Nigerian English prosody

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Nigerian English prosody

• Sociolinguistics Varieties of English
• Class 8

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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

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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

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Prosody (suprasegmental phonology)
intonational phrase
foot
syllable
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Speech rhythm old approach

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

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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)

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Syllable lengthRhythm Ratio (Gibbon Gut 2001)
d duration of syllable m number of
syllables Value 100 perfect equality of
syllable length
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Vocalic and consonantal intervals

• V, delta C (Ramus et al. 1999)

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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

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Stress and accent

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

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Nigerian English speech rhythm

• syllable-timed rather than stress-timed
  (Udofot 1997)
• adjacent syllables have similar length
• less vowel reduction

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Nigerian English intonation

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

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Nigerian English prosody stress

• Different word stress than in British English
• More accents in free speech (Udofot 1997)

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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?

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Hausa

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

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Igbo

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

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Yoruba

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

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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
• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?

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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

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Analysis
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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

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Subsequent syllable length
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Speech rhythm
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Results Syllabification
syllable types BrEng vs. NigEng
(t(6)4.26plt0.01) open syllables BrEng vs.
NigEng (t(6)2.905,plt0.05)
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4) Intonation

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

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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 H H H L H L H H
• tiger walking remove continued

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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

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5) Sentence Accents

• Accent placement in the story readings
• 4 raters agreement 76
• accent if agreement at least 3 out of 4

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Accents
word stress individual variation phrase-final
accent You dont even like \cheese ... went
to where the mouse \lived
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Word accents

• inTRESting
• emiGRAting
• interPREted

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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?