DOCSLIB.ORG

A Study of Overgeneralization Errors in the Pronunciation of Some English Words

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Study of Overgeneralization Errors in the Pronunciation of Some English Words A STUDY OF OVERGENERALIZATION ERRORS IN THE PRONUNCIATION OF SOME ENGLISH WORDS Clifford Irikefe Gbeyonron & Esther Chikaodi Anyanwu Abstract This study reports the findings of a study conducted on intralingual-generated errors in the pronunciation of some English words. In order to achieve the objective of this study, the researchers randomly selected thirteen pairs of English words. Each pair has words that have some parts written alike as far as the orthography of English is concerned. Some three hundred and seventy two (372) respondents were purposively sampled across the states in Nigeria and elicited to read (thus pronounce) the thirteen (13) pairs of English words. The responses were recorded using a digital audio recorder. Thence, the utterances were transcribed to establish congruence with the expected response as found in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (and the talking version). It was found that an overwhelming majority of the respondents overgeneralized the pronunciation of the words in each of the pairs. This indicates the manifestation of intralingual induced errors in the pronunciation of the pairs. Thus, it was recommended that users of English as a second language should be exposed to proper models via several means. Key Words: Overgeneralization, Intralingual Errors, Received Pronunciation. Introduction 154 Clifford Irikefe Gbeyonron & Esther Chikodi Anyanwu AJELLS Vol. 6 No 1, 2015 English is a second language in Nigeria. As a result, a lot of works has been done on the inconsistencies that exist in the pronunciation of English words in sentences by non-native speakers of English (Akande, 2009; Alabi, 2008; Bobda, 1995; Dolyphene, 1995; Ilolo, 2011; Jibril, 2000; Ngulube, 2013; Tagaki & Mann, 1995; Udofot, 2007). The emphasis of most of these works is on interlingual errors. That is, the influence of the phonologies of other languages on the phonology of English. Such interference leads to the use of English segmental phonemes and suprasegmentals by non- native users in such a way that depicts apparent deviation from the Received Pronunciation. Some scholars, for example Soneye (2009), posit that a non-native speaker of English can produce utterances in English without the manifestation of significant other language interference on the English language. The spoken English of such speakers may not necessarily be native-like in accent but the pronunciation of the phonemes is done without apparent trace of a speaker's first or second language. But then, such speakers may as well exhibit deviant pronunciations that are not other-languages- induced as far as English language is concerned. These errors are intralingual in nature. This means that the pronunciation errors in this category are errors generated by the existence of the way some word(s) that appear to have physical orthographic semblance with another word is/are pronounced. Many studies have not been done to investigate this phenomenon. As a result, the chief aim of this study is to investigate the manifestation of intralingual pronunciation errors in the spoken English of selected literate users of English in Nigeria. It is envisioned that the findings of this study will not only contribute to existing knowledge on the subject matter but also propel further studies. 155 Clifford Irikefe Gbeyonron & Esther Chikodi Anyanwu AJELLS Vol. 6 No 1, 2015 Review of Related Literature Studies have been conducted on the proficiency of non-native speakers of English in the pronunciation of English segmental phonemes and non-segmental phonological structures. For instance, in their study on the limit of extended naturalistic exposure on the perpetual mastery of English /r/ and /l/ by adult Japanese adult learners of English, Tagaki and Mann (1995:379) found: “… that while extensive exposure can improve performance, perfect mastery may not be achieved.” This could be as a result of fossilization or other factors that hinge upon age. In his work on the phonologies of Nigerian English and Cameroonian English, Bobda (1995:249) reports: “… the English language in Cameroon predictably has ethnic variations. For example, some tribes in the Northern Province replace RP /ǝʊ/ with /ʊ/ in certain words…” In the case of Ghana, Dolyphene (1995:31) submits that the Asante who speak English “… pronounce 'l' for 'r' as in the word 'problem' pronounced ploblem; the Ga speaker pronounces words like 'must' and 'bus' as mos and bos; and the Ewe speaker pronounces 'let' and 'late' indifferently as let.” What is manifested as a result of the influence of Japanese, Cameroonian and Ghanaian languages on the phonology of English also applies to so many languages in the outer and expanding circles of the English language. Udofot (2007:40) stated that: many Nigerians tend to replace the sound// with /t/, then, /ð/ with /d/ and the sounds /ǝ/, /ɜ: / are replaced with /e/. This is not unconnected with the fact that almost all Nigerian languages lack //, /ð/, /ǝ/ and /ɜ: / in their phonologies. As a result, available sounds within the Nigerian language in question, which may or may not have proximity value to the sounds absent, are used in their stead. Furthermore, the study conducted by Akande (2009:56) “… 156 Clifford Irikefe Gbeyonron & Esther Chikodi Anyanwu AJELLS Vol. 6 No 1, 2015 revealed that Yoruba learners of English had problem with, among others, the pronunciation of English fricatives, the lax vowels and central vowels.” Some of the phonemes include: /v/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ǝ/, /ɜ:/, /˄/ etc. In her own study on sentence stress in educated Isoko English, Ilolo (2011:87) discovered that “… weak forms of grammatical words are retained and other variants used…” All these point to the fact that non- native spoken English, in most cases, is prone to error. These errors are basically caused by non-English language interference. In spite of the adverse impact of the phonologies of non- English languages on the English language, exposure, shaping and other spoken English performance enhancing strategies can make a non-native speaker attain competence in spoken English with few or no manifestation of non-English language interference. However, Ngulube (2013:20) cautions: “In the Nigerian situation, 'poverty of stimulus', that is lack of contact with native speakers does not necessitate adopting Received Pronunciation as target.” But then, proficiency in spoken English with international mutual intelligibility can be attained. Most of the studies on the phonology of English as a second language underscore interlingual interference. However, varieties of native spoken English can as well prompt the user of English as a second language to pronounce words and structures larger than words in ways that flout the benchmark set by Received Pronunciation. Roach (2009:4) counsels: “… there are many different accents in England, but the range becomes very much wider if the accent of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland … are taken into account.” In consonance with this, Jibril (2000:411) asserts: “A study of the historical evolution of Nigerian English reveals interesting 157 Clifford Irikefe Gbeyonron & Esther Chikodi Anyanwu AJELLS Vol. 6 No 1, 2015 phonetic and phonological relics which are both indicative of the past influence of certain categories of missionary and other teachers and also sociolinguistically informative variables.” The study carried out by Jibril reveals that the influence of the spoken English accent of Irish missionaries has significant influence on the spoken English of some Nigerian speakers of English who may not necessarily have mother tongue interference. Thus, it can be stated that there are some spoken English related problems that are not as a result of the interference of the mother tongue of the second language user of English on the phonology of English. Soneye (2009:47) states: “English spelling, as it is, leads to reading failure …” This is not dissociated from the fact that there is an arbitrary relationship and, by extension, inconsistencies between English sounds and letters. This means that there is no clear-cut relationship between the orthography of English and English phonemes. In the light of this, Finegan (2012:83) reports: “The playwright George Bernard Shaw was a keen advocate of spelling reform and highlighted the problems in establishing correspondence between English sounds and spelling…” For this reason, such inconsistencies can generate mispronunciation of some English words. When this occurs, one should not blame the English as a second language user's mother tongue as interfering with the phonology of English. In their submission on the lack of correspondence between English orthography and the pronunciation of English words, Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2011:559) state: “… English has a morphophonemic orthography. To read English correctly, morphophonemic knowledge is required.” In order to justify this, the significant differences in the pronunciation of the letters underlined in the following words were provided: divine vs. divinity, serene vs. serenity, sane vs. 158 Clifford Irikefe Gbeyonron & Esther Chikodi Anyanwu AJELLS Vol. 6 No 1, 2015 sanity etc. O'Grady, Archibald and Katamba (2011:542) provide some cases in which English orthography provides a single spelling for roots with different pronunciation. Typical examples are: bomb where the underlined is realized as zero /ᴓ/ and bombard where the underlined is realized as /b/; impress where the underlined are realized as /s/ and impression where the underlined is realized as /ʃ/ etc. Thus Finegan (2012:84) concludes: “A given word part may be pronounced differently depending on its adjacent sound and stress pattern.” In respect of stress pattern, each of the words import, convert, refuse etc can be pronounced in two different ways in each case depending on the stress pattern and the category of word in question. Suffice it to say that the same word could be pronounced in different ways based on the principle of free variation in the context of its weak or strong form and by extension geographical native English variety. In most cases, the adequate procedural and declarative knowledge of English are learned in schools.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42537-7 — English Around the World 2Nd Edition Index More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42537-7 — English around the World 2nd Edition Index More Information Index Aboriginal English 23, 122, 140 Bao Zhiming 202 Aboriginals, 118, 121–122, 125, 226 Barbados 101, 105, 106 accent 5, 7, 17, 20, 88, 121, 123, 133, basilect 104, 106, 112 134, 235 Belafonte, Harry 108 accommodation 39, 134, 175, 229 Berlin Conference 46, 48 Achebe, Chinua 152, 197 bilingualism 28, 35, 51, 83, 166, 246 acrolect 104 biological concepts 26, 226 adjective comparison 73 Bislama 157, 176–177 adstrate 68 blogs 59 adverbs 99, 214 borrowing, see loan words African American English 87, 88, 116, 219 Botswana 146, 209, 211 African Englishes 32 Brexit 59, 71 Afrikaans 33, 130, 131, 133, 135 British Empire 40, 52–55, 160, 226 Ali G 114 British English 31, 57, 73, 75, 84, 85, 87, 151, American English 38, 57, 59, 61, 68, 113, 116, 152, 212, 214, 229, 235, 236, 242 208, 214, 216 history 69–74, 113 see also Standard English dialects 16, 85–86, 89, 114 Brunei 157, 161 history 82–89 Brunei English 162, 197 lexis 25, 26, 209 Butler English 50 melting pot 82, 89 Native AmE 23, 84, 88, 226 Cajun English 88 pronunciation 16, 212, 229 calque 24, 209 southern dialect 16, 23, 84, 85, 88, 90–99, Cambodia 158 116 Cameroon 147, 149, 238, 239, 240 standard 87, 88 Cameroonian English 23, 203, 205, 209 vs. British English 84 Camfranglais 149, 240 Americanization Canada 54, 54, 89 of World Englishes 56, 57, 59 language situation 33, 61 analogy 28, 205 Canadian English 61, 89–90, 210, 211, 215 antideletion 137, 205 Cantonese 19, 163, 164, 239 AntConc corpus software 258 Caribbean 51, 52, 53, 61, 62, 68, 113, 117, 235 archaisms 209 Caribbean Creoles 102, 105–106, 205 article omission / insertion 8, 137, 172, 194, cline 105 215, 224, 230 Caribbean English 23, 26, 88, 98, 117, 212, 213 article reduction 78 case 78 articulation 202, 250 Celtic Englishes 74, 116 ASEAN / Association of South-East Asian Celtic languages 73, 113 Nations 158, 185, 234 Celts 70 aspiration 20, 192 Chambers, J.
    [Show full text]
  • Canadian and Cameroonian English-Speaking University Students’ Compliment Strategies
    International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2013, Vol. 5, No. 3 Canadian and Cameroonian English-Speaking University Students’ Compliment Strategies Bernard Mulo Farenkia Department of Languages and Letters, Cape Breton University P) Box 5300, Sydney, Nova Scotia B1P6L2, Canada Tel: 1-902-563-1870 E-mail: [email protected] Received: April 10, 2013 Accepted: May 8, 2013 Published: June 25, 2013 doi:10.5296/ijl.v5i3.3900 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v5i3.3900 Abstract This paper addressees compliment strategies in two regional varieties of English, namely Cameroon English and Canadian English. Data were collected through written Discourse Completion Tasks with 25 Canadian and 25 Cameroonian University students. The study examines similarities and differences between the two groups with regards to move structure and the head act strategies, the use of lexical and syntactic / stylistic devices and the use of supportive moves in six different situations. It was found that the Cameroonians show a very strong preference for single heads whereas the Canadians mostly favor multiple heads and that the Cameroonians use indirect compliments much more than the Canadians. The results reveal that the Canadians employ more lexical elements (adjectives, adverbs, verbs) than the Cameroonians. With regard to external modification of the core compliments, the findings suggest that the Canadians use much more supportive moves, i.e. pre-compliments and post-compliments, than the Cameroonians. Some differences were also found with regard to the situational distribution and types of internal and external modification devices. Keywords: Compliment, Politeness, Regional variation, Cameroon English, Canadian English 69 www.macrothink.org/ijl International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2013, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • French and British Colonial Legacies in Education: a Natural Experiment in Cameroon
    French and British Colonial Legacies in Education: A Natural Experiment in Cameroon Yannick Dupraz∗ 2015 most recent version: http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/IMG/pdf/ jobmarket-paper-dupraz-pse.pdf Abstract. | Does colonial history matter for development? In Sub-Saharan Africa, economists have argued that the British colonial legacy was more growth-inducing than others, especially through its effect on education. This paper uses the division of German Kamerun between the British and the French after WWI as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of colonizer identity on education. Using exhaustive geolocated census data, I estimate a border discontinuity for various cohorts over the 20th century: the British effect on education is positive for individuals of school age in the 1920s and 1930s; it quickly fades away in the late colonial period and eventually becomes negative, favoring the French side. In the most recent cohorts, I find no border discontinuity in primary education, but I do find a positive British effect in secondary school completion | likely explained by a higher rate of grade repetition in the francophone system. I also find a strong, positive British effect on the percentage of Christians for all cohorts. I argue that my results are best explained by supply factors: before WWII, the British colonial government provided incentives for missions to supply formal education and allowed local governments to open public schools, but the British effect was quickly smoothed away by an increase in French education investments in the late colonial period. Though the divergence in human capital did not persist, its effect on religion was highly persistent.
    [Show full text]
  • Cameroonian ESL Teachers' Linguistic Perceptions and The
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE): E-Journals Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5766 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0484 (Online) DOI: 10.7176/RHSS Vol.9, No.14, 2019 Cameroonian ESL Teachers’ Linguistic Perceptions and the Phonological Aspects of Their English Julius M. Angwah University of Yaounde I Abstract Despite the popular credence that the nature of English in Cameroon shifts significantly from Standard British English, ESL teachers seem to think differently about their competencies in the English language. This study investigated the correlation between Cameroonian ESL teachers’ linguistic perceptions and the phonological aspects of their English. Three theoretical paradigms guided the study – Labov’s (1966) correlation model, Kachru’s (1985) World Englishes Paradigm and Corder’s (1967) Error Analysis. A total of 75 Secondary School teachers of English, from five regions of the country, constituted the sampled population of the study. A questionnaire, with close and open-ended questions, was constructed to gain an understanding of their linguistic perceptions. A test of 10 sentences, with targeted phonological variables /dʒ, tʃ, ð, θ, ə, з, əu, əʊə, and aʊə/, was conceived and the informants were asked to read them aloud while the investigators tap-recorded their phonological renditions. The data was then transcribed and compared to their linguistic perceptual claims. The results revealed a significant gap between the respondents’ linguistic perceptions and the phonological aspects of their English. This led us to the conclusion that there is the dire need for the establishment of a feasible target variety that is attainable and does not pose any major problem of intelligibility to speakers of other varieties of English, especially the native varieties.
    [Show full text]
  • The Handbook of World Englishes
    The Handbook of World Englishes THOA01 1 19/07/2006, 11:33 AM Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics This outstanding multi-volume series covers all the major subdisciplines within lin- guistics today and, when complete, will offer a comprehensive survey of linguistics as a whole. Already published: The Handbook of Child Language The Handbook of Language and Gender Edited by Paul Fletcher and Brian Edited by Janet Holmes and MacWhinney Miriam Meyerhoff The Handbook of Phonological Theory The Handbook of Second Language Edited by John A. Goldsmith Acquisition Edited by Catherine J. Doughty and The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Michael H. Long Theory Edited by Shalom Lappin The Handbook of Bilingualism Edited by Tej K. Bhatia and The Handbook of Sociolinguistics William C. Ritchie Edited by Florian Coulmas The Handbook of Pragmatics The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences Edited by Laurence R. Horn and Edited by William J. Hardcastle and Gregory Ward John Laver The Handbook of Applied Linguistics The Handbook of Morphology Edited by Alan Davies and Edited by Andrew Spencer and Catherine Elder Arnold Zwicky The Handbook of Speech Perception The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics Edited by David B. Pisoni and Edited by Natsuko Tsujimura Robert E. Remez The Handbook of Linguistics The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Edited by Mark Aronoff and Janie Volumes I–V Rees-Miller Edited by Martin Everaert and The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Henk van Riemsdijk Theory The Handbook of the History of English Edited by Mark Baltin and Chris Collins Edited by Ans van Kemenade and The Handbook of Discourse Analysis Bettelou Los Edited by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah The Handbook of English Linguistics Tannen, and Heidi E.
    [Show full text]
  • International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Directory of Open Access Journals International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies Journal homepage: http://www.eltsjournal.org Decline in spoken English on Anglophone campuses in the Francophone Regions in Cameroon [PP: 11-22] Fonka Hans Mbonwuh PK Fokam Institute of Excellence, Yaounde, Cameroon ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History Anglo-Saxon campuses in the Francophone section of the country instruct The paper received their learners in English Language. This paper examines the language used out of on: 30/04/2014 class by learners after receiving instructions in English in the classroom. Two Accepted after secondary and one higher institutes of learning, which have English as the peer-review on: language of instruction, were sampled. From the observation, which was 15/05/2014 conducted by silently monitoring pairs or groups of learners conversing with one Published on: another, it was discovered that the most spoken language by learners is French. 01/06/2014 French is just a subject in some of these institutions. The reason for French being highly spoken language on Anglophone campuses is the fact that more Keywords: Francophones attend these schools than Anglophones and Anglophones struggle Anglophones campus, to speak French rather than English since they believe that it is already their Francophones, language. The consequences of “frenchifying” the Anglophone campuses is that Language decline, spoken French is on the steady rise while spoken English is on the steady decline English language even among Anglophones on these campuses. This paper therefore proposes that learners, the use of English, out of the classroom, should be encouraged through Pidgin and Creole sensitization and rewards.
    [Show full text]
  • Using Neural Machine Translation to Create African Languages Corpora
    Using Neural Machine Translation to Create African Languages Corpora Kathleen Siminyu, Africa’s Talking. Context Not only is Africa the second most populous continent in the world with over one billion people, it is also home to the highest linguistic diversity in the world, with over 1500 different languages. Due to the scramble and partition of Africa - which was the occupation, division and colonisation of African territories by European powers - many African countries, after gaining independence, selected one language, in search of unity, to be the official language. Generally this language was the former colonial language. The dominant ones among these are English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. There are more than a dozen African countries where English, in particular, is an official language. This means that it is the dominant language of business, education and government. These include Zimbabwe, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, South Africa and Nigeria. But even among these nations, Nigerian English is as unique as Ghanaian English and Cameroonian English. There’s an accent, slang and a multitude of local words and phrases thrown into the mix in different contexts making the language unique in each instance. Rationale Having English as the official language for education means it is the medium via which knowledge is imparted as well as evaluated. In the African context, depending on where a school is situated, whether in urban or rural areas, learners can broadly be classified into 3 different categories; those for whom English is a native language, those for whom English is a second language and those with very limited English proficiency.
    [Show full text]
  • African Studies Quarterly
    African Studies Quarterly Volume 5, Issue 1 Winter 2001 Published by the Center for African Studies, University of Florida ISSN: 2152-2448 African Studies Quarterly Editorial Staff Elizabeth Beaver Lin Cassidy Michael Chege Corinna Greene Maria Grosz-Ngate Parakh Hoon Alice Jones-Nelson Brian King Rebecca Klein Carol Lauriault Todd Leedy Andy Lepp Steve Marr Ade Ofunniyin Roos Willems Andrew Woods African Studies Quarterly | Volume 5, Issue 1 | Winter 2001 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq © University of Florida Board of Trustees, a public corporation of the State of Florida; permission is hereby granted for individuals to download articles for their own personal use. Published by the Center for African Studies, University of Florida. African Studies Quarterly | Volume 5, Issue 1 | Winter 2001 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq Table of Contents Human Rights Abuse in Kenya under Daniel arap Moi, 1978-2001 Korwa G. Adar and Isaac M. Munyae (1-17) The State and Development in Southern Africa Osei Hwedi (19-31) The Public Sector, Privatization, and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa James S. Guseh (33-49) Book Reviews African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation Peter J. Schraeder. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's Press, 2000. Stefano Bellucci (51-52) The New Africa: Dispatches from a Changing Continent Robert M. Press. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999. Ken Menkhauss (52-54) Africa's Political Stability: Ideas, Values and Questions Muyiwa Falaiye (ed.). Lagos and Ontario: Panaf Publishing Inc., 1999. Raphael Chijioke Njoku (54-56) Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa 1830-1914. Bruce Vandervort. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Idioms of Distress” for More Effective Treatment
    Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 205 ( 2015 ) 445 – 456 6th World conference on Psychology Counseling and Guidance, 14 - 16 May 2015 “Mal d’Afrique” in Italy: Translating African “Cultural Idioms of Distress” for more Effective Treatment Mary Ellen Tofflea,b* aUniversity of Messina, Piazza Pugliatti 1, 98122 Messina, Italy bUniversity of Pavia, Strada Nuova 65, 27100 Pavia, Italy Abstract The DSM-V (2013) states that culture assists in diagnosis because it shapes “the experience and expression of the symptoms, signs and behaviours that are criteria for diagnosis” (DSM-V, 2013, p. 14). The idea of “cultural idioms of distress” is presented as a description of suffering among people of the same cultural group. Various “cultural idioms of distress” have been identified worldwide, ranging from the ‘Susto’ (Central America) to ‘Maladi Moun’ (Haiti) which can be correlated with various psychopathologies (DSM-V, 2013). Recent statistics reveal that there are over 105,000 Africans from the English-speaking countries of Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya currently living in Italy legally (Tuttitalia, 2014), and African immigration is increasing. The Executive Director of Frontex Fabrice Leggere stated that between 500,000-1,000,000 immigrants could arrive in the near future, departing from Libya (ANSA, 2015). It is logical to assume that more people from English-speaking Africa will arrive, especially Nigerians. The immigrants who remain in Italy will have to learn Italian but they will use their own cultural concepts by translating them from English into Italian. Speaking with medical personnel and mental health professionals presents a huge challenge for both the patient and the care provider.
    [Show full text]
  • The Power of the Local: Education Choices and Language Maintenance Among the Bafut, Kom and Nso' Communities of Northwest Cameroon
    The Power of the Local: Education Choices and Language Maintenance among the Bafut, Kom and Nso' Communities of Northwest Cameroon Barbara Louise Trudell Ph.D. Thesis University of Edinburgh 2004 Table of contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. ii Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Conceptual context for the study................................................................................ 2 1.2. The language communities under study .................................................................... 5 1.3. The phenomena under study ..................................................................................... 7 1.4. The limits of the subject ............................................................................................. 8 1.4.1. The demographic environment.................................................................... 8 1.4.2. The educational environment .................................................................... 10 1.5. Personal motivations for the investigation................................................................ 11 Chapter 2. Discourse and Design...................................................................................... 13 2.1. Language,
    [Show full text]
  • The Fallacy of Promoting Non Native Varieties of English in Postcolonial Multilingual Settings: the Case of Cameroon English (Came) in Cameroon
    Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.6, No.31, 2015 The Fallacy of Promoting Non Native Varieties of English in Postcolonial Multilingual Settings: The Case of Cameroon English (CamE) in Cameroon Serges Moïse Essossomo Department of English, University of Yaounde I Abstract This research endeavour is a major contribution to the current debate on the integration of non-native varieties into the school curriculum in non-native settings. Taking the specific case of Cameroon, this work rests on the solid assumption that the promotion of CamE to the detriment of Standard British English accent is definitely a fallacy. The researcher is of the opinion that the ELT pedagogy based on the local variety of English advocated by Cameroonian scholars and researchers cannot bare fruits as Cameroonian professional users of English did not received any training on how to teach CamE; there are no pedagogic materials so far that clearly outline an approach to CamE grammar, vocabulary, morphology instruction, most of the so-called CamE characteristic features are errors and seem not to reflect the sociocultural realities of the entire country but of the Anglophone Cameroon represented by 20% in the Cameroonian landscape. Above all, decision makers on language use in Cameroon and learners prefer native varieties of English like Standard British English and American English as well as other varieties of English spoken in the Cameroonian setting to the detriment of CamE. Keywords : Cameroon, Cameroon English, ELT, Sociolinguistic realities, Varieties of English Introduction The advent of post modernity and advanced technology saw the recognition of English as the de facto language of globalisation (Graddol 2007).
    [Show full text]
  • The Little Cameroonian (English Tranlsation)
    Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Essays Nonfiction May 2020 Heini: the Little Cameroonian (English Tranlsation) Philippa Johanna Bohner Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sophnf_essay Part of the German Literature Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Bohner, Philippa Johanna, "Heini: the Little Cameroonian (English Tranlsation)" (2020). Essays. 1526. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sophnf_essay/1526 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Nonfiction at YB U ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Essays by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This translation was prepared for the Sophie website by Cindy Brewer’s German 201 class during Winter Semester 2006 at Brigham Young University. Student contributors were: Megan Jensen (group leader), Heather Burch, Sarah Elliot, Jeff Kemp, Ellis Atwood, Jeramy Ferguson, Brent Kerby, Jasmyne Dietz, Lillian Geurts, and Stephanie Jones. Heini, The Little Cameroonian II. Memories of a Missionary Wife by Johanna Bohner Basel Verlag der Basler Missionsbuchhandung 3 When you travel from Bonaku, the Basel Mission station in Cameroon, diagonally across the wide Wuri River, you come to a peninsula on the other side of the shore, from which rises the Mission station and the Negro city, Bonaberi. It was here that little Heinis cradle stood. It was the year 1895 when first he saw the light of day. He was a robust, lively boy, and in time he learned to speak Duala, the language of that country, like a native. He also understood the English lingo of the so-called Kru-negroes who lived in Cameroon as foreign workers.
    [Show full text]