Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent

Studies on the Nigerian accents of English are yet to provide any empirical account of the handling of hiatus, and little is known about the strategies that Ika speakers of English adopted to resolve it. Therefore, this paper discusses how Educated Ika speakers of English (EISE) handle hiatus and th...

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Main Authors: Melefa, Omotosho Moses, Amoniyan, Oluwasegun Matthew, Egwahor, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2024
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/24424/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/24424/1/TE%2017.pdf
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author Melefa, Omotosho Moses
Amoniyan, Oluwasegun Matthew
Egwahor, Daniel
author_facet Melefa, Omotosho Moses
Amoniyan, Oluwasegun Matthew
Egwahor, Daniel
author_sort Melefa, Omotosho Moses
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Studies on the Nigerian accents of English are yet to provide any empirical account of the handling of hiatus, and little is known about the strategies that Ika speakers of English adopted to resolve it. Therefore, this paper discusses how Educated Ika speakers of English (EISE) handle hiatus and the strategies adopted. A specially prepared text was administered to and read into a tape recorder by 60 EISE from Delta State University, Nigeria, who were selected through a simple random sampling technique to achieve this aim. The recordings were analysed perceptually, acoustically, theoretically, and statistically. The acoustic analysis was done using Praat, version 6.0., while Prince and Smolensky’s Optimality theory (OT) served as the theoretical framework for data analysis. The findings reveal that EISE prohibits hiatus, and the repair strategies adopted by the speakers are consonant epenthesis and vowel elision, respectively. Constraints for the identified strategies are ranked by the participants thus: ONSETWM>> *VV>> INS(C) >>HET-SYLL >> PARSEPF >> DEP-IO>> MAXIO>>IDENT-IO. The study concludes that the handling of hiatus by these participants further provides evidence that Nigerian English accents vary from inner circle accents.
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spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:244242024-10-21T08:01:14Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/24424/ Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent Melefa, Omotosho Moses Amoniyan, Oluwasegun Matthew Egwahor, Daniel Studies on the Nigerian accents of English are yet to provide any empirical account of the handling of hiatus, and little is known about the strategies that Ika speakers of English adopted to resolve it. Therefore, this paper discusses how Educated Ika speakers of English (EISE) handle hiatus and the strategies adopted. A specially prepared text was administered to and read into a tape recorder by 60 EISE from Delta State University, Nigeria, who were selected through a simple random sampling technique to achieve this aim. The recordings were analysed perceptually, acoustically, theoretically, and statistically. The acoustic analysis was done using Praat, version 6.0., while Prince and Smolensky’s Optimality theory (OT) served as the theoretical framework for data analysis. The findings reveal that EISE prohibits hiatus, and the repair strategies adopted by the speakers are consonant epenthesis and vowel elision, respectively. Constraints for the identified strategies are ranked by the participants thus: ONSETWM>> *VV>> INS(C) >>HET-SYLL >> PARSEPF >> DEP-IO>> MAXIO>>IDENT-IO. The study concludes that the handling of hiatus by these participants further provides evidence that Nigerian English accents vary from inner circle accents. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2024-06 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/24424/1/TE%2017.pdf Melefa, Omotosho Moses and Amoniyan, Oluwasegun Matthew and Egwahor, Daniel (2024) Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 30 (2). pp. 280-300. ISSN 0128-5157 https://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/1720
spellingShingle Melefa, Omotosho Moses
Amoniyan, Oluwasegun Matthew
Egwahor, Daniel
Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent
title Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent
title_full Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent
title_fullStr Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent
title_full_unstemmed Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent
title_short Hiatus resolution strategies in a Southern Nigerian English accent
title_sort hiatus resolution strategies in a southern nigerian english accent
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/24424/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/24424/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/24424/1/TE%2017.pdf