Nigerian English prosody Sociolinguistics: Varieties of English Class 8

Overview Description of Nigerian English prosody: speech rhythm, tone/intonation, stress/accent Comparison with British English and with the Nigerian languages Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa Explanation of differences

Nigerian English - English in Nigeria at least 400 local languages (Niger-Congo, Afro- Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan) English is a second language for nearly all Nigerians; medium of business, commerce, education, mass media varieties: from Pidgin English to approximation of Southern British Standard; correlated with education and native language - Standard Nigerian English? “Educated variety”, socially most accepted variety

Prosody (suprasegmental phonology) intonational phrase syllable foot

Speech rhythm: old approach stress-timing and syllable-timing (Abercrombie 1967, Pike 1945) WincoldEng Winter is always cold in England La ca sa del la si gno ra é ver de.

Speech rhythm: new approaches speech rhythm is multidimensional and correlated with phonological properties such as – syllable structure – vowel reduction – vowel length distinction – lexical stress (Dauer 1983)

Syllable length: Rhythm Ratio (Gibbon & Gut 2001) d = duration of syllable m= number of syllables Value 100 = perfect equality of syllable length

Vocalic and consonantal intervals %V, delta C (Ramus et al. 1999)

Tone and intonation Intonation languages: phonological pitch distinctions on domains larger than the word; intonational phrases, pitch accents, boundary tones; tunes have relatively consistent meaning where is he /going Tone languages: pitch is lexically and/or grammatically significant, contrastive and relative; associated with syllable ma

Stress and accent languages with lexical stress (fixed or free) obJECT vs. OBject pitch accent languages languages without word stress

Nigerian English speech rhythm “syllable-timed” rather than “stress-timed” (Udofot 1997) adjacent syllables have similar length less vowel reduction

Nigerian English intonation more falling pitch movements fewer complex pitch movements (Jowitt 2000) high tone on stressed syllables (Wells 1982)

Nigerian English prosody: stress Different word stress than in British English More accents in free speech (Udofot 1997) Nigerian EnglishBritish English dediCATE recoGNIZE DEdicate REcognize ADjacentadJAcent

Research questions Is Nigerian English prosody different from British English prosody? Why? – Is there an influence of the prosody of Nigerian languages? – Does Nigerian English prosody show native language influence?

Hausa Afro-Asiatic, Chadic five vowels with phonemic length contrast three syllable types: CV, CVV, CVC two tones: H, L accent on high tone

Igbo Niger-Congo, Benue-Congo eight vowels, no length distinction syllable structures: V, N, CV two tones: H, L with grammatical function

Yoruba Niger-Congo, Benue-Congo seven vowels with phonemic length contrast syllable structures: V, N, CV three tones: H, M, L

Prosodic Characteristics of Nigerian English British English complex syllable structure intonation stress vowel reduction Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba simple syllable structure tone no stress system, except for Hausa no vowel reduction Nigerian English ?

The Study 12 speakers of Nigerian English, reading and retelling a story 6 speakers of Nigerian English reading a word list and sentences 3 speakers of Southern British Standard English reading and retelling the story 3 speakers each of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, reading and re-telling a story

Analysis

1) Transcription of syllables 2) Subsequent syllable durations 3) vocalic and consonantal intervals 4) Intonation 5) Accents in story 6) Word accents in word list and sentences

Subsequent syllable length average RR YorubaIgboHausaNigerian English British English

Speech rhythm

Results: Syllabification syllable types BrEng vs. NigEng (t(6)=4.26;p<0.01) open syllables BrEng vs. NigEng (t(6)=2.905,p<0.05)

4) Intonation Transcription of pitch height/movement on each syllable – H (high) – L (low) – M (mid) – HL (falling) – LH (rising)

Intonation 96% of all syllables with level tone 86% of all pitch movements in pre-pausal position High tone on content words (noun, verb, adjective, adverb), beginning on stressed syllable H HH HL HL H H tigerwalking remove continued

Sentence intonation Spreading high tone on content words Contour tone at the end of the utterance L H H L L H L H H L L HL A tiger and a mouse were walking in a field

5) Sentence Accents Accent placement in the story readings 4 raters; agreement 76% accent if agreement at least 3 out of 4

Accents range mean number of accents Nigerian EnglishBritish English word stress: individual variation phrase-final accent: You don’t even like \cheese... went to where the mouse \lived

Word accents inTRESting emiGRAting interPREted

Summary Syllable structure in NigEng simpler than in BrEng; greater prevalence of CV syllables Speech rhythm: less vowel reduction, more durationally similar syllables More accents; phrase-final stress Spreading high tone on stressed syllable = pitch accent language?