Anchoring: VO: Rhythm

RHYTHM

In phonetics, rhythm is the sense of movement in speech, marked by the stress, timing, and quantity of syllables.

"In music, the rhythm is usually produced by making certain notes in a sequence stand out from others by being louder or longer or higher. . . . In speech, we find that syllables take the place of musical notes or beats, and in many languages the stressed syllables determine the rhythm. . . .

"What does seem to be clear is that rhythm is useful to us in communicating: it helps us to find our way through the confusing stream of continuous speech, enabling us to divide speech into words or other units, to signal changes between topic or speaker, and to spot which items in the message are the most important."
(Peter Roach, Phonetics. Oxford University Press, 2001)

Two ways of defining Temporal characteristics of a spoken utterance:

1)Tempo

2) Rhythm

Tempo is the rate at c utterance is spoken.

Rhythm of an utterance is the pattern of time intervals c elapse b/w occurrences of stressed syllables.

Rhythm is defined as a pattern of movement that occurs on more or less with temporal regularity. It is a certain swing or balance in bodily movement, Music, verb or phrase. In Sanskrit literature, ‘Rhythm’ is a nature of time. It means metrical movements. (eg., clock)

SPEECH RHYTHM

Some rhythm exists in Speech, but may not be regular.

Rhythm gives a shape to a sentence, an idea of length of a sentence & Melody. It also marks the beginning and end of a Phrase. It helps in memorizing a particular prose or poetry and leads to ease of pronunciation.

Rhythm is speech pattern of vocal change which is inherent in speech or draws attention to the need for breathing pattern which underlies pause, stress, rate, pitch & intensity.

Rhythm in Speech is special in 2 ways.

Firstly, it is not strictly regular beat Tempo & rhythm changes during utterances in relation to word & clause boundaries. If there is no rhythm, Speech breaks down leading to ‘dysprosodia’.

Functions of rhythm:

Rhythm tends to promote / enhance fluency

Rhythm assists in rapid speech production.

It aids to anticipate up coming movements.

It is an Important perceptual cue for the recognition of meaningful stimulus.

The movement of the listeners tend to be in synchrony with syllabic rhythm of speech produced by speaker.

Rhythmic patterns are classified as:

1.      fast

2.      Slow

Fast rhythm: we hear it as a whole. A machine gun is a fast sound, we can hardly count its beat.

Slow rhythm: we can hear each beat separately. Eg., hand clapping for music.