Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Richard Cauldwell: Stress-timing: observations, beliefs, and evidence

After presenting his results Peter Roach comments that his figures do 'not appear to support' Abercrombie's claim. At the close of his paper Roach concludes with the statement that 'there is no language which is totally syllable-timed or totally stress-timed—all languages display both sorts of timing'. This is a very important finding, because Abercrombie viewed stress-timing as part of an opposition a language is either one or the other - if the opposition is shown to be misguided, or false, as it has been, then one should abandon the contrast, and with it the notion of stress-timing for English. There is a second conclusion which also points towards the necessity of abandoning the hypothesis: 'different types of timing will be exhibited by the same speaker on different occasions and in different contexts' (p. 78). An important consequence of this point is that no language can be regarded as possessing an inherent syllable/stress timing mechanism: Roach's conclusion suggests that it would be better to view languages as 'speaker-timed' rather than syllable or stress-timed: But Roach equivocates sufficiently to allow the believers a lifeline: after stating that 'all languages display both types of timing' he goes on to assert that 'languages will, however, differ in which type of timing predominates'. This 'predomination' view seems to go against his other findings and conclusions, it allows people to believe that English is more stress-timed than French. 7 Perceptions of stress-timing Perhaps the most extensive recent study of rhythm in English is that by Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (Couper-Kuhlen, 1993). She used a two-minute extract from a phone-in programme broadcast on Radio Manchester, which consist of twenty-three turns of varying length between the host and a caller. Two informants analysed the recording for 'isochronous chains' — stretches of speech sufficiently rhythmic for them to be able to tap a pencil, or nod their head to. They identified 48 such isochronous chains in the recording. This figure of 48 is important: first because of the simple fact that it is greater than one - not all of the text is contained in one isochronous chain - a fact that any adequate theory of timing would have to explain away; second because it is greater than 23 (the number of turns at speech) 42