ABSTRACT
Language learning practice often assumes that most of the
difficulties that learners encounter in the study of language are
consequences of the degree to which the native languages differ from the
English of the native speakers.
This research work is basically analyzed problems of pronunciation
among the non-native speakers of English, especially the Yoruba People.
The Yoruba Speakers of English encounter problems in pronouncing some
English sounds because they are not aware that some English Phonemes
exist. Some are aware but do not know where and how to use them.
Examples of these sounds are: /θ, ð, Ʒ, z, J, ٨, Ʒ: ǝ/. Therefore, they replaced the listed sounds with the familiar ones in the Yoruba phoneme system for example: /d/ for / ð /. Thus, a Yoruba speaker substitute the sound /d/ for / ð / in the word 'father'. Hence, the word 'father'/fa: ðәr// is then realized as ‘/fa:dӕ/.
This project analyzed some factors responsible for the
mispronunciation of the English sound system and suggest ways those
problems can be reduced if not curbed.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
In learning to speak a second language, one's goal is usually to be
as competent as the native speakers of that language; and if not, one
will strive to be intelligible to any speaker of that language.
Depending on when one's attempt at bilingualism starts, it is often
possible before the age of puberty to acquire near-native competence in a
second language.
Most speakers of English around the world today are second or foreign
language users. Estimates of the number of speakers of English globally
range between seven hundred million and eight hundred million, about
three hundred million of whom speak the language as native users. These
are people who use the language as their first language are made up of
speakers in the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand. Most of the speakers in the formal British territories of
Africa, India, the Caribbeans and Asia speak English as a second
language. That is, these speakers acquire a native language first before
they come to learn English. A considerable numbers users merely use the
language as a window on the world as foreign speakers.
Native speakers are those who have acquired the language naturally as
their first language during childhood and who are said to be norm
generating; second language users are those who have acquired the
language after acquiring another language but who make almost daily use
of the second language for intercommunal functions because of the
multilingual nature of their societies. For most of the users of English
as second language in Africa and Asia, the English language is also
their official language, that is, the language of government, of the
judiciary, of business and inter-ethnic communication. For all these
users to keep to the norms of the native English speakers, influences or
inferences phenomena from their native languages environment make them
develop new norms that may not be consistent with native norms. The
third category of speakers are foreign speakers; those who learn and use
the language for no real need for it except for travel and access to
English culture, but can do without using the language in their daily
lives. For these users, the goal of learning is that foreign users come
close to this goal.
Received pronunciation (RP) in second language situations especially
in former British territories, the dialect of the English language is
usually taught is so-called RP as described by A.J Ellis (1896: 23)
Received Pronunciation all over the country, not widely differing in
any locality, and admitting a certain degree of variety, may be
considered as the educated pronunciation of the metropolis, of the
court, the pulpit and the bar.
Second language user of English has a number of difficulties in the
pronunciation of utterances of English, difficulties arising mainly from
interference of the sound patterns of their native languages on the
sound systems of English orthography and difficulties arising from their
mode of learning the English language. As an example of the first type
of difficulty, most Nigerian speakers of English substitute /t/ for /θ/ in thin /tin/ and /d/ for /ð/ as in this /ðis/ because
most Nigerian languages do not have dental fricative; the closest to
these English sounds in their native languages are thus substituted for
these sounds. Others substitute /s/ for /θ/ and sound /z/ for sound /z/ because
there is no one on one correspondent of English letters to English
sounds. Most Yoruba's pronounce the words: says, victual, bomb,
cupboard, sing, wanted danced, Greenwich, honour, come, boys, as /seis,
vik ʃ uæl, bomb, kopᴅd, sing, wanted, danzd, grinwis, hᴅna, kᴅm, bᴅis/
instead of /sez, vitl, bᴅm, k˄bᴐd, siᵑ,wᴅntid, danst, grinwit ʃ , ᴅn∂,
k˄m, bᴐ :z/respectively.
Examples of the type of learners' difficulty arise largely because
most of those who teach English language as a second language are
themselves not very competent in the language. The same source of
difficulty is responsible for most Nigerian speakers of English not
distinguishing between high tense and lax vowels in seat and sit, pool
and pull when these contrasts are operative in some of their first
language.
Some of learners' difficulties are more important than others as
capable of interfering with intelligibility. Cues for intelligibility
are hierarchical in English. Intonation comes first, followed by
consonant sounds while vowel sounds come lowest. We shall therefore look
at learners' difficulties with these in mind. Therefore, pronunciation
among- the Yoruba speakers of English has been identified as a problem
which we are set to investigate and proffer possible solutions which
would help the audience to pronounce English wopdis better.
1.2 AIM OF THE STUDY
Our aims of undertaking this project include but not limited to the following:
· To practically carry out a careful test in order to
establish which of the factor(s) is/are responsible for the wrong
pronunciation of sounds.
· To conscientizing our readers that some of the already
existing factors might be proved wrong based on the practical analysis
that will be carried out from the respondents' response.
· To aid a further study on the teaching of the phonological
segment and suprasegmentals to student at all levels of learning in
Nigeria
In this research, the Received Pronunciation (RP) will be used as the
norm or the standard pronunciation model for the explanation of the
deviation noticed in the variants of the sound segments. This is chosen
due to its prestigious position as a dialect that is taught in the
public school and its relevance to our field. Therefore, the study will
serve as a check on the performance of the English sounds.
1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of the study is the spoken/pronunciation of selected words ill English language by the Yoruba speakers of English.
1.4 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY
The significant of this research work is to emphasis on the wrong
pronunciation of sounds especially those that are as a result of
background factors, which cannot yet be determined until the final stage
of this research is reached. The research therefore assures us that all
factors that are likely to be responsible for the wrong or right
pronunciation of the sounds will be drawn and looked into. It was
noticed that the Yoruba speakers of English often transfer their mother
tongue knowledge of alphabets or letters to English words. Example are:
'fever' pronounced as 'fifa' by a Yoruba speaker instead of /fi:v∂/ 'church' is pronounced as 'shurch'. The speaker substitutes /ʃ/ for /tʃ/ sound, 'check' is also pronounced as 'sheck' e.t.c
1.5 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The problem to be analyzed in this research is the problem of
pronunciation by the Yoruba speakers of English. The research work is
meant to test and see if truly the transfer of Ll to L2 (that is, the
Yoruba phonetic system and the English phonemic system) are the major
causes of the problem of pronunciation by the Yoruba users of English
sounds in attaining the Received Pronunciation standard. Other factors
that would be examined as part of the problems include, educational
background, level of exposure, status e.t,c. The mispronunciations of
the English words have been identified as a problem which would help our
respondents to pronounce English words better.
1.6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK (PHONOLOGY)
Phonology is a level of linguistic organization of significant sounds
for which it provides rules not only of their phonetic realization but
also of their distribution. According to Fromkim and Rodman (1974), it
is also the term used to refer to the kind of knowledge that speakers
have about the sound patterns of their particular language. It can
therefore be summarized that phonology of a language is the system and
pattern of the speech sounds and the tacit knowledge that the speakers
have of the sounds. Phonology will answer the following questions:
· What are the peculiar sounds of this language?
· How are they joined together to form meaningful units
· What are the rules that affect sound protection and structuring in the language?
The basic unit of phonology is the phoneme, usually defined as the
minimal unit in the sound system of a language that can keep utterances
apart. To establish the phonemes of any language, a number of principles
are used namely:
· Contrast
· Complementary distribution
· Phonetic similarity
Adetugbo (1997) defines phonology "as the study of speech sound which constitutes a system in any language".
Yule (1996:56) defines phonology "as the description of the systems
and patterns of speech sounds in a language. The perception of phonology
from this stand point places it as a branch of linguistics that deals
with the mental recognition of the speech sound of language.
1.7 METHODOLOGY
Our methodology shall be segmented into two main parts. We shall be
having the mode of our respondents and the mode of our date collection
as well as sources of our information.
In our mode of respondents, we shall be having respondents being
represented from a selected secondary school and the Lagos State
University. In other words our respondents shall constitute the class of
undergraduates including 'professionals'. The reason for ibis cannot be
far fetched, though the non-students or students belong to
undergraduate level will also be used for this analysis but for the
purpose of clear analyses, we have decided to make use of majority of
the undergraduate the Lagos State University. In our mode of data
collection, we shall be adopting the interview method of analyses as to
alternate the questionnaire method. This method has been strongly chosen
because much of what we shall be doing in our research work shall
involve practical. We have decided interview method be used in our data
collection. The method of our interview shall be a one – one discussion
with our respondents. Some words will be written out for our respondents
to be pronounced. This will be the last lap of our interview with our
respondents.
Our research work is going to be mainly of field work; however, we
are going to review some relevant materials on the research work. In
other to do this, we shall be relying on library as our source of
information.
1.8 CONCLUSION
This chapter has introduced this research; we embark on with the
background to the study, problem of research, objective, scope and
theoretical framework of the research. This has established our research
and paved way for smooth progression and we hope to arrive at concrete
findings at the end of this research work.