La enseñanza de los ritmos acentual y silábico

Abstract

In the first place the author presents basic notions for teaching the rhythm of languages; presenting Spanish as a language of syllabic rhythm whereas English should be considered as an accentual one; so a certain group of languages adhere to the Spanish scheme and another to the English. Further on he gives classification of Portuguese; the European modality as well as the American arriving at the conclusion that it has characteristics of both; the Spanish; and the English. Finally he considers that this kind of analisis is insufficient for language teaching as equal attention should be given to vowels; and their reductions as to consonantal tension. He considers that rhythm varies within the same language so that we should apply the notions of pragmatics when considering rhythm; but; most of all; languages cannot be classified according to their rhythm. For practical teaching; one should not adhere to one theoretical model; while for research; adapting only one theory would be advisible. He also combines approaches that have been considered widely distant; that is; the principles of structural linguistics with functional linguistics.