1.4. Rhythm

Rhythm has been defined as regularity in the occurrence of a particular phenomen in an utterance. In some languages the recurring phenomena are stresses, in others – syllables. So languages may be characterized either by stress-timed or syllable-timed rhythm. English is one of the languages with stress-timed rhythm.

Stress-timed rhythm presupposes that utterance stress serves as a basis for the rhythmical organization of speech and that stresses segment the speech continuum into units of more or less equal length. These are accentual, or rhythmic units. Correct rhythmic division is of great importance since division of utterances into rhythmic units can play a distinctive role.

The smallest rhythmic unit is a rhythmic group, which contains a stressed syllable with preceding or / and following unstressed syllables attached to it. The initial unstressed syllables preceding the stressed one are called proclitics (pr). Those following the stressed one are called enclitics (en).

E.g. Mr. *Georffrey *Rippon | the *chief negotiator | flew to *Brussels last *night ||

□ □  □  □ | □  □  □  □

pr en en pr en en en

In qualifying the unstressed syllables located between the stressed ones there are two main alternative views, namely a) semantic and b) enclitic.

According to the semantic approach the boundaries between rhythmic units are determined by the semantic and grammatic relations between the words of an utterance. With such rhythmic division the syllables of a word always belong to the same rhythmic unit, functional words join the stressed syllable as proclitics and enclitics, depending on their semantic links.

E.g. a) I’ve *said | all *right | Received Pronunciation | the *language is *changing| *languages *do *change | *English *changes |

(‘Delivering a lecture’)

b) Preventing | the *proliferation of *weapons | of *mass destruction | remains a *priority ||

(‘Making a Political Speech’)

The semantic tendency prevails in accurate, more explicit, formal speech. The enclitic tendency is typically frequent in informal speech. Occasionally one can observe instances of this kind of weak syllables distribution in spontaneous stretches.

E.g. a) I *hope | nearly *everybody *has | or can *see | a *handout | a *sheet of *paper | there is *also | an *overhead projector here now the |*overhead projector | and *handout | *say essentially the *same *thing |

b) *I have | *sat alongside my *right honourable *friend | *often enough | at *international *meetings | to *know his *work ||

(‘Making a Political Speech’)

Rhythm performs important linguistic functions. It is the most important organizing factor which makes for the exposure of exact sense of speech and its maximum perceptibility. It unifies smaller language units into utterance, supraphrasal unit and text (discourse).

1.5. Samples for Study and Analysis

Sample A

The Director of the Milk Marketing Board giving a presentation about key trends

We all know, that there have been some major changes in our market over the last ten years, and we can expect further changes over the next ten years. I’d like to present the trends over the last ten years and also anticipate the trends we predict over the next ten years. I’m not going to talk for long just long enough to give you an overview of developments so that we can discuss the implications and do interrupt me if you’ve got any questions or comments. So, let’s start by looking at trends over the last ten years. On this first transparency you’ll see two pie charts - the first represents the milk product market ten years ago, the second, how it looks now. There are two outstanding features: firstly, that the total market has grown substantially from 280 million litres to 440 million litres; secondly, the actual sector share of the main four milk products has changed radically, the full milk sector has fallen dramatically from 74% to just 42%... here on the pie chart: the skimmed milk sector has rocketed from only 12% to 35%, reflecting the weight of publicity directed towards low fat diets. The other two sectors are long life milk and milk drinks. It’s interesting to see that the long life sector has risen from 5% to 13% - a significant rise considering initial consumer resistance to this type of milk. And finally, the milk drinks have remained pretty stable, just increasing by 1%. So the two big winners of the decade are skimmed and long life milk, and the big loser, the full milk sector.

Now what’s really important is the likely trends over the next ten years, in these four sectors. If you look at this graph you can see the same tends I just outlined for the four sectors. Beyond this line we’ve noted the anticipated trends over the next ten years. Now we forecast that the full milk sector will decline more gradually over the next five years to around 40% and than fall a further 2% by the end of the ten-year period. The skimmed milk sector… should continue to rise steadily to 40% over the next five years and then level off around this figure for the next five years.

Sample B

The Managing Director giving a presentation about the Company achievements

So, that’s our view of the market position. In particular, we’ve noted our trading strength as well as our weaknesses.

Moving on, now I’d like to take a look at our organization and at our company culture. First of all, let me say it has given me great personal satisfaction to read in the press that Rossomon is considered one of the hundred best companies to work for in the UK. And, in this short presentation, I’d like to focus on what we have been trying to do here at Rossomon over the last decade and outline our goals for the next one. To do this, I shall consider five main headings, namely remuneration, promotion, training, the environment and communications.

Let’s start with remuneration. Obviously this includes both financial and non-financial compensation. Turning first to pay, our goal is to be in the top ten per cent in terms of salary paid. This means that we prefer to pay our people a bit more money. As a result, we can’t afford to take on as many employees as our competitors. But those who do join us are assured of individual attention, as well as a good pay package. In addition, our single-status profit-sharing scheme means that everyone gets the same amount, irrespective of position.

Moving on to non-financial compensation, I’d like to look at life insurance, pensions and holidays. Firstly everyone in the company is covered by life insurance as soon as they join. Secondly, our voluntary pension fund is open to all staff after they’ve been with us for three months. Alternatively employees can of course, make their own arrangements and we are happy to advise on the best scheme, for example, a private personal pension plan. Thirdly, holidays, which I should say are well earned, are fixed at 25 days, rising to 30 days after five years.

So to sum up, under remuneration I’ve touched on pay, profit-sharing, pensions, life insurance and holidays.

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Sample C