Prosodic Variations and Language Attainment in a Multilingual Society

Prosody is considered to be the higher level of language performance. It is a model of human linguistic output in the speaking aspect. Some rhythmic and vocative distributions of human utterance are determined according to some dynamic rules. This paper considers the structures of stress and phrasing in English and a Nigerian language specifically Yoruba language and tries to identify the linguistic properties that really differentiate them. The speech pattern of two languages cannot be the same. The concern therefore is to know the particular points of differences that could generate an acute impediment to student's proficiency in the use of English as the major official language in Nigeria. The sample for the study consisted of 120 students out of the population of 10870 students of J.S.S class in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Analysis of variance was used to determine the variations among the groups of the local dialects of Yoruba language while t-test was applied to determine the variations that exist between the Received Pronunciation (RP) model of English language and that of Yoruba language. There was a kind of homogeneity among the groups while a remarkable linguistic variation was recorded between the RP and the Local Pronunciation (LP) of English language. It is recommended that more attention must be given to prosody in language teaching programme and procedure over the segmental features.

並列關鍵字

Communication competence ； loudness ； pitch ； performance ； stress ； intonation ； utterance

國際替代計量

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