Rhythm

Languages are rhythmical like music, poetry or mere heart-beat. In opposition

to the so-called syllable-timed languages, like French or Italian, whose rhythm is

determined by a regular time interval between syllables, English rhythm is stress-timed,

like Russian or Arabic, i.e., regularity is marked by stressed syllables only, regardless of

the proportion or the sucession of the unstressed ones. Accurate meaning is thus

conveyed by the emphatic stress given to key words in the sentence. There is a clear

analogy with the so-called “foot”, a unit of rythm used in metrical verse, which has the

very same characteristics involving stressed and unstressed syllables.

However the advent of scientific research into time in speech hasn’t clearly

demonstrated so far, that such a foot-like interval between stressed syllables definetely

occurs in English. As a matter of fact it seems to depend more on style or on the

speaker’s intention of conveying meaning, rather than on the intrinsic features of the

language itself.

Whatever the outcome of this discussion may be, what seems worth taking into

account for practical purpose is the possibility of using stress-timed English teaching as

foreign language, producing rhythm in class in order to help students communicate in

English, by inducing them to pay purposive attention to the significant contrast between

strong and weak syllables.

Jorge Damasceno
I / A 10-96
Novembro de 1997