Understanding and Teaching the Pronunciation of English.pdf

all last the same length of time. Stressed
syllables last longer, and unstressed syllables
are shorter and quicker. The time between the
stresses remains fairly steady, and unstressed
syllables have to crowd in between the stressed
syllables. We say a language with this type of
rhythm is a stress-timed or stress-based
language. English is a stress-timed language.
We can picture its rhythm like this:

In additions to English, some other stress-timed languages are
German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish (and other Germanic
languages), Russian, Czech (and some other Slavic
languages), European Portuguese, and some dialects of
Arabic. Some syllable-timed languages are Spanish, French,
Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, and most other Romance
languages, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese and some other
varieties of Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, Farsi, some dialects
of Arabic, and Hindi (and related languages).

Although the division into stress-timed and syllable-timed
languages is an accepted way of categorizing the rhythm

patterns of languages, in reality, the

distinctions between these two rhythm types

are not always so clear-cut. These rhythm

patterns are tendencies, not absolute rules, and

they can vary somewhat, depending on the

individual speaker and the context. (Roach

1982) There can be di"erences between the

rhythm patterns of di"erent dialects of a

language (as in Portuguese and Arabic), and even between

di"erent speakers of the same dialect.

In spite of this, we can easily hear and feel that languages

have their own characteristic rhythm patterns that set them

apart from each other. The rhythm of English is quite

di"erent from that of some learners’ languages. In order to be

understood easily, students need to be aware that rhythm is

an important part of language and try to accurately imitate

the rhythm of the language they’re learning.

What makes the rhythm of English?

In English, as we’ve seen, not all syllables last the same

length of time. In particular, stressed syllables last longer

than unstressed ones. These longer, stressed syllables and

shorter, unstressed syllables !t together to create the

characteristic pattern of English rhythm. For the rhythm to

sound natural, the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

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9.1 The Rhythm of English