DEFINITION AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTONATION, RHYTHM AND STRESS& THEIR IMLICATION TO THERAPY

Introduction :

The term fluency is derived from the Latin word “flure” means flow.

  

Definition:

 It is defined as “facility of speech and language performance. People who are fluent are so skilled in the performance of speech and language behaviors that they don’t need to put much thought or energy into talking.”

                                              Or,

     The ability to use the language as a native speakers does, and to have got command of language.

                                               Or,

 Fluency is effortless continuous speech at a rapid rate of utterance whether the word refers to first or second language skill.

                                                                                              (C.W.Starkweather, 1987)

DIMENSIONS OF FLUENCY ?

As suggested by Starkweather, 1981 ,

           1. Continuity or smoothness of speech

           2. Rate of speech

           3. Effort

Starkweather, 1982 suggested a fourth category,

           4. Rhythmic speech structure

DESCRIPTION:

 Intonation, stress and rhythm are the components of fluency and they                                                                                                          help the individual to read the text with proper expression, hence they are often referred to as “Reading with feeling”. A reader consistently uses intonation, rhythm and stress as the reader moves smoothly from one word to another, from one phrase to another. There is no space between words except as a part of meaningful interpretation. When these dimensions of fluency-stress, intonation and rhythm are working together the reader will be using expression in a way that clearly demonstrates that he or she understands the text and think beyond the text. Stress, rhythm, intonation are inextricably linked. It is almost impossible to speak of any one of these aspects of spoken English without refereeing  to the other intonation and stress can provide a kind of audible punctuation that occurs when a contrasts is made with an audience.

1.    Intonation

Intonation is the rise and fall of voice in speech. In linguistics, intonation is the variation of spoken speech that is not used to distinguish words instead it is used for a range of functions such as indicating the attitude and emotion of the speaker, signaling the difference between statements and questions between difference types of questions, focusing attention on important elements of the spoken message and also helping to regulate conversational interaction. Intonation is one of the part of prosody. It is a perceived pattern in change in the fundamental frequency within a phrase or a sentence.

Definition of Intonation:

•      Intonation is defined as the variation of speech, pitch or fundamental frequency as a function of time. (COLLIER 1991)

•      Intonation plays an important role in intelligibility and naturalization of synthetic speech. (OLIVE 1974)

•      intonation is clearly related to fundamental frequency,although it determines changes in other phonetic parameters(ex, the length of prepausal syllables) (schegloff,sandra and thompson,1997)

Development of intonation:

 According to Crystal,1984 the development of intonation may follow a specific staged hierarchy.

•      Stages of development:à

      Stage 1

      Stage2

      Stage 3

      Stage 4

Stage-1

• Firstly the infant utters sounds which may be biologically determined but even at this stage, this can be interpreted and can mean pleasure, discomfort or recognition etc.
• The infant later learns to vary the intonation patterns to match the situations and to produce the desired responses.

Stage-2

• At about 2 months, the infant may also begin to interpret contrasts in an adults’ intonation, particularly in the terms of vocal range and slightly later, vocal direction.
• At this stage its difficult to determine the role of loudness and duration.

• The vocalizations begin to be truly interactive and the beginning of turn taking is established.

Stage-3

• At about 6 months, the infant’s vocalizations become much more varied and begin to resemble those of the mother tongue.
• Utterances begin to sound meaningful in terms of the contours of the intonation.
• There are contrasts in stress, duration and pitch pattern which gradually become systematized. 
• Utterances may sound like 1 or 2 syllables, or even a chain of syllables, with differing stress and intonation patterns.

Stage-4

• By the second half of 1^st year, a child may offer recognizable intonation patterns which may for example represent a question, greeting, statement or demand without necessarily using recognizable words as such.
• The meaning is carried by intonation, contours and characteristics.
• The vocalizations are now closely liked with the non-verbal communications such as pointing, localizing & eye-gaze.
• During this stage, child begins to use contrasting pitch patterns beginning with falling, gradually contrasting this with rising and then developing complex compound patterns upto 12 months and about 18 months all of these intonations and other suprasegmental development is gradually included with the segmental or sound production which coincides with the child’s 1^st word at the same stage.
• The development of intonation is critical to meaning.
• In tonal languages its possible that meaningful distinctions begin at this stage or even earlier.

Inton pattern in Bengali

•      Ganguli et al in 90’s

•      Stimuli : continuous speech

•      4 basic inton pattern studied

•      a) Hat,  b) valley, c) fall , d) rise

Results

•      Final words had fall/hat contour

•      Initial words had rise/hat contour

•      Bound stress (placement f stress is fixed) occurred at first word

•      Bengali, like other lang had declination contour

•      Negative pitch transition at word juncture is prominent feature in bengali news reading

Functions of Intonation

INFORMATION STRUCTURE

•      Most important

•      New information

SIGNALING GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE

•      Punctuation marks in writing

•      Contrasts grammatical structures- questions Vs statements

PRAGMATICS

•      •TURN-TAKING: Remain at a high pitch - to continue talking; A fall – completion

•      •Topic switching: Start high

Inappropriate Intonations

Different intonations

•      Falling intonation on a yes/no question - abruptness

•      Rising intonation on a Wh-question - surprise or asking for repetition

Mixing intonations

•      A language spoken in intonation of other language leads to unintentional effects

•      E.g. English with Russian intonation- unfriendly, rude or threatening, to the native speaker of English

RHYTHM

•      The term rhythm has been derived from a Greek word,” rhythmos” which means” any regular recurring motion, symmetry”.

•      Rhythm means “a movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak element or of opposite or different condition.”(Anon 1971).

•      Rhythm is important in both production and perception of speech. Rhythm is the pattern of time interval elapsed by the occurrence of stressed syllable.  

Definition :

•      Rhythm may be broadly defined as the structure of a sequence. (ALLEN 1998).

•      a pattern of movement, which occurs with more or less temporal regularity. A swing or balance in bodily movement, music, verb or phrase (Encyclopedia Britanica, 1965).

·         Lamb Rhythm:

This is the most commonly used rhythm. It consist two syllables , the first of which not stressed , while the second syllable is stressed.

eg.àShall I compare thee to a summer’s day

·         Trochee Rhythm:

A trochee /choreee /choreus is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one, in English, or a heavy syllable followed by a lighter one.

eg.àtell me not, in mournful numbers

·         Spondee Rhythm:

Its a intonational pattern that has 2 syllables which are consecutively stressed.

egàWhite founts falling in the courts of the sun.

·         Dactyl Rhythm

Its made up of 3 syllables out of which 1^st is stressed, remaining 2 aren’t stressed.

eg.àmarvelous

·         Anapest Rhythm:

It is totally contrasting to dactyls, has 3 sylalbles out of which the 1^st 2 aren’t stressed and the last one is stressed.eg.àthe night before Christmas, and all through the house.

Rhythmic patterns

1.       Fast Rhythm : we hear it as a whole. A machine  gun is a fast, we can hardly count its beat.

2.       Slow Rhythm: we can hear each beat separately. Eg., hand clapping for music

FOOT:

The foot is a unit of rhythm. It has been used for a long time in the study of verse metre, where lines may be divided into sections based on patterns on strong and weak syllables.

The suggested form of the English foot is that each foot consists of one stressed syllable plus any unstressed syllables that follow it; the next foot begins when another stressed syllable is produced.

•      The sentence 'Here is the news at nine o'clock' could be analysed into feet in the following way (stressed syllables underlined, foot divisions marked with vertical lines)

 |here is the |news at |nine o |clock

MODEL OF RHYTHM

(1)Comb model (Kozhenikov & Cristovich, 1965)- According to this the model the units of     speech are executed according to some underlying programmed time schedule.

·        Preprogramming is similar to open loop contest in that, the control exercised in the system does not relay in the moonlight

·        Preprogramming may also be defined as the set of command that is stretched before the movement sequence to be carried out uninfluenced peripheral feedback.

(2)Chain model (Bernstein, 1967)   – According to the chain model there is no underlying time program or rhythm a given speech gesture. Simply it is executed after the preceding time program or rhythm.

·        A given speech gesture singly is executed after the preceding gesture have been completed completely successfully.

·        A chaining strategy or motor sequencing assume that the performance of any of a series of movement depend upon feedback regarding to accomplishment.

Development of Rhythm

•      Several authors suggested tat rhythm of very young children is  syllable timed.

 polysyllabic utterances of young child are compared of reduplicated forms

•      It includes short sequences of phonologically similar and unreduced monosyllables.

•      By the age of 4 or 5 the rhythm becomes more adult like. Atkinson & King (1973)

•      Several studies indicate that the segmental timing shows a devtl trend in children and that children start to develop Sp rhythm as early as 15 months, C is continuous till age of 12 years.

•      18-36 months - lacks normal rhythm - unable to imitate sentences (Eilers, 1975)

•      By 2 yrs (Hawkins et al,1980) - speech rhythm has fewer syllables per foot & so it sounds more syllable timed since early utterances r composed of largely reduplication of syllables.

•      Syllables are deleted by 2-3 yr olds in 2 phonetic environments,

      - word initial

      - next to unstressed syllable (Hawkins, 1979)

4-7 yrs, followed after 14 mnths, found durational devtl trends were evident as age ↑.

•      The very 1st word children produce do not show as much stress contrast as in adult speech (Ingram et al,1974)

•      2 syllable word containing stressed and unstressed syllable are typically produced as if they were spondees

•      The only indication of stress is in the raised Fo of the stressed syllable

•      Sounds in the unstressed syllable may be lost, and instead the child produces adjacent, stress syllable (“ray-ray for raisin”)

Dissimoni(1974)

•      Avg duration of vowels & consonants↓ as age ↑

•      Suggests child’s accuracy & ability to control timing of sp improves with age.

•      Yairi (1981): children start acquiring sp rhythm by the age of 2-3 yrs & then it develops upto age of 8 yrs.

Functions of rhythm
Enhances fluency –

•      Unstressed syllables are shortened

•      Anticipate upcoming movements, hence rapid speech production

•      Listener actively enters into the speakers tempo

•      Movements of listeners tend to be in synchrony with the speech rhythm produced by the speaker.

Rhythm in stuttering:

•      Starkweather & Gordon (1983): Sttg & other discontinuities r likely to occur at syntactic locations were lang is  being formulated.

•      Physiological weakness of coordination in spkg

•      Results in as lack of fluency--- slow rate, repeated elements, hesitation, unusual amt of effort in spkg.

•      Hence, disfluency is a sign of temporal incoordination.

Measurement- Rhythm in speech

•      Perceptual – Tapping

•      Acoustic - Analyze the tapped syllable for F0, intensity and duration and compare it with the untapped syllable.

Implications to Tx

v  With additional information on rhythm, focus on rhythm is possible.

v  For eg., if a language is stress timed, a stress timed approach to teach rhythm is appropriate.

v  If a language is mora timed, then a mora timed approach is appropriate

v  Prolonged sp techniques r based on the idea of equal syllable  timing.

v  If a language is stressed timed language, prolonged sp techniques may not be appropriate. 

STRESS

•      Stress refers to the emphasis the reader places on particular words (louder tone) to reflect the meaning of the text as the speaker would do in oral language.

•      Stress is the prominence given to a syllable. It may be described as emphasis on a syllable or word in the form of prominent relative loudness. In phonetics it is the degree of emphasis given to a sound or syllable.

•      Stress is typically signaled by properties such as increased loudness, vowel length, full articulation of the vowel and changes in pitch

Definition

•      Greater effort that enters into the production of a stressed syllable as compared to unstressed syllable (Lehiste, 1970).

•      Listener;’s view: stressed syllables are louder than unstressed syllables (Blomfiled, 1933).

•      Sweet (1878) – stress is the comparative force with which the separate syllables of a sound group are pronounced.

•      Trager and smith (1951) – stress is assumed to be manifested by loudness, each level being louder than the next lower level

•      Bolinger (1958) – stress is perceived prominence imposed within utterances

Types:

1.       One syllable- Stressed (DRINK)

2.       Two syllable – First Syllable Stressed (DRAWing)

3.       Two syllable – Secondary Syllable Stressed (tWELVE)

4.       Three syllable – First Syllable Stressed (REStaurant)

5.       Three syllable- Second Syllable Stressed (toMAto)

6.       Three syllable- Third Syllable Stressed (instiTUTE, volunTEER, interFERE)

7.       Four syllable- Third Syllable Stressed (eliVAtor, graduAtion, enterTAiner)

WORD LEVEL STRESS

•      Domain of stress – word

•      Stress placement – syllable

•      If the word is a single syllable stress can’t be identified

•      Hence minimal unit for contrastive stress placement – sequence of two syllables

Word Level Stress Types:

1.      Free stress

2.      Bound stress

3.      Morphological stress

Example:- 

1. Water: WAter
2. Station : STAtion
3. People: PEOple

SENTENCE LEVEL STRESS

When stress functions at a sentence level it doesn't change meaning of any lexical item but increases the relative prominence of one of the lexical items.

Types:

1.      Primary

2.      Contrastive

3.      Empathic

Example

1. CLOSE the DOOR.
2. WHAT did HE SAY to you in the GARDEN?
3. Have you SEEN the NEW FILM of TOM CRUISE?

Development of stress:

The very first word, children produce does not show much stress contrast as in adult speech (Ingram, 1974, Allen and Hawkinks, 1980). The adult rhythm of language is not as easy discerned in the speech of children in the one and two word stages of development. Two syllable word containing one heavy(stressed) and one light (unstressed) syllable are typically produced as if they were spondees, with both syllables being given full vowel, color and duration. The only indication of stress is in the raised Fo of the stressed syllable. Furthermore, many of the sounds in the unstressed syllable may be lost, and instead the child produces a nearby, usually adjacent, stress syllable. Typically a child’s reduplication consists of one heavy accented syllable followed by a heavy unaccented syllable (Hawkins, 1979).E.g. “ray-ray for raisin” or “be be” for “betty”

Degree Of stress :

1.      1⁰ degree

2.      2⁰ degree

3.      3⁰ degree

- Bloodstein,1989

Functions of stress

•      Perceptual – Segmenting words

•       Syntactical – to differentiate different sentence type

•      Lexical – Help differentiate verbs and nouns

•      Pragmatic – Distinguish topic and content

                      Eg. Jack hit peter. Jack hit peter.

Stress and stuttering

•      Role of prosody in stg

•      Stg – as a deficit of prosody (wingate, 1976)

•      Defect in the transition to stressed syllable

•      Wingate (84) – high coincidence of stg on syll that are stressed

•      Less stg on unstressed syllables 

Relation b/n stress & intonation

•      Pike (1945): like inton stress is a supralexical feature.

•      Crystal (1969): Accented prominent syllables exhibited phonetic features like movt of pitch, presence of stress, variation in duration.

•      Cooper et al (1985): examined influence of contrastive stress on duration & Fo.

ü  Found increased in duration on focused wrds.

ü  Sharp drop in Fo following focused wrd.

IMPLICATION OF THESE FUNDAMENTALS TO THERAPY TECHNIQUES

INTONATION

→     Its based on metalinguistic awareness –Pratt and Grieve,1983.

→     For its implication the pre-requisites are:à

a)      The child must be aware that change is required

b)      The child must be aware that change can be made

c)      The child must have information that can be used to assist the change

→     Its best example is metaphon therapy and Tapping therapy

RHYTHM

Ø  Pacing words or syllables to a rhythmic stimulus reduces or eliminates fluency related disorders.

Ø  According to the timing theories, rhythmic speech provides the stutterer with more time and hence, reduces stuttering.

Ø  According to prosodic theory, stress and intonation in rhythmic speech doesn’t change as a result of which disrhythmicity reduces.( Andrews, Ingham& Brady)

STRESS

Ø   is a another important domain that should be implicated in a structured and coordinated manner in the therapy.

Ø  Initially we can choose some standardized word with appropriate stress, e.g.. puzzle , table, water.

Ø  Now specify the stress in the word                                                   PUzzle, TAble, WAter

Ø  Now while giving therapy give more attention on the stress pattern and make practice giving priority to that part.

IMPLICATION TO THERAPY

•      As child grows all the 3 aspect develops in the child. As the child governs the rules of phonology morphology syntactic semantic of prosodic fluency occurs by having the knowledge of all the above aspects the child develops intonation, rhythm & stress pattern in the speech. In case of stuttering intonation, rhythm and stress pattern are affected therefore the non-fluent speech occurs and the individual should be taught all the 3 aspect of prosody. Arrhythmic speech occurs due to non fluent behavior and the rhythm is distorted. In this case the rhythm is taught to the individual to improve communication potential.

•      Because singing and speaking are natural pathways for human expression and share the common elements of frequency, range, rhythm or rate, intensity, and diction, it is possible that the therapeutic application of singing may help to improve the communication potential of persons with impaired speech.           

•      If the prosodic features of speech are affected then the speech sound monotonous or robotics and the intelligibility is reduced to great extents then the supra segmental aspect of speech is needed to be taught to the person.

•      Melodic intonation therapy is a therapeutic process used by speech pathologists to help a patient with communication disorder caused by damage to the brain’s left hemisphere. This method is uses a style of singing that is suppose to stimulate the intact in right hemisphere in order to facilitate speech recovery

Patients that would benefits from MIT typically suffer from non fluent aphasia or Broca’s aphasia. Adult patient meeting the following criteria achieved positive results with MIT.

1. Good auditory comprehension.
2. Facility for self correction.
3. Markedly limited verbal.
4. Reasonably good attention speaker.
5. Good emotional stability.

The treatment consist of the following stages in the  first stage the therapist hums intonated phrases and the patient taps the rhythm and stress in each pattern with his/her hands or feet in the second stage the patients joins the therapist in humming while continuing to bit the rhythm.

CONCLUSION

Along with segmental aspect the supra segmental aspect of speech are indispensable for intelligible speech. The prosodic feature i.e. intonation, stress and rhythm adds to the intelligibility of speech. These three aspects of speech work in integration. A reader consistently uses intonation, stress and rhythm as the reader moves smoothly from one word to another and from one phrase to another. Intonation is the variation of pitch or fundamental frequency. Intonation serves two basic types of function in English. It can serve to let our listener know whether or not we have finished our sentences or whether on the contrary we intent to add to what we have just said for an example whether we are making a statement or asking a question. It can also serve to convey information about our attitude, whether we are trying to we friendly or helpful or being cold or hostile. Intonation and stress can provide a kind of audible punctuation that occurs when a contrast is made with an utterance. Stress is the intensity or the prominence given to a syllable or word in the form of prominent relative loudness. Rhythm is the movement or procedure with uniform or pattern recurrence of a beat accent or like.  

REFERENCES

•      Silverman, F.H. (1992) stuttering and fluency disorder. Prentice Hall, Inglewood cliffs.

•      Peter and Guitar (1991). Stuttering – An integrated approach to its nature and treatment.

•      Bloodstain, O. (1993): Stuttering. Allyn and Bacon, Boston.

•      Stuttering and cluttering:- David ward(2006)

•      Welly. B, & Joy. S: Children’s Intonation, 2013

•      D. N. Stern , S. Spieker , R. K. Barnett and K. MacKain : The prosody of maternal speech: infant age and context related changes, 2008