Tempo and timbre of speech in English

By speech tempo we mean the relative speed of utterance which is measured by the rate of speaking and the number and duration of pauses in a sen-ce.

Every speaker has a norm which characterises his usual individual style. Some people speak more quickly, some more slowly; some people use more variations of tempo than others.

- THE RATE of speaking varies constantly. The speed of utterance becomes slower or faster according to the number of unstressed syllables between the stressed ones.

Differences of rate help the listener to differentiate the more important (slow rate) and the less important (fast rate) parts of the utterances.

Rate also performs emotional and attitudinal functions. It varies according to the emotional state of the speaker and the attitude conveyed. Fast rate may be associated with anger. Slower than normal rate may be associated with doubt, blame, accusation.

Variations of rate of speech and pausation are connected with dif. phonetic styles, shades of meaning and the structure of the intonation group. Rate is varied by the speaker in accordance with the situation in which he is involved. The speaker should always choose the proper rate suitable for the occasion, if he wants to be clearly understood.

- BY PAUSE we generally mean an act of stopping in the flow of speech. They break our speech or texts into paragraphs, sentences, int. groups. In English there are three main degrees of pauses: unit pause (one-unit) – used to separate int. groups, double (two-unit) – to sep. sen-ces, and treble (three-unit) – to sep. paragraphs.

TIMBRE is colouring of sound. It conveys certain shades of attitudinal or emotional meaning.