Sociophonetic study of young Nigerian English speakers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v4i2.8Keywords:
connected speech, sociophonetics, r-liaison, boundary consonant deletion, Nigerian EnglishAbstract
This study examines the variable use of r-liaison and boundary consonant deletion processes in the speech of young Nigerian speakers of English. This is with a view to confirming the hypothesis that continuous speech processes (CSPs) can be socially differentiated in a speech community. A sample of 180 young educated Nigerian English (NigE) speakers, evenly stratified into gender and class, voiced 19 utterances and a short passage into digital recording devices and filled in 180 copies of a structured questionnaire. All tokens of r-liaison and consonant deletion produced at word and morpheme boundaries were identified and analysed statistically, using the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The only speech variation observed in the data was between male and female speakers in boundary consonant deletion, (F(1, 176) = 6.24, p = .013). The findings did not sufficiently demonstrate variability in the speech patterns of young NigE speakers in relation to r-liaison and boundary consonant deletion processes.References
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Clopper, C. G., & Pisoni, D. B. 2005. Perception of dialect variation. In D. Pisoni, & R. Remez (eds.), The handbook of speech perception, 313–337. Oxford: Blackwell.
Docherty, G. J., & Foulkes, P. 2005. Glottal variants of /t/ in the Tyneside variety of English. In W. J. Hardcastle & J. M. Beck (eds.), A figure of speech: A festschrift for John Laver, 173-197. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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Foulkes, P. and Docherty, G. J. 2006.The social life of phonetics and phonology. Journal of Phonetics 34.4, 409-438.
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Guy, G. 1981. Syntactic and phonetic variation in Carioca Portuguese. Upublished PhD Thesis, The University of Pennsylvania.
Hannisdal, B. R. 2006. Variability and change in Received Pronunciation: A study of six phonological variables in the speech of television newsreaders. Upublished PhD thesis, University of Bergen. Online at https://www.bora.uib.no/bitstream/1956/2335/1/ Dr.Avh. BenteHanni sdal.pdf. (20 August, 2010).
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Honey, J. 1997. Sociophonology. The handbook of sociolinguistics. In F. Coulmans (ed.), 92-106. Blackwell: Oxford.
Horvarth, B. M. 1985. Variation in Australian English: the sociolects of Sydney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Kendall, T. and Fridland, V. 2011. Variation in perception and production of mid front vowels in the U.S. Southern vowel shift. Journal of Phonetics. 40, 289-306.
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Labov, W. 1991. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Laver, J. 1994. Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, O. 2012. A sociophonetic study of the realization of word final velar plosives by female pupils in a Glasgow high school. Unpublished M.Phil thesis, University of Glasgow. Online at http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3331/ (13th July, 2015).
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Nolan, F. 2002. Intonation in speaker identification: an experiment on pitch alignment features. Forensic Linguistics 9.1, 1-21.
Nolan, F. and Kerswill, P. 1990. The description of connected speech processes. In S. Ramsaran (ed.), Studies in the Pronunciation of English: A commemorative volume in honour of A. C. Gimson, 295–316. London: Routledge.
Ohala, J. 1983. The origin of sound patterns in vocal tract constraints. In P. F. MacNeilage (ed.), The production of speech, 189-216. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Oladipupo, R.O. 2014a. Aspects of connected speech processes in Nigerian English. SAGE Open 4, 1-6. Retrieved from http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/4/4/2158244014560527 .full-text.pdf+html. DOI: 10.1177/2158244014560527
Oladipupo, R. O. 2014b. Social and linguistic correlates of r-liaison in educated Yoruba English. Ife Studies in English Language 11.1,1-13.
Oladipupo, R.O. (2014c). A sociophonetic investigation of Standard British English connected speech processes in Nigerian English. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
Pike, K. 1948. Problems in the teaching of practical phonemics. Language Learning 1.2, 3-8.
Roach, P. & Widowson, H. 2001. Phonetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Schrimpf, N. 2013. Politics and dialect variation: A sociophonetic analysis of the Southern Vowel Shift in Middle TN. Online on http://www.linguisticsociety.org/files/3542-6849-1-SM.pdf . (13th July, 2015)
Scobbie, J. 2005. Flexibility in the face of incompatible English VOT systems. Laboratory Phonology 8. In C. T. Best, L. Goldstein, and D. H. Whalen (eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Simo Bobda, A. 2007. Some segmental rules of Nigerian English phonology. English World-Wide, 28.4, 279-310.
Skandera, P. and Burleigh, P. (2005). A manual of English phonetics and phonology. Tubingen:
Gunter Narr Verlag.
Sogunro, B. O. 2012. A sociophonological analysis of Hausa English, Igbo English and Yoruba English varieties in Nigeria. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Ibadan.
Stuart-Smith, J. (2004). Empirical evidence for the gendered production of /s/ in Glaswegian. Paper presented at Laboratory Phonology 9. Urbana–Champaign: University of Illinois.
Thomas, E. R. 2002. Sociophonetic approaches of speech perception experiments. American Speech, 77, 115–147.
Trudgil, P. 1974. The Sociolinguistic differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Warren P. 2005. Patterns of late rising in New Zealand-intonational variation or intonational change? Language Variation and Change 17.2, 209–30.
Alam, F., and Stuart-Smith, J. 2011. Identity and ethnicity in /t/ in Glasgow-Pakistani high-school girls. In ICPhS XVII, Hong Kong, 216-219. Online on http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/71760. (13th July, 2015).
Awonusi, V. (2004) Some characteristics of Nigerian English phonology. In A. Dadzie, and V. Awonusi, (eds.), Nigerian English: Influences and characteristics, 203-241. Lagos: Concept Publication.
Brosnaham, L. F. 1958. English in Southern Nigeria. English Studies 39, 97-110.
Byrd, D. 1994. Relations of sex and dialect to reduction. Speech Communication 15, 39-54.
Carter, P. 2004. Prosodic variation in SLA: Rhythm in an urban North Carolina Hispanic community. Paper presented at NWAV 33, University of Michigan.
Clopper, C. G., & Pisoni, D. B. 2005. Perception of dialect variation. In D. Pisoni, & R. Remez (eds.), The handbook of speech perception, 313–337. Oxford: Blackwell.
Docherty, G. J., & Foulkes, P. 2005. Glottal variants of /t/ in the Tyneside variety of English. In W. J. Hardcastle & J. M. Beck (eds.), A figure of speech: A festschrift for John Laver, 173-197. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Eckert, P. 2000. Linguistic variation as social practice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Foulkes, P. 2006. Phonological variation: A global perspective. In B. Aarts & A. M.S. McMahon (ed.), Handbook of English linguistics, 625-669. Oxford: Blackwell.
Foulkes, P. and Docherty, G. J. 2006.The social life of phonetics and phonology. Journal of Phonetics 34.4, 409-438.
Foulkes, P. and Hay, J. B. 2015. The emergence of sociophonetic structure. In B. MacWhinney and W. O'Grady, The handbook of language emergence, 292-313. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
Guy, G. 1981. Syntactic and phonetic variation in Carioca Portuguese. Upublished PhD Thesis, The University of Pennsylvania.
Hannisdal, B. R. 2006. Variability and change in Received Pronunciation: A study of six phonological variables in the speech of television newsreaders. Upublished PhD thesis, University of Bergen. Online at https://www.bora.uib.no/bitstream/1956/2335/1/ Dr.Avh. BenteHanni sdal.pdf. (20 August, 2010).
Hay, J. and Drager, K. 2007. Sociophonetics. Annual Review of Anthropology, 36, 89–103.
Honey, J. 1997. Sociophonology. The handbook of sociolinguistics. In F. Coulmans (ed.), 92-106. Blackwell: Oxford.
Horvarth, B. M. 1985. Variation in Australian English: the sociolects of Sydney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Huber, M. & Brato, T. 2008. The emergence of social varieties in Ghanaian English. Paper presented at Accents 2008: II International Conference on Native and Non-native Accents of English, Łodz, 2008. Online at http://www.thorsten-brato.de. (10 October, 2010).
Hudson, R. A. 1996. Sociolinguistics. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jibril, M. 1979. Regional variation in Nigerian spoken English. In E. Ubahakwe (ed.), Varieties and functions of English in Nigeria, 43-53. Ibadan: African University Press.
Jibril, M. 1982. Phonological variation in Nigerian English. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Lancaster: University of Lancaster.
Kendall, T. and Fridland, V. 2011. Variation in perception and production of mid front vowels in the U.S. Southern vowel shift. Journal of Phonetics. 40, 289-306.
Kerswill, P. (1985). A sociophonetic study of connected speech processes in Cambridge English: An outline and some data. Cambridge papers in Phonetics and Experimental linguistics, 4. Online at http://www.esrc.ac.uk/myesrc/grants/RC00232227/read. (March 10, 2009).
Kerswill, P. 1987. Levels of linguistic variation in Durham. Journal of Linguistics 23, 25-49.
Kroch, A. S. 1978. Toward a theory of social dialect variation. Language in Society 7.17-36.
Labov, W. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19, 273–309.
Labov, W. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Centre for Applied Linguistics DC: Cent. Appl. Ling.
Labov, W. 1990. The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change. Language Variation and Change 2, 205-54.
Labov, W. 1991. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Laver, J. 1994. Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, O. 2012. A sociophonetic study of the realization of word final velar plosives by female pupils in a Glasgow high school. Unpublished M.Phil thesis, University of Glasgow. Online at http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3331/ (13th July, 2015).
Milroy, J. 1987. Language and social networks 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Nolan, F. 2002. Intonation in speaker identification: an experiment on pitch alignment features. Forensic Linguistics 9.1, 1-21.
Nolan, F. and Kerswill, P. 1990. The description of connected speech processes. In S. Ramsaran (ed.), Studies in the Pronunciation of English: A commemorative volume in honour of A. C. Gimson, 295–316. London: Routledge.
Ohala, J. 1983. The origin of sound patterns in vocal tract constraints. In P. F. MacNeilage (ed.), The production of speech, 189-216. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Oladipupo, R.O. 2014a. Aspects of connected speech processes in Nigerian English. SAGE Open 4, 1-6. Retrieved from http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/4/4/2158244014560527 .full-text.pdf+html. DOI: 10.1177/2158244014560527
Oladipupo, R. O. 2014b. Social and linguistic correlates of r-liaison in educated Yoruba English. Ife Studies in English Language 11.1,1-13.
Oladipupo, R.O. (2014c). A sociophonetic investigation of Standard British English connected speech processes in Nigerian English. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
Pike, K. 1948. Problems in the teaching of practical phonemics. Language Learning 1.2, 3-8.
Roach, P. & Widowson, H. 2001. Phonetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Schrimpf, N. 2013. Politics and dialect variation: A sociophonetic analysis of the Southern Vowel Shift in Middle TN. Online on http://www.linguisticsociety.org/files/3542-6849-1-SM.pdf . (13th July, 2015)
Scobbie, J. 2005. Flexibility in the face of incompatible English VOT systems. Laboratory Phonology 8. In C. T. Best, L. Goldstein, and D. H. Whalen (eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Simo Bobda, A. 2007. Some segmental rules of Nigerian English phonology. English World-Wide, 28.4, 279-310.
Skandera, P. and Burleigh, P. (2005). A manual of English phonetics and phonology. Tubingen:
Gunter Narr Verlag.
Sogunro, B. O. 2012. A sociophonological analysis of Hausa English, Igbo English and Yoruba English varieties in Nigeria. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Ibadan.
Stuart-Smith, J. (2004). Empirical evidence for the gendered production of /s/ in Glaswegian. Paper presented at Laboratory Phonology 9. Urbana–Champaign: University of Illinois.
Thomas, E. R. 2002. Sociophonetic approaches of speech perception experiments. American Speech, 77, 115–147.
Trudgil, P. 1974. The Sociolinguistic differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Warren P. 2005. Patterns of late rising in New Zealand-intonational variation or intonational change? Language Variation and Change 17.2, 209–30.
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12/01/2015
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Oladipupo, R. O., & Akinjobi, A. A. (2015). Sociophonetic study of young Nigerian English speakers. Ghana Journal of Linguistics, 4(2), 92–107. https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v4i2.8
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