nglish Pronunciation for Comunication A Practical Course for Students of English By Wang guizhen Faculty of English Language Culture Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
English Pronunciation for Communication A Practical Course for Students of English By Wang Guizhen Faculty of English Language & Culture Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
The Learning of rhythmic structure in English Utterances
The Learning of Rhythmic structure in English Utterances
Speech rhythm ypothesIs: two types of meter in the worlds languages Stress-timing and syllable-timing Stress-timing: Equal intervals between prominent syllables Prototypical languages: English, Dutch. German Syllable-timing equal syllable durations Prototypical languages: French, Spanish All languages of the world are said to fall into one group or the other
Hypothesis: two types of meter in the world’s languages: Stress-timing and syllable-timing Stress-timing: Equal intervals between prominent syllables Prototypical languages: English, Dutch, German Syllable-timing Equal syllable durations Prototypical languages: French, Spanish All languages of the world are said to fall into one group or the other Speech Rhythm
Empirical evidence? But no acoustic evidence for meter in speech Stress-timed languages: intervals between stressed syllables not equal Syllable-timed languages: successive syllables not equal in length Nor are intervals between stressed languages more regular in stressed than in syllable-timed languages a But languages do sound rhythmically different-why?
◼ But no acoustic evidence for meter in speech Stress-timed languages: intervals between stressed syllables not equal Syllable-timed languages: successive syllables not equal in length ◼ Nor are intervals between stressed languages more regular in stressedthan in syllable-timed languages ◼ But languages do sound rhythmically different - why? Empirical evidence?
Speech rhythm What is it that makes rhythm language specific? Not meter Meter is a concept taken from western music which has meter Linguists who have proposed that language has meter are from a European language background Alternative hypothesis: Languages sound rhythmically different because of different levels of acoustic-phonetic variability in the eech signal→→ variability in vowel durations
Speech rhythm ◼ What is it that makes rhythm language specific? ◼ Not meter ◼ Meter is a concept taken from western music which has meter ◼ Linguists who have proposed that language has meter are from a European language background ◼ Alternative hypothesis: Languages sound rhythmically different because of different levels of acoustic-phonetic variability in the speech signal variability in vowel durations
Speech rhythm vowel durations highly variable: language sounds stress-timed Languages with vowel reduction: English, Dutch, German If vowel durations similar: language sounds syllable-timed Languages such as French and Spanish which do not have vowel reduction Low and grabe 1995. Ramus et a/ 2000
Speech rhythm ◼ If vowel durations highly variable: language sounds ‘stress-timed’ ◼ Languages with vowel reduction: English, Dutch, German ◼ If vowel durations similar: language sounds ‘syllable-timed’ ◼ Languages such as French and Spanish which do not have vowel reduction Low and Grabe 1995, Ramus et al 2000
Speech rhythm though there is no evidence for meter in speech there is an acoustic basis for cross-language differences in speech rhythm But what about the stress-timing/syllable-timing dichotomy? Linguists proposed that the worlds languages would fall into two rhythm classes Is there evidence for this dichotomy from durational variability data?
Speech Rhythm ◼ Although there is no evidence for meter in speech, there is an acoustic basis for cross-language differences in speech rhythm ◼ But what about the stress-timing/syllable-timing dichotomy? Linguists proposed that the world’s languages would fall into two rhythm classes ◼ Is there evidence for this dichotomy from durational variability data?
Two rhythm classes? The following comparisons are required 1)Acomparison of data from languages cited in the literature as stress-timed and languages cited as syllable-timed (2 )A comparison of the data in(1)with evidence from unclassified languages
Two rhythm classes? The following comparisons are required (1) A comparison of data from languages cited in the literature as stress-timed and languages cited as syllable-timed (2) A comparison of the data in (1) with evidence from unclassified languages
Prototypical languages Dutch 60 British english German 50 French 40 30 panish 20
French German Dutch Spanish British English 20 30 40 50 60 70 Variability Index Prototypical languages
Hitherto unclassified languages 70 Dutch 60 British English German 50 40 ●○○O French unclassified 30 pan ish 20 Grabe and Low
French German Dutch Spanish British English 20 30 40 50 60 70 Variability Index unclassified Hitherto unclassified languages Grabe and Low
