Presentation

The Baby in the Rhythmic Bathwater

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Abstract

TESL/TEFL professionals are generally aware that the version of stress-timed rhythm commonly taught has been thoroughly discredited by linguistic research: Native English speakers do not accent every content word nor do they deliver accents at regular intervals. To do so is to speak an unknown variety of English that challenges listeners’ ability to understand. Less well known is that another model of English rhythm has existed for as long as the term stress-timed rhythm has. This model comes from phoneticians’ fieldwork on spontaneous speech and describes a variety of English in actual use. This paper addresses instructors interested in teaching a more authentic English. Recognizing that stress-timed rhythm and pedagogical practices promoting it have some merit, it seeks to (a) separate the valuable parts of the stress-timed model from the worthless parts—the proverbial “baby” from the “bathwater;” (b) expand on the valuable parts to describe the alternative model more fully; and (c) identify ways to integrate the alternative model into pronunciation teaching even when teachers are using textbooks built around stress-timed rhythm.

How to Cite:

Dickerson, W. B., (2016) “The Baby in the Rhythmic Bathwater”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 8(1).