The rhythm of English means that stressed syllables should appear regularly, which requires that the length of time between stressed syllables should be roughly equal. Each stressed syllable and several unstressed syllables after it form a rhythm group. This must be distinguished from Chinese. When speaking Chinese, the duration of each word is basically the same, and there is no difference in duration. In English, the duration of each word is not fixed, and there are stressed and unstressed words. Therefore, in order to read the rhythm of English, it is necessary to keep the reading length of all parts between every two stressed syllables roughly the same, not the length of each English word.
The method is to shorten the duration of unstressed syllables by combining the skills we have learned before, such as weak reading, missing explosion and linking. When there are few unstressed syllables between two stressed syllables, the vowels of stressed syllables can be read slowly; If there are many unstressed syllables, the vowels of the stressed syllables are read relatively short and the unstressed syllables are read faster.
The rhythm of English is mainly reflected in literary works, especially poems, such as Five Steps to Suppress Young. In the usual training, we can deepen the practice of rhythm by reading poems aloud.
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Intonation refers to the change of tone when people speak. The basic intonation of English is rising tone and falling tone, and there are also flat tones, and the changes of rising first and then falling or falling first and then rising, which are used to express different meanings, attitudes and feelings. Tone is usually expressed by the vowel glide of the last stressed syllable or the rise and fall of the last stressed syllable plus several unstressed syllables in the last meaning group of a sentence. The basic rules of British accent are as follows:
1. The tone of an English sentence begins with the first stressed syllable and then decreases from high to low. The change of rising tone and falling tone occurs on the last stressed syllable.
2. If the sentence ends with a stressed syllable, the rising tone will naturally slide up on the syllable and the falling tone will naturally slide down on the syllable.
3. If there are one or more unstressed syllables after the last stressed syllable of the sentence, including unstressed words, the unstressed syllables do not have to slide when they rise, and the tones of unstressed syllables rise in turn; When using a falling tone, read in a low level after the stressed syllables naturally decline.
4. If sentences begin with unstressed syllables, their intonation is low, and when the first stressed syllable begins, the intonation will change.
The meaning and function of sentence expression will change with different intonation. Generally speaking, affirmation, declarative tone or sentence ending should be expressed in a falling tone; When expressing doubt, surprise, politeness and unfinished words, use the rising tone. So if we add the factor of sentence type, we can get the following general rules:
1. In simple sentences:
1. 1 declarative sentences, imperative sentences, exclamatory sentences and special interrogative sentences are all falling tones.
1.2 general interrogative sentences are raised.
1.3 Choose the n options in front of the question, all of which are rising tones, and the last option is falling tones, indicating the end of the sentence.
1.4 The statement part of the interrogative sentence (that is, before the comma) is in a falling tone, and the part after the comma has two situations: if the questioner really doesn't know and wants to get the answer from the other party, then the question should be expressed in a rising tone; The part after the comma, if the questioner is sure to know the answer, just wants the other party to confirm it, and uses a falling tone.
2. In long sentences and complex sentences:
2. 1 Apply the same principle on the basis of simple sentences; In every simple sentence that constitutes a long sentence and a complex sentence, there is also a tone that falls in turn.
2.2. If the main sentence is at the end of the sentence, the adverbial, noun phrase or clause placed before the comma at the beginning of the sentence should be raised, because the rising tone means that the sentence is not finished, and the main components of the main sentence and the following sentences are reduced.
2.3 If the main sentence comes after the previous sentence, the tone of the clause depends on the tone of the main sentence.
2.4 If the clause is an attributive clause (including the attributive phrase modified by the table), the intonation of the attributive part should be consistent with the intonation of the modified word.
2.5 If the meanings of the two parts of a complex sentence are closely connected, the former clause will rise and the latter clause will fall; If it doesn't match or is equally important, you can use falling tone.
2.6 direct speech, this part should be read with real emotion, the part outside the double quotation marks is lower in tone than the part inside the quotation marks, and at the same time, it should be read lightly to show the difference.
2.7 For parenthesis, it should be one octave lower than the tone of the main component of the sentence, and at the same time, it should reduce the volume and speed up the speech, indicating that this is not the main component of the sentence.
3. Special circumstances:
The above is the general situation. If there is any abnormality, it proves that special pragmatic meaning is expressed. Take China as an example to understand, "Oh, really?" This phrase can be used in rising tone and falling tone respectively, plus prolonged pause to express many meanings. For example, using a rising tone to express inquiry, using a falling tone to express surprise, using a flat tone to express indifference, and using a microstrip vibrato to express ridicule or irony.
1In English, rising tone generally expresses doubt and surprise. When expressing this meaning, even declarative sentences and special interrogative sentences with falling tones should be changed to rising tones.
3.2 The rising tone is polite, so it should be used when expressing encouragement, blessing, request, lively greeting, apology and thanks.
3.3 When listing people or things, the first few items are rising tone and the last one is falling tone, because rising tone means that the sentence is incomplete, uncertain, independent and incomplete.
Finally, English intonation is very important and complicated, and many scholars just can't learn the correct intonation. In order to solve this problem, learners should first master the basic rules, and then understand them slowly and carefully, imitating the accent of native English speakers.