Rhythm

As you know, English is a stressed language. So it’s important to learn how to speak with the same rhythm as a native English speaker. Rhythm is the sense of movement in speech, which is marked by stress, timing and quantity of syllables. Spoken English words with two or more syllables have different stress and length patterns.

The rhythm of English is based on the contrast of stressed and unstressed syllables in regular intervals, with the stresses falling within content words. The stressed syllables of the sentence create beats. The beats of the following sentence fall on the words 'like' and the second syllable of 'Colombia'. English rhythm - Example

To know whether the words are stressed or not, we can consider the types of words: content and function. Words that have the most stress in English are called content words. Content words are usually the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns (demonstrative, possessive, reflexive, and interrogative). These words are important to express the main meaning of the sentence. Nouns: Sam, chair, happiness, etc. Verbs: read, love, dance, etc. Adjectives: red, big, strong, etc. Adverbs: nicely, patiently, equally, yesterday, always, etc. Negative words: not, never, neither, etc. Modals: should, could, might, etc. but not will and can. Yes and No in short answers. Quantifiers: some, many, no, all, one, two, three, etc. Wh-Question words.

Function words are those words that are weaker and shorter. They include auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and possessive adjectives. These words are less important in expressing the meaning of the sentence. ​ Auxiliary verbs: are, was, has, could, would, etc. Prepositions: at, on, to, near, etc. Conjunctions: and, so, but, not, however, etc. Determiners: a, an, the, some, any, etc. Pronouns: I, you, she, him, us, ours, etc.

Exercise Decide which words are function and content words in the following sentences. 1. John wants to be an actor, so he wants to live in Hollywood. 2. Mary made an appointment with the dentist on Monday. 3. What did you do yesterday? 4. You are not going to that place, are you? 5. Most people are fully aware that motorcycles can be dangerous to ride.

Exercise Answers. Content words are in bold and the stressed syllables are in capital letters. 1. John wants to be an ACtor, so he wants to live in HOllywood. 2. MAry made an apPOINTment with the DENtist on MONday. 3. What did you do YESterday? 4. You are not GOing to that place, are you? 5. Most PEOple are FULly aWARE that MOtorCYcles can be DANgerous to ride.

In spoken English, certain words are stressed more than others to emphasize what is most important. We refer to this as rhythm. You may have heard words such as “prosody” and “melody” to refer to rhythm. Are these the same thing as rhythm? Rhythm is one piece of prosody in English. While we often spend time working on specific sounds, prosody is the overall sound of English. Rhythm works together with other areas such as intonation and word stress to make up prosody.

When someone refers to melody, they are talking about the general ups and downs of intonation in a sentence. In some ways, rhythm is a part of the melody as well, as stress changes the overall sound of a sentence.

What are thought groups? In a sentence, there may be one or more thought groups. A thought group is a group of words that belong together. Usually, a speaker pauses between thought groups as they speak, while focus words are also used to express what is important in a sentence.

Listen to these sentences. Can you hear that there are three thought groups in the second example? I’ve only been to that restaurant once. (There is only one thought group in this sentence.) I’ve only / been to that restaurant / once. (There are three thought groups in this sentence. The speaker may be pausing to be more emphatic or clear with their language.)

Listen to these sentences. Can you hear that certain words are stressed over others? She’s considering quitting her job. She’s considering quitting her job. In these two sentences, different words are stressed. This can change the meaning of the sentence. In this section, you will learn a variety of different ways stress can be used in order to express yourself.

Is there only one way to use rhythm and thought groups in English? While there are many “rules” for how rhythm is used in English, there are often differences depending on meaning, context, emotion, and overall individuality in speaking. You will learn more about all these scenarios in this section that will lead you to an understanding of how to use rhythm in your conversations in English.

Thought groups are another aspect of spoken English rhythm that can have a beneficial impact on your intelligibility. Thought groups allow you to organize your speech into groups of words that make up a single idea (Grant, 2010). They help your listener(s) better understand the information in your speech by organizing your ideas into comprehensible “packages” that are easy to process (Grant, 2010).

Listen to the following examples. The first sentence does not use thought groups, while the second does: The only thing I’m interested in is completing this project on time. The only thing I’m interested in is completing this project on time. The second sentence is divided into two thought groups, with a very short pause in between. Every thought group in English also has a single focus word, which is usually the last content word in the thought group. The focus word usually has greater stress relative to the other words in the sentence. The focus word in the first thought group above is interested; in the second thought group, the focus word is time.

Sometimes thought groups may contain only one word, as in this example.) First, check to make sure that your seat belt is secure. The sentence above contains 3 thought groups and 3 focus words. Thought groups can be especially useful in presentations, speeches, debates, and other semi-prepared public speaking contexts, but creating thought groups will improve your intelligibility in both your conversational and formal speech.

It may not be easy to identify the boundaries of thought groups at first. If you’ve ever read a piece of writing out loud, you’ve probably noticed how certain types of punctuation (commas, semicolons, quotation marks, etc.) can separate thought groups. However, thought groups are not always separated by punctuation (as in the sentence, The only thing I’m interested in is completing this project on time.). Also, not every sentence will always be written down! Thought groups are a quality of speech, which are carried into writing with punctuation.

Finally, keep in mind that a single sentence may be divided into different thought groups, thereby affecting the meaning. Consider this silly example: Woman without her man is nothing. What does that sentence mean? Depending on how you divide the thought groups, the meaning can change (very dramatically in this case).

As this example illustrates, thought groups are a tool to help you clearly communicate your meaning, not something you have to “find” in every sentence you want to say. Different speakers can and do use thought groups differently