English has been described as a stress-timed language which means that in English the stressed syllables tend to occur at equal intervals of time, with the unstressed syllables squeezed in between. Based on the observation of relevant linguistic data, the present paper indicates that vowel reduction and sound deletion are two important contributors to the compression of unstressed syllables in maintaining a smooth rhythmic flow of speech in English and by so doing draws attention to the importance of helping our students to acquire a better command of English rhythmic mechanism through such an understanding.
