Rhythm

What I noticed listening to the rhythm of this clip probably ties into the most widely recognized aspects of the Jamaican dialect. Once you start noting the stressed words, you hear a kind of galloping, dactylic rhythm that is common in many English dialects, but is more pronounced in Jamaican. The rhythm also ties in with intonation in a way that I hadn’t really put together when looking at intonation or prominence. The stressed syllables noted below have a sort of dip-and-rise intonation (3-2-4, perhaps), which is especially noticeable when listing. Listed items in many dialects of English get a rising intonation until the last item, but there’s something different to my ear about this particular intonation.

The phrases below are examples where the prominent syllables have this dipping intonation, and anchor their sections of the galloping rhythm:

• of killing and shootings
• foot patrols, mobile patrols, and a supervisor
• seventy one gangs in 2014, now we have fifty one
• not gonna stop, we’re gonna continue

Many of these can be read as contrastive stresses, but they jumped out at me most when I was listening for the rhythm of his speech.

After completing the recording I felt (and saw) myself bobbing my head along with the readings. The rhythm of this dialect has a very salient stereotype in our culture that I had to work hard to fight against, and focus on my archetype.

Next time, I'll look at some more holistic views of the dialect and get ready to wrap up this project!