learners are made practice speaking English with a regular rhythm, often with the teacher beating time or clapping hands on stressed syllables. For foreign learners who don't have so much weak syllables in their mothertongues as in English this exercise is valuable if it is not overdone to the point when learners start speaking as if reciting verse.