A stress-timed language English

Usually, the more syllables a sentence has the longer it takes to say it. It is true for most languages, but it is not the case for the language of English.  

English is a stress-timed language, the number of stressed syllables in a sentence affects the time the speaker takes to say the sentence. People tend to spend more time on the stressed syllables, they utter the stressed syllables clearly and in a louder or longer voice, but not for the unstressed syllables or words.

The more stressed syllables a sentence has the longer time it takes for the speaker to say it. The unstressed syllables contribute less to the time used. People usually reduce the unstressed syllables and sometimes omit it completely in uttering a sentence, thus, we have the rhythm and melody of English.

Comparatively speaking, Chinese is a syllable-timed language, each syllable receives the similar amount of time to say it, and it makes sense to say that the longer a sentence looks in writing the longer it takes to say it in Chinese.

For us, the Chinese language speakers, we should pay much attention to this stress-timed characteristics of English, and avoid saying every word (or syllable) of English in the same weight and strength, and put emphasis only on the stressed syllables or words (content words) and reduce the unstressed syllables or words (the so-called form words, or function words) unless they are required to emphasize, and thus, create the melody of English so that we can be understood or we can understand better.

As an example of the stress-timed feature of English, the following is a series of sentences, and the sentences have three words that are the same. We have ‘dogs’, and we have ‘eat’ and we have ‘bones’,  as you look at the sentences they get longer and longer, at least in the writing because more syllables are added with each sentence.   However, each sentence takes just about the same amount of time to say as the shorter one before it. In fact, it takes approximately the same amount of time to say the first and the last sentence:

DOGs EAt BONEs.
The DOGs EAt BONEs.
The DOGs EAt the BONEs.
The DOGs will EAt the BONEs.
The DOGs will be EAting the BONEs.

Below is an interesting picture demo of stress-timed and syllable-timed language:

所有跟帖： 

• picture insertion failed. -billnet- ♂ (0 bytes) () 01/20/2011 postreply 14:47:57

• 回复：picture insertion failed. -美语世界- ♀ (182 bytes) () 01/21/2011 postreply 06:25:06

• Thank you 美语世界, I can paste pictures now -billnet- ♂ (447 bytes) () 01/21/2011 postreply 08:32:22

• LOL, this is so cute and vividly! -北京二号- ♀ (0 bytes) () 01/21/2011 postreply 08:59:18

• Cute eh? I like it also ! Have a nice weekend ! -billnet- ♂ (0 bytes) () 01/21/2011 postreply 10:11:31

• 生动形象的中英重音对照图,谢分享,周末快乐. -美语世界- ♀ (1741 bytes) () 01/21/2011 postreply 13:49:41

• Thanks 美语世界! I made it. -billnet- ♂ (0 bytes) () 01/21/2011 postreply 14:41:13

• I saw the pic. That is great. -美语世界- ♀ (0 bytes) () 01/21/2011 postreply 16:36:12