Stress and Rhythm in English
Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 4 (1991): 145-62
Stress and Rhythm in English
Maria-Josep Solé Sabater Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
ABSTRACT This paper studies the role played by stress and rhythm in English. The effects of stress on the phonetic realization of segments, the morphological and syntaclic function of elemcnts and the structuring of information in the sentencc are considercd. English rhythm is studied and the factors that contribute to maintain a regular stress-timed rhythm are presented. A rhythmical approach to English pronunciation is proposed, which involves the practice of pronunciation in terms of stressing and unstressing and in longer stretches of speech. Finally, some material for practising English stress and rhythm is presented.
Introduction In English teaching practice the study of pronunciation basically concentrates on the segmental aspeets of English: the practice of phoneme contrasts and phoneme sequences. The practice of English stress and rhythm has been traditionally neglected despite the existence of (i) a number of descriptions in an English teaching framework of English word stress (Kingdon, Fudge), sentence stress (Albrow) and rhythm (Classe, Brown, Couper-Kuhlen), and (ii) practice materials (Guierre, Tibbits, O 'Connor and Arnold and Tooley, amongst others). An appropriate stress and rhythmic pattern is more important for intelligibility than the correct pronunciation of isolated segments and, in fact, stress and rhythm determine the pronunciation of segments in English. Stress and rhythm are suprasegmental aspeets that give the ovérall shape to the word or sequence. If easy intelligibility is to be achieved, it is important to give words their correct accentual pattern and rhythm. Thus, the pronunciation of a word with the inappropriate accentual and rhtyhmic pattern, for example: vocabulary [v9 'kasbjul9ri] as [voka 'bjulari] profitable [ 'profítabl] as [profi 'teibol] makes the word unintelligible
Stress and Rhythm in English
Maria-Josep Solé Sabater Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
ABSTRACT This paper studies the role played by stress and rhythm in English. The effects of stress on the phonetic realization of segments, the morphological and syntaclic function of elemcnts and the structuring of information in the sentencc are considercd. English rhythm is studied and the factors that contribute to maintain a regular stress-timed rhythm are presented. A rhythmical approach to English pronunciation is proposed, which involves the practice of pronunciation in terms of stressing and unstressing and in longer stretches of speech. Finally, some material for practising English stress and rhythm is presented.
Introduction In English teaching practice the study of pronunciation basically concentrates on the segmental aspeets of English: the practice of phoneme contrasts and phoneme sequences. The practice of English stress and rhythm has been traditionally neglected despite the existence of (i) a number of descriptions in an English teaching framework of English word stress (Kingdon, Fudge), sentence stress (Albrow) and rhythm (Classe, Brown, Couper-Kuhlen), and (ii) practice materials (Guierre, Tibbits, O 'Connor and Arnold and Tooley, amongst others). An appropriate stress and rhythmic pattern is more important for intelligibility than the correct pronunciation of isolated segments and, in fact, stress and rhythm determine the pronunciation of segments in English. Stress and rhythm are suprasegmental aspeets that give the ovérall shape to the word or sequence. If easy intelligibility is to be achieved, it is important to give words their correct accentual pattern and rhythm. Thus, the pronunciation of a word with the inappropriate accentual and rhtyhmic pattern, for example: vocabulary [v9 'kasbjul9ri] as [voka 'bjulari] profitable [ 'profítabl] as [profi 'teibol] makes the word unintelligible
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