Unit 12 Rhythm of English Speech

Xu Dehua

Rhythm and its Features Rhythm Rhythm is the internal law of English language. It is the regular occurrence of p

honetics in a given time. Rhythm in English speech is based on stress . It is ,in brief, the pattern of regular

arrangement and alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables.

2. Rhythm group and its division 1) The smallest unit of English rhythm is the rhythm group, which is called a foot in English poetry. The rhythm group is made up of only one stressed syllable

plus what unstressed syllable(s) that may follow. 2) Any unstressed syllables that precede the first rhythm group may be regarded as silent beat. |John and his / |brother / | went into the / `room/. |Would you / |mind / |calling back /`later/? It’s /|not /|quite what I / `wanted /.

3. Features of English Rhythm English rhythm has two prominent features: 1) The basic tendency of English rhythm is that the stressed syllable follow each

other at roughly equal interval of time. The correct English rhythm is natural and wave –like .

English is a stress –timed language, which implies that stressed syllables tend to occur at a fairly regular intervals of time, i.e., the period of time from each stressed syllable to the next is approximately the same, irrespective of the number

of intervening unstressed syllables.

| Pat is / |staying at the / |cheap ho/ `tel /.

| Have you any / |silk of this / |colour and / ``pattern/ ?

This feature of English has great influence upon the speed of utterance and the length of sounds, especially the vowels.

I/ |think he / |wants to /`go/ .

The |Daniel |Jones Pro |nouncing |Dictionary | lists |most |versions of | modern |English pronunci `ation. It would have been/ |better not to have / |paid for it be / |fore you had re/ `ceived it.

2) The other characteristic of English rhythm is the alternation of the stressed and unstressed syllables.

In actual speech , stressed syllables are not always evenly separated by unstressed ones. In order to maintain an evenness of the beat throughout the utterance, it is necessary for us to regulate the distribution of stresses, thus we can attain smooth rhythm in speaking or reading aloud. We generally regulate the distribution of stresses by the following two ways.

How to regulate the distribution of sentence stress?

1) By dropping some stresses alternately.

If stressed syllables succeed one another in connected speech, we usually drop

some stresses. e.g. The |big brown |bear ate |ten white `mice.

2)By shifting the placement of word stress

Words with two stresses ( including compound words ) may lose the first when closely preceded by another stressed syllable or they may lose the second when

closely followed by another stressed syllable.

e.g. |John can |speak Chi`nese. The |Chinese |people are |hard |working `people .