The role of the secondary stress in teaching the English rhythm

In the phonological literature in English, which is a stress-timed language, the existence of at least three levels of stress is usually taken for granted. Words, phrases, utterances or sentences have a prominent element in one of their syllables, which usually correlates with a partner in the same unit, called the secondary stress. It so happens that in multi-syllable words or groups bearing more than two content words, there is also a tertiary stress. Function words neighbouring the content words are usually not stressed or they are reduced. In standard writing, the primary stress is indicated by an acute accent, the secondary stress by a grave accent while the lack of stress is not marked at all. This article proposes that the distinction between primary and secondary stress should have more prevalence in the pronunciation teaching curricula, as they expose the rhythm of English and convey the intended meaning clearly. Keywords: Stress-timed language, primary stress, secondary stress, tertiary stress, rhythm.