UNIT 2: Speech rhythm, speech tempo and intonation

Speech rhythm

The concept of speech rhythm is not easy to define. Generally, rhythm describes repeating patterns of sounds. The term is also used in music or poems, where there are repeating patterns to a beat or to a certain meter of a poem. In music, speech rhythm is very important, for example in the genre of rap. 

Rhythm can be figured out by trying to clap in a repetitive way to match the pronunciation of a sentence. Not only the time between stressed syllables in a sentence can be measured in order to see whether the time intervals between them are the same. Also the length of individual syllables can be measured (usually in milliseconds).

Speech tempo

Speech tempo is a fairly easy concept to grasp. We all know people who talk at a different speed, rather fast or slow. This depends on various factors and can vary, for example, according to the person speaking, phrase length, as well as dialects and languages. We all know the stereotype of Bernese people speaking slowly, which has actually proven to be true by Leemann and Siebenhaar (2007).

When looking at speech tempo, we can either measure the articulation rate (excluding pauses) or speaking rate (including pauses). Speech tempo is measured in unit of speech per unit of time, usually syllables per second. The average speech tempo (speaking rate) of British English is about 4.416 syllables per second or 265 syllables per minute (Li, 2021).

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Intonation 

Intonation describes the varying of pitch. In languages as English and German, “[i]ntonation is used to signal how a speaker intends his or her utterances to be interpreted” (Ashby & Maidment, 2005, p. 154). This also means that a certain sentence can express different meanings if produced with a different pattern of pitch. 

Intonation can help structure spoken utterances, just as punctuation does in written language. For example, we use rising intonation right before commas. Intonation is also used to signal the modality of a phrase, to pronounce questions, imperatives, or declaratives. For Yes-No-questions, we use rising intonation at the end of the sentence, as in the question "Do you speak English?". This is especially important when the sentence is ambiguous: “The mouse got caught by the cat”, pronounced with falling intonation at the end is declarative. With rising intonation, it becomes a question. For simple statements, as well as Wh- and how-questions, we use falling intonation. Imperatives, as orders with exclamation marks, are pronounced with falling intonation. Orders with rising intonation (written with full stops) are perceived as more polite.

Exercise:

Listen to the following song.

Pay attention to rhythm and speech tempo. What role do they play during the song? Do you perceive differences within the song concerning rhythm and tempo of speech?

Final thought for this lesson

We are all capable of using prosody to facilitate spoken conversation, to disambiguate it and to make it as effective as it is.

This is all done automatically in everyday conversation, we do it without knowing the theory. This everyday centrality and unconsciousness about the use of prosody is also what makes it so interesting for us to analyse.

The theory that we looked at can be perceived in reality, in every conversation, and can even help in cases of misunderstanding, when learning a new language, for example.

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