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Vowel Reduction in Educated Isoko English
Published 2013Subjects: “…Rhythm…”
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Duration as a Determining Factor in Educated Edo English Rhythm Description
Published 2015Subjects: “…Rhythm units…”
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Page will reload when a filter is selected or excluded.- Duration, the length of time used in speech production, is a significant phonetic stress-related criterion for determining rhythm, which is crucial for intelligibility in Standard British English (SBE). Some phonological studies on Yoruba, Hausa and Isoko Englishes claimed that these sub-varieties of Nigerian English (NE) tilt towards syllable-timing due to the absence of vowel reduction. Nevertheless, existing phonological studies on Educated Edo English (EEE) – a sub-variety of NE – has been on word and variable stress, while studies on its rhythm have been rare. This study, therefore, examined stressed and unstressed syllable alternation and duration of rhythm units in connected speech, to account for the description of EEE speakers as syllable-timed or stressed-timed, and the implication for NE rhythm description. Prince and Liberman‟s metrical theory, which explains the alternation of strong and weak constituents in SBE rhythm units, served as the theoretical framework. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 150 (75 males and 75 females) EEE speakers undergraduates from University of Benin and Ambrose Ali University as key informants. Two SBE speakers served as Native Baselines (NB). Speech Filing System (SFS) version 1.41 was used to record and measure informants‟ production of 35 rhythm units with anacrusis, 40 rhythm units, and 10 English words with syllabic consonants. The recordings were transcribed, subjected to perceptual analysis (frequency and percentages) and complemented with Gibbon and Gut Rhythm Ratio (RR) acoustic measures of 0-100, T-test and Mann Whitney U test at 0.05 level of significance. In rhythm units with anacrusis, perceptual analysis revealed that out of 5,250 overall expected occurrences, EEE speakers appropriately produced all the syllables with strong forms at 900 (17.1%) instances, bringing inappropriate use to 4,350 (82.9%). For rhythm units in connected speech, out of 6,000 expected occurrences, EEE speakers‟ appropriately produced 694 (11.6%), with inappropriate use at 5,306 (88.4%). Regarding the English syllabic consonants, out of 1,500 expected instances of occurrence, EEE speakers had 0.0%. From the perspective of Gibbon and Gut RR acoustic measures, out of 100RR expected absolute value, NB measured 162.97ms in rhythm units, with an overall mean of 81.5RR and a difference of 18.5RR, tilting towards stress-timing while EEE speakers‟ duration in rhythm units was 6166.25ms of 41.1RR, with a difference of 58.9RR tilting towards syllable timing. T-test revealed that there was a significant difference between EEE speakers compared to NB duration (4.571) and RR (81.5), with P-value <0.05 (0.000). Duration of males was 3057.125ms (20.4RR) while the females measured 3110.125ms (20.7RR). Mann Whitney U test showed insignificant difference for gender with P-value > 0.05, (0.482) and RR (0.293) which is greater than 0.05. The metrical analysis of EEE speakers established proliferation of Strong/Strong (S/S) juxtaposition of stressed and unstressed syllable in rhythm units, compared to the NB alternation of Weak/Strong (W/S) or Strong/Weak (S/W). Stressed and unstressed syllable alternation and duration of rhythm units in the connected speech of Educated Edo English speakers‟ do not conform to Standard British English pattern. This implies that Nigerian English rhythm tilts towards syllable-timing than stresstiming 1 results 1
- Educated Edo English 1 results 1
- Educated Isoko English 1 results 1
- Metrical theory 1 results 1
- Pairwise variability index 1 results 1
- Rhythm 1 results 1
- Rhythm units 1 results 1
- Standard British English 1 results 1
- Stressed and unstressed syllable alternation 1 results 1
- Vowel reduction 1 results 1
- Vowel reduction, the weakening of strong vowels to the reduced /ə/ sound, is an essential phenomenon in the rhythm of Standard British English (SBE) and it is claimed to be absent in Nigerian English (NE). Some studies on the phonological features of Yoruba and Hausa Englishes, which are major Nigerian languages, have claimed that vowel reduction does not exist in NE. This is with little or no reference to the small group languages including Educated Isoko English (EIE). Therefore, this study investigated the existence or otherwise of vowel reduction in the rhythm of EIE, a minority sub-variety of Nigerian English, with consideration for age and sex variables. Prince and Liberman‟s Metrical Theory, and Grabe and Low‟s Pairwise Variability Index (PVI) served as the theoretical framework for the study. The subjects, who were EIE speakers accidentally sampled, comprised 50 male and 50 female native Isoko speakers, between ages 20-40 and 41-60 andwere residents in Isokoland. Five SBE speakers served as control. Praat speech analyser version 5.1.11 was used to record 10 controlled English sentences divided into sets A and B as uttered by the subjects. Set A consists of words with only full vowels while Set B has words with both full and reduced vowels. Spontaneous speech data of EIE and SBE were recorded to validate findings from the controlled uttered data. The perceptual analysis of grammatical and content words was done using percentages complemented with metrical, statistical and PVI measures. Instances of vowel duration were also subjected to a one-way ANOVA and Fisher‟s LSD Post-hoc test. Grammatical words showed 4.1% cases of appropriate reduction and 95.9% cases of inappropriate reduction. There were 98.8% instances of inappropriate reduction and 1.2% cases of appropriate reduction in content words. The vowels /a:/, /e/, /ɔ/, /a/, /u/, /o/, /i/, /ɔ:/ were substituted for /ə/ and /i:/, /i/, /e/ for /ɪ/. /a:/ 40.3% and /i/ 71.6% were the highest occurring variants of /ə/ and /ɪ/, respectively. Planned comparisons showed a significant difference between both sets in SBE and between EIE and SBE in Sets B (F[3,16]=11.2, p<0.05). No significant difference emerged between both sets in EIE and between EIE and SBE in Sets A. Also, female speakers‟ high PVIs were significantly higher (F[3,56]=4.5, p<0.05) than the male speakers‟ PVIs in both sets. There was no significant effect between the higher PVIs of ages 20-40 (48.48, 50.68) and the PVIs of ages 41-60 (45.43, 47.51), although the former had higher PVIs than the latter in Set B. The metrical analysis established the presence of strong syllables where there should be weak syllables. The presence or absence of vowel reduction as well as gender sensitivity distinguishes the rhythms of EIE and SBE. Thus, there is no durational variability between full and reduced vowels in EIE, which reveals that vowel reduction is absent; the rhythm of EIE is syllable-based and gender sensitive but age is insignificant. Therefore, this has great implications for the teaching of spoken English in Nigeria. 1 results 1
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