Oral English: the challenge for Nigerian learners

ORAL ENGLISH: THE CHALLENGE FOR NIGERIAN LEARNERS

GANIU BAMGBOSE

B.Ed English (LASU), M.A English (Ibadan) PhD in view (Ibadan)

INTRODUCTION

English is the most geographically dispersed language in the world. By 1990, it was already used as either mother tongue, second language or foreign language by about 1.5 billion of about 4 billion world population. The place of English in Nigeria cannot be overemphasised. It is the official language, language of mediation in the face of linguistic plurality, language of governance, education, commerce, journalism and so on. It is a language of social importance. It has also been described as the window through which we see the global world. It is important however to mention that Nigerian English is one of the very many varieties of English. It is an offshoot of the British English and it still holds allegiance to it especially in the area of standard pronunciation.

Oral English as an aspect of English study concerns itself with standard pronunciation. This aspect of English has been the most dreaded by Nigerian teachers and learners. This lecture therefore hopes to achieve the following objectives:

Establish the challenges of Nigerian learners and teachers in Oral English

List and discuss the (problematic) sounds in English

Discuss stress as an essential aspect of pronunciation

Practise the pronunciation of certain compound words in English

ENGLISH LETTERS AND SOUNDS: ANY BOUNDARY?

Unlike most Nigerian languages, there is no one to one correspondence between the sounds and letters of English.  The English letters are 26, splitting into 21 consonants and 5 vowels while the sounds are 44, splitting into 24 consonants and 20 vowels. One therefore cannot learn the 44 sounds in the light of the 26 letters as they exhibit sharp contrasts. A deliberate attempt must be made to acquire the sounds distinctly in the manner we acquired the letters.

One source of confusion for most learners of Oral English in Nigeria is the manner in which most Nigerians were introduced to the English language at childhood.  Like in the case of Yoruba where:

A stands for Aja, E for Eye and so on

One sees a correspondence between the letters and the sounds they generate in the words used to illustrate them. Conversely however, we were taught in English that:

A is for Apple, C for cat and E for egg

So we immediately wonder if what is being taught is letter A or sound /æ/, letter C or sound /k/, letter E or sound /e/. (Note, sounds are put in between slashes)

To further establish that the English sounds are different from letters, we find sometimes that certain letters do not exist as sounds and certain sounds do not have graphic representation. C for instance is a letter and can generate four different sounds in English as reflected in the following words:

C in cell /s/

C in cake /k/

C in church / ʧ/

C in machine / ∫ /

It is also noticed that some letters are realized phonologically as two or more sounds as in consonants:

X which is realised by three sounds /eks/ and S which is realized by two sounds /es/.  It is also the case in English that sometimes, we can have a letter and not have its corresponding sound and can also have a sound without having its orthographic equivalence as in the case of letter w and the sound /w/.

The following words vow /vau/, vowel /vauƏl/, towel /tauƏl/, bowel /bauƏl/ tower /tauƏ/ contain the letter w without the sound /w/. On the other hand, one can have the sound /w/ without necessarily having the orthographic w as in the words: one /wʌn/ and linguistics /Iiŋgwistiks/. On this ground, we can safely submit that:

THE LETTERS ARE SEEN WITH THE EYES WHILE THE SOUNDS ARE PROCESSED IN THE HEAD.

THE SOUNDS MUST BE LEARNT DESTINCTLY LIKE THE LETTERS.

WE MUST AVOID PRESENTING THE LETTERS AND SOUNDS TO YOUNG LEARNERS AS IF THEY (THE LETTERS AND THE SOUNDS) HAVE ONE TO ONE CORRESPONDENCE.

Having given an entry knowledge into the learning of Oral English, the subsequent sections will discuss the sounds of English, English as a stress timed language and wrongly pronounced compound words in English.

THE CONSONANT SOUNDS

A consonant is a speech sound produced when there is a radical obstruction of the airstream coming from the lungs. In other words, the production of a consonant involves some constriction or stricture in the vocal tract. The following are the 24 consonant sounds in English:

/ m / map / mæp  /

/p/pat /pæt/

/b/bad /  bæd  /

    /  f /five /  faIv  / , physics /fiziks/

/v/ van /  væn  /

/ Ɵ  / teeth / ti:Ɵ /

/  ð  /  bathe/ beIð /

/ s / sit / sIt  / , basis /beisis/ , kerosene, loose /lu:s/

/  z  / zoom /  zu:m  /, lose /lu:z/

/ t /tin /   tIn   /

/ d /dance /  dants  /

/ l / late /   leIt   /

/ r /river /   rIvƏ/

   /n /nurse /    nз:s   /

/ ∫ /shape /  ∫eIp   /

/ Ʒ /vision /  vIƷn /

/ ʧ  /  church / ʧз:ʧ /

/  ʤ  / judge / ʤʌʤ /

/k/ fake  /  feIk  /

/g/ voiced velar plosive gate /  geIt  /s

/ ŋ /velar nasalking/  kIŋ /

/ h /voiceless glottal fricativehouse/ haʊs /

/ j / palatal  semi-vowelyes/  jes  /

   / w /labiovelar  semi-vowelwet/  wet /

VOWEL SOUNDS

Vowels are the class of sound which makes the least obstruction to the flow of air, (Roach, 2009). They are sounds produced without any (or little) obstruction of the airstream coming from the lungs. The 20 vowel sounds in English which split into 12 monophthong (vowels with single sounds) and 8 diphthong (vowels with two sounds realised as one otherwise called glides) are presented below:

MONOPHTHONGS

/i:/  as in people peak,  police , quay

/I/ as in knit, Monday ,bucket, women

/e/ as in breath, peasant leopard

/ æ / as in man, bag, plait

/a:/ path, card, market, chart

/ ɒ / as in cot, pot, dot

/ ɔ: /  as in sword, short ,port, court

/ ʊ/ as in put, could, foot

/u: / mute, news, broom, frugal, pool

/ ʌ / love, come, southern

/3:/ as in girl, nurse, work, burn

/ Ə / schwa sound

The schwa sound deserves attention as it is to some extent the most important English vowel in relation to correct pronunciation. The schwa sound is the sound that replaces other vowels when they are found in unstressed syllables. IT IS A REDUCED VOWEL.

It is important to mention at this point that English is an intonational language while most Nigerian languages are tonal languages. Tonal languages differentiate words using tone. For instance, Yorubas differentiate the meaning of the polysemous word igba using tone. Depending on tone assignment, the word can mean calabash, period, two hundred and garden egg. The two syllables in the word are assigned equal prominence in all the realisations. In English being an intonational language however, word meaning is uttered by varying stress placement. And the next question is, what is STRESS?

Stress can be considered from two perspectives: production and perceptive. This aligns with the claim of the  phonetic school who describes stress  from the point of view of the speaker who produces the  prominent syllable with a stronger burst of initiatory energy and the listener who acoustically perceives the  stressed  syllable  as being louder, longer in duration and higher in pitch (see Giegerich, Ladefoged2001).  The vowel sound in the other syllables which are not supposed to be so prominent is the schwa sound. The stressed syllable in a word is indicated by the use of a superscript (ꞌ).  Here are some rules that guide stress placement in English:

All mono-syllabic words are stressed on the only syllable: boy, girl, school, big, great

Bi-syllabic words that are nouns and adjectives are stressed on the first syllable: father, teacher, river, better, grateful, certain

Bi-syllabic words that are verbs and adverbs are stressed on the second syllable: declare, remain, inform, away, behind, about

Bi-syllabic words that can function as nouns and verbs stress the first syllable as nouns and the second as verbs: import, export, produce, convict, object, survey.

Bi-syllabic words that can function as nouns and adjectives stress the first syllable as noun and the second as verb: august, minute, expert

Polysyllabic words that end in ic, ion, ial and ian stress the penultimate syllable (i.e, the second syllable from the end) electronic, indication,  ceremonial, technician

Poly-syllabic words that end in phy, cy, al, ical, ogy are stressed on the third syllable from the end: philosophy, democracy, intentional, geographical, apology.

Poly-syllabic words that end in ee, que and ere are stressed on the first syllable from the end: committee, communique, interfere

These rules and more cannot cater for all words in the language but rules with exceptions are better than having to discuss individual words.

PRONOUNCING COMPOUND WORDS

It has been observed that most Nigerians do not pronounce compound words appropriately as they are found to render the first part of the compound with a separate tone. Instances include:

PEPPER SOUP

BED SHEETS

CHEWING GUM

DOWNLOAD

UPDATE

SUPERMAN

PART-TIME

FACEBOOK

FISHERMAN

SUPERMARKET

RIVER JORDAN

BITTER COLA

BEST MAN

GARDEN EGG

It is essential to be mindful of the standard pronunciation of these words and the many others.

Thank you for listening!

© 2018 Ganiu Bamgbose