1) What is Rhythm is speech?.

The notion of rhythm involves some noticeable event happening at regular intervals of time; one can
detect the rhythm of a heartbeat, of a flashing light or of a piece of music. The rhythm is detectable in the
regular occurrence of stressed syllables. It is not suggested that the timing is as regular as a clock: the
regularity of occurrence is only relative.

2) Whats the difference between Spanish and English rhythm?.

English Spanish

*It has been claimed that English speech is
rhythmical.
*The theory that English has stress-timed rhythm
implies that stressed syllables will tend to occur at
relatively regular intervals whether they are
separated by unstressed syllables or not; this
wouldnt be the case in mechanical speech.
*One of the basic principles governing English
rhythm is the fact that the accented syllables tend
to be separated from each other by unaccented
ones, a tendency which also occurs in polysyllabic
words.
*English has a stress-timed rhythm because the
accented syllables tend to occur at fairly regular
intervals.
*When two accented syllables are separated by
unaccented ones, these tend to be compressed and
quickened, so that the time between each beat will
be approximately the same as the time taken by
two consecutive accented syllables.
*For purposes of classification we have
considered the elements which tend to occur
regularly in the utterance, in English only the
accented ones.
*Spanish rhythm has some characteristics in
common with English, because contain the same
types of words.
*Content, as opposed to structural, are liable to be
accented in Spanish.
*This leads to easily identifiable rhythmic groups.
each one containing an accented syllable with or
without the addition of unaccented ones.
*Spanish vowel weakening in terms of quality and
quantity is very slight compared with English.
*A further difference can be seen in Spanish
polysyllabic words, which may take extra stresses
apart from those that would normally occur in the
citation form, thus producing an affected or
emphatic rhythm.
*Although Spanish rhythm is also determined by
rhythmic beats, their occurence is not so regular
as in English.
*Spanish can be said to have a syllabic-timed
rhythm because it is the syllables, either accented
or unaccented which tend to occur at more or less
regular intervals.
*The time taken to produce a Spanish utterance
will be proportionate to the number of syllables it
contains, since unaccented syllables are only
slightly shortened and weakened, a facht that has
caused Spanish rhythm to be likened to the
staccato effect of a machine-gun.
*For purposes of classification we have
considered the elements which tend to occur
regularly in the utterance, in Spanish the syllables
in general.

3)What do you understand by Isochronicity?.

When large circles in patterns are separated by equal distances from each other, irrespective of the
presence or absence of unaccented syllables separating the accented ones. This would appear to indicate
that in actual speech the accented syllables are separated from each other by equal units of time, or in
more technical terms, that the rhythmic beats are isochronous. This absolute isochrony displayed in the
examples will seldom be found in real speech. It will be easier to detect isochrony in carefully organized,
flowing sentences, particularly in reading aloud, but it will be far less evident in a jerky, informal,
conversational style full of stammerings, false starts and interrumptions. It is therefore more exact to say
that English rhythm shows a tendency towards isochrony.

4)Which are the units considered to analyse rhythm in English?.

A stricter concept of rhythmic group is the one held by some phoneticians who have taken the foot as
the unit of English rhythm, each foot always starting with an accented syllable. We have preferred the
more elastic notion of rhythmic group, because its respect for natural grammatical boundaries serves as a
better indicator of where pauses should be made. Its (with a parallel in the metrical analysis of verse) The
foot begins with a stressed syllable and includes all following unstressed syllables up to (but not
including) the following stressed syllable. The example sentence given above would be divided into feet
as follows:

Walk down the path to the end of the canal.

1- Walk 2- down the 3- path to the 4-end of the ca 5- nal

5) What is a pause?.

Closely connected with rhythm is pause, a feature which may either be grammatically predictable, and
will therefore fit in naturally with the rhythmic groups, or may break them up in unpredictable places-
particularly in spontaneous speech. Predictable pauses, such as those required for the speaker to take
breath, or for the separation of grammatical units(e.g. sentences, some types of clauses, etc.) will coincide
with rhythmic group boundaries. The unpredictable ones, such as those produced by hesitations, false
starts, etc. may occur at any place in the utterance. Either type of pause may be filled with some kind of
sound - normally a vowel of a central quality, or the lenghtening of a sound - or may consist of silence.

6) How can you define tempo?.

Tempo is the rate of delivery, i.e., how fast or slow we speak.

7) Why are these two categories, `pause and tempo, important for the production of English rhythm?.

These two types help a lot because help us to develop our fluency.

8) Why rhythm is important for the production of English in speech as a foreign language?.
Because it helps in order to identify between strong and weak vowel in the case of English language. And
in the case of Spanish language it helps in rhythm..