Rhythm, Phrasing

and
Thought Groups
What are rhythm, phrasing and thought groups in English speech?

Rhythm is the sense of movement in speech. It could be achieved by phrasing,

which means breaking utterance into breath units or thought groups.
With appropriate intonation, it helps you to become a clearer and more
understandable English speaker.

2
 The Prosody Pyramid
Peak: Energy we put in that syllable, the one
sound at the leak of volume and pitch in the
syllable

Stress: Within the focus word, one syllable

receives the major stress

Focus word: The most important word (stressed

word) in the thought group

Thought group: meaningful groups of words in a

stream of speech

*choice of the speaker to phrase his/her speech

depends on what to communicate
3
Diagram adopted from: https://www.pronunciationinaction.com/downloads/JGilbert_Teaching
%20Pronunciation.pdf
Thought groups boundaries

Thought groups consists of meaningful grammatical units.

Example: Your assessed speaking task / will be due next Friday.

(noun phrase subject) (predicate)

Not: Your / assessed speaking task will be due next / Friday.

-> unnatural phrasing

4
Meaning differs with thought group combinations

Listeners depend heavily on phrase rhythm to make sense of your message. What
are the possible meanings with difference phrasing for below sentence?

Example: Alfred said the boss is stupid.

5
How the number of thought group affects your message

The more the thought groups you use, the more emphatic your message.
Try to read the sentences below. Pause where there is a / mark.

I. I didn’t say he stole the money.

II. I didn’t say / he stole the money.
III. I / didn’t say / he stole the money.

6
Each thought group contains at least one focus word that receives primary stress

I. I didn’t say / he stole the money.

II. I / didn’t say / he stole the money.

7
Intonation for list

When a sentence contains a series of items, each item is a separate thought. There
is always a rise in pitch for each item to signal there are more following. However
on the final item, the pitch rises and then falls, which signals the end.

“Today, not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother,
sister, happy.” – Nora Ephron.

“It’s up to you to stand up and to be heard, to write and to lobby, to march, to

organise, to write.” – Barack Obama

8
Practice

Read the extract on P.46 of your textbook. Discuss with your groupmates how you
are going to phrase the speech.

9
Debrief

How are you going to phrase your speech?

Which word(s) would you stress in the phrases in your speech to convey your
meaning or make your speech easy for listeners to understand?
When you are practising your speech, pay attention to your intonation. Have you
signal the end of a list or a sentence effectively?

10
THANK YOU

Fiona Ho

2358 7873

lcfiona@ust.hk

http://cle.ust.hk/staff/lcfiona/