This monograph reconsiders the question of speech isochrony, the regular recurrence of (stressed) syllables in time, from an empirical point of view. It proposes a methodology for discovering isochrony auditorily in speech and for verifying it instrumentally in the acoustic laboratory. In a small-scale study of an English conversational extract, the gestalt-like rhythmic structures which isochrony creates are shown to have a hierarchical organization. Then in a large-scale study of a corpus of British and American radio phone-in programs and family table conversations, the function of speech rhythm at turn transitions is investigated. It is argued that speech rhythm serves as a metric for the timing of turn transitions in casual English conversation. The articular rhythmic configuration of a transition can be said to contextualize the next turn as, generally speaking, affiliative or disaffiliative with the prior turn. The empirical investigation suggests that speech rhythm patterns at turn transitions in everyday English conversation are not random occurrences or the result of a social-psychological adaptation process but are contextualization cues which figure systematically in the creation and interpretation of linguistic meaning in communication.

This book addresses the question whether Educated Indian English is more syllable-timed than British English from two standpoints: production and perception. Many post-colonial varieties of English, which are mostly spoken as a second language in countries such as India, Nigeria and the Philippines, are thought to have a syllable-timed rhythm, whereas first language varieties such as British English are characterized as being stress-timed. While previous studies mostly relied on a single acoustic correlate of speech rhythm, usually duration, the author proposes a multidimensional approach to the production of speech rhythm that takes into account various acoustic correlates. The results reveal that the two varieties differ with regard to a number of dimensions, such as duration, sonority, intensity, loudness, pitch and glottal stop insertion. The second part of the study addresses the question whether the difference in speech rhythm between Indian and British English is perceptually relevant, based on intelligibility and dialect discrimination experiments. The results reveal that speakers generally find the rhythm of their own variety more intelligible and that listeners can identify which variety a speaker is using on the basis of differences in speech rhythm.

Professor Harding assesses the rhythm in poetry and prose from a psychological standpoint.

An intelligibility-based approach to teaching that presents pronunciation as critical, yet neglected, in communicative language teaching.

This handbook presents detailed accounts of current research in all aspects of language prosody, written by leading experts from different disciplines. The volume's comprehensive coverage and multidisciplinary approach will make it an invaluable resource for all researchers, students, and practitioners interested in prosody.

Speech rhythm has been recognized for its critical role in human speech understanding, in language acquisition, and in the development of speech technology, but researchers do not yet have a complete account about what prosodic unit serves as a basic rhythmic unit in a language and how rhythmic manifestation is related to the prosodic phrasing of a language.

This book presents cutting-edge research on the production and perception of speech rhythm by speakers of English in countries where it is used as a foreign language or an institutionalised second language (also sometimes known as the Expanding and Outer Circles). It contributes to a better understanding of speech rhythm, which has long been recognised as an important supra-segmental category of speech, focusing on its relevance in World Englishes, Second Language Acquisition and learner varieties of English, as well as the sociolinguistic and perceptual significance of this phonological variable.

Originally published in 1930, this book was written primarily for the use of those approaching the subject of English prose rhythm for the first time. The text is divided into four main chapters on the following topics: 'Rhythm', 'Prose-Rhythm', 'Cadence' and 'Some Applications'. A bibliography and glossary are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in English literature, linguistic rhythm and the history of education.