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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.0 INTRODUCTION & GENERAL OVERVIEW

This research explores phonetic and phonological variation between a native speaker

English accent and a non-native speaker English accent. With special emphasis on how

language convergence and divergence impinge on a speaker‟s intelligibility to a listener,

the study focuses on geographical/regional variation, a sub-field of sociolinguistics; while

its main thrust is variation as a determinant of accent intelligibility.

The study measures the level of understanding between native speakers and non-native

speakers of English. More specifically, it measures the level of understanding between

speakers of the Standard British English accent and the speakers of the Nigerian English

Accent. Both accents – the Standard British English accent (also known as Received

Pronunciation or simply RP) and the Nigerian English Accent – have certain distinctive

speech patterns which demonstrate marked accent variation. Correlation of RP distinctive

speech features and intelligibility to Nigerian listeners is the main aim of the research.

As no accent is homogeneous or without variation, proper contextualization of the accents

which constitute the focus of the study is necessary. Several types of the RP accent have

been identified but the RP accent of interest in this study is the RP accent variety which

constitutes a clustering of features identified by Wells as well as Cruttenden as

mainstream RP (279) and General RP (78) respectively. Other varieties of RP identified

by Wells are U-RP or upper-crust RP, adoptive RP and Near RP. These accents – including

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mainstream RP – share one important social characteristic which is that they are usually

spoken by members of the upper class socio-economic group. However, they differ in

terms of phonetic characteristics, with each accent representing an area within an accent

continuum. In the same way, the Nigerian accent of English is also not homogeneous as

several varieties of it have been identified. Attempts at describing the Nigerian accent of

English include those made by Adetugbo, Brosnahan, Bamgbose, Jibril, Udofot and Banjo.

Of these attempts, Banjo‟s classification is the most often cited and perhaps represents the

most realistic description of the Nigerian accent of English. This is because it is close to

present-day realities of language use in the country. Banjo‟s description identifies Variety

One, Variety Two, Variety Three and Variety Four respectively. However, Variety Three is

the variety on which this study focuses because this is the accent variety used by the group

of Nigerians in which we are interested. These are educated Nigerians at the undergraduate

level who speak a brand of English which Banjo refers to as “the variety of Spoken

Nigerian English which is internationally intelligible and acceptable….the most appropriate

endonormative model” (26).

Generally, intelligibility may be studied across the linguistic levels of grammar, semantics,

lexis and phonetics/phonology. However, speech intelligibility is studied at the linguistic

level of phonetics/phonology where intelligibility is seen as a construct of speech and “the

hearers‟ response is perceived as appropriate only if the linguistic forms which constitute

the speakers‟ utterances are selected appropriately” (Catford 2). The utterances of the RP

speakers represent the linguistic forms, while the hearers‟ perceptions of RP speech forms

constitute the listener‟s response in this study. In line with the intelligibility testing

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framework, both the RP speakers‟ utterances and the Nigerian listeners‟ written responses

are subjected to critical phonological analysis in order to determine instances of

intelligibility failure, identify the RP speech features responsible for instances of

intelligibility failure and most importantly, offer phonological explanations as to why

intelligibility failure occurs. The phonological analysis also enables us calculate the

intelligibility index of the RP speakers‟ accent to Nigerian listeners with the percentage

value being an indication of the number of items in the RP speakers‟ utterances which were

correctly received by the Nigerian listeners. This percentage value therefore represents the

level of intelligibility of RP to Nigerians.

Phonological considerations generally involve segmental and suprasegmental sounds.

Consonants and vowels constitute the segmentals while the suprasegmental sounds include

the features of stress, rhythm and intonation. This research explores the realizational

qualities of the segmental sounds of RP through the examination of RP monophthongs,

diphthongs, triphthongs and consonants. Beyond the segments, the impact of the

superimposed features of stress, rhythm and intonation are also investigated. These aspects

of RP accent phonology are examined in the study with a view to determining their effect

on intelligibility. They are similar to dependent variables, manipulated to discover their

influence, if any, on the independent variable which in this case is intelligibility. Some

other features of RP speech such as excessive reduction of unstressed syllables and certain

phonological processes which are known to affect intelligibility are also tested for their

effect on the Nigerian listeners‟ level of understanding. Speaker‟s gender and listener

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familiarity with accent are two extra-linguistic factors known to affect intelligibility. These

variables are also explored in order to determine their influence on speech intelligibility.

The instrument designed for the study comprises four tests representing aspects of RP

segmental and suprasegmental phonology. The administration of these tests produces both

quantitative and qualitative data which are subsequently analyzed using suitable statistical

procedures. Qualitative analyses are done through correlations of the RP speakers‟

recordings and the Nigerian listeners‟ responses. On the basis of the analysis,

interpretations are made and general conclusions drawn on the intelligibility level of the RP

accent to Nigerians. Specific statements are also made on peculiar characteristics of RP

which constitute intelligibility problems for Nigerians.

1.2 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

1.2.1 Language Variation

Nearly everyone who uses and listens to other people use language has experienced

variability in language across several dimensions. However, the consciousness of this

experience seems to be most noticeable among phoneticians and linguists generally who

have identified that language variation occurs across the dimensions of time, style, social

space and geographical space, while variations in language are studied across the structural

levels of grammar, lexis/vocabulary and phonology. The dimensions and structural levels

of language variation are considered in the section below.

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Linguists have generally acknowledged that the dimension of time is an ideal platform for

the observation of language variation. Studies based on this dimension involve the adoption

of time as an independent variable whose effects on linguistic and extra-linguistic variables

are then investigated. Two main approaches of language variation in time are the

diachronic (real time) and the synchronic (apparent time) dimensions (Fasold 56). While

diachronic studies make observations of language use among similar populations over

intervals of many years, synchronic studies observe language use by different age groups at

the same time. Examples of language varieties on the basis of the time dimension include

Old English, Middle English and Shakespearean English.

Another level of the observation of language variation is the dimension of style.

Considerable discrimination is usually exhibited in language use depending on the degree

of familiarity between the participants in a conversation. Observations of stylistic variation

are usually dependent on the manipulation of style as an independent variable in which

linguistic variants correlate with a range of speech styles spanning formal to casual style.

Established stylistic varieties that are routinely employed are word list style (the most

formal), reading passage style, interview style and casual style which is the most informal

(SP 80).However, the formal and informal stylistic varieties are the observable forms in

natural human interactions. An illustration is the use of man rather than guy where the

former is indicative of formal speech and the latter of informal speech. High fluency and

proper articulation also characterize formal speech situations while utterances are more

rapid and filled with more phonological assimilations and coalescences in informal

situations such as those involving interacting with family and close friends. Another

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linguistic cue of highly formal speech is the pronunciation of the indefinite article „a‟ as

with being more common in casual speech.

Two types of space may be identified in linguistics: social space and geographical space.

The two form an important element of spatiality and cannot exist independently of one

another (Britain 620). This is because geographic space is the environment occupied by the

human settlements that appropriate the space. The natural consequences of this

appropriation are observable on the occupied geographical space in the form of language

and other characteristics of human interaction. Inequalities in the distribution of wealth,

priviledge and opportunity is a feature of human communities which results in the creation

of social classes. Although social class structure is not always clearly delineated in all

societies, the most common social class divisions are upper class, middle class and working

class, with the divisions usually based on the indices of occupation, income, education and

education. Apart from social class structure, other social attributes of human communities

include sex, age and ethnicity. Thus, in any linguistic analysis which employs any of these

socially significant factors as the independent variable, varieties or sociolects may be

identified. Some sociolects relate to sex/gender while others relate to the age of the

speaker. An example of a class-related speech feature is the use of rather than for

-ing words among native speakers of English. For instance also, a creaky or tremulous

voice quality and lower voice pitch are usually indicative of an aged man or woman.

Differences in vowel patterns among different generations of speakers of the same accent

can also be observed.

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The inter-relatedness of the dimensions of social and geographical space can be observed

through the differentiation of language occasioned by social and physical factors. Other

social processes including migration, urbanization, labour indentation, colonization

etcetera, also influence the innovation and spread of linguistic features across Euclidean or

geometric space (Britain 615).

One contingent effect of the aforementioned social factors and physical processes on

human communities is variation in language. Thus, politically-motivated boundary

constructions pervade all modern human communities and explaining the linguistic

significance behind such reformations of the geographical landscape is the goal of geo-

linguists. The identification and description of spatial or geographical varieties constitute

the main findings of this sub-discipline of linguistics. Examples of spatial or geographical

varieties which may be equated to national and regional associations include British

English, American English, Caribbean English, and Nigerian English. Each of these

national varieties has features which differentiate them, one from the other. For example,

the use of the voiced inter-vocalic /t/ (in better, pity, bottom) usually identifies a speaker as

an American while syllable-timed speech rhythm may be associated with African speech.

In order to make adequate statements about language, the linguist often makes reference to

a set of approaches referred to as levels of analysis. Based on different types of features of

language, the approaches are phonology and grammar, following the main activities of

language which are speaking and writing. Grammar is concerned with the formal patterning

and arrangement of the written form of language while phonology examines the patterning

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and arrangement of the phonetic features of language. However, the study of language

variation includes other fields as it also considers the levels of lexis/vocabulary and

semantics. These levels correspond to the lexical aspect of language and meaning

respectively.

Variation in language across the dimensions of time, style, social space and geographical

space as well as across the linguistic levels of grammar, lexis/vocabulary, semantics and

phonology gives rise to dialects. Dialect comprises the patterns of grammar, vocabulary,

semantics and sounds of a language while the sounds alone constitute the accent. Based on

a geographical classification, dialects of English include Scottish dialect, Irish dialect,

Northern England dialect, Indian dialect, Malaysian dialect etcetera. These in turn have

sub-dialects that are representative of particular speech communities which have common

speech features. While on one hand, dialect comprises the patterns of grammar, vocabulary

and semantics of a language, on the other hand, accent is the totality of the sound system of

a language or language variety, comprising the phonemic contrasts and the tone group. In

other words, while dialect refers to varieties distinguished from each other by differences

of grammar and vocabulary etcetera, accent refers to variations in pronunciation alone.

Examples of accents of English include Indian accent, West African accent, French accent

and Black American accent. In a similar vein, these accents also have sub-accents that are

representative of particular speech communities with common norms of pronunciation.

Therefore, the phonemic contrasts and tone group features of an accent which constitute the

pronunciation serve as the platform on which one may observe the phenomenon of accent

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variation. This may lead one to ask the question: why does accent variation occur? In an

attempt at providing an explanation for accent variation within English, Wells argued that:

[T]he phenomenon of language change is the fundamental reason

responsible for accent variation. English pronunciation changes as

time passes; and the developments which have arisen and become

established in different places and among different social groups have

not been identical (94).

Wells‟ argument may be said to provide an adequate explanation of the nature of accent

variation within English as it not only identifies the relationship between the major

dimensions of time, place and accent variation but it also highlights how the interplay of all

these factors leads to differences in accents. The awareness of the fact that English

pronunciation has changed over the years as earlier pronunciation patterns have been

modified and new ones adopted, provides evidence that the factors of time, social and

geographical factors do lead to changes in pronunciation. The causal effect of language

change and accent variation is further established by two postulations which explain how

innovations in pronunciation not only arise but also spread. They are the theory of least

effort and the naturalness of segments. Lindblom (367) establishes this link through the

theory of least effort or the H&H theory. The theory provides an explanation for “new

pronunciation patterns which occur as a result of the tendency to pronounce words and

sentences in a way which involves the minimum of articulatory effort consistent with the

need to maintain adequate communication” (415). This results in what is known as hypo or

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under articulation which is the deletion of consonants and vowels & reduced articulatory

gestures (co-articulation of consonants and vowels). An example of this tendency is

consonant deletion resulting in the loss of historical /r/ in certain environments in some

accents: e.g. to pronounce start as without /r/ is simpler than to pronounce it as

.

The nature of the segments in an accent also affects the extent of variation which the

accent may have. Wells points out that differences occur in accents as languages constantly

work towards naturalness (95). This implies that less natural segments have a tendency to

be modified towards more natural pronunciation. Segment types which are more natural

than others include those learnt earlier by children and those found more widely in the

languages of the world. For example, a pronunciation change involving modification

towards a more natural segment is the dark /l/ which occurs in certain positions. In many

areas, this variant of /l/ is now pronounced with lip rounding which results in a more

natural segment type. In this way, the interplay of several factors contributes to the

development of changes in pronunciation and hence accent variation.

1.2.2 Varieties of English in the British Isles

The heterogeneous nature of accent variation may be illustrated using the array of spoken

English varieties that exist in the United Kingdom of Great Britain/British Isles. A first-

time visitor to this group of islands is immediately aware that the varieties of English there

are as widely varied as the English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish inhabitants of the islands.

Linguistic reconstruction has helped to identify the language family from which these

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accents of English are derived as the Indo-European family and Germanic sub-family of

languages. Thus, this dialect of English has its original home on the group of islands known

as the British Isles. Located off the North West coast of Europe, the islands include Great

Britain, (the largest), Ireland and over one thousand smaller islands. The island of Great

Britain is divided into Scotland in the North, England to the South and Wales to the West.

The island of Ireland is divided into the Republic of Ireland in the south and the six

counties of Northern Ireland in the north. England, with a population of about 51.2 million

has the lion share of an estimated 61.7 million for the entire United Kingdom comprising

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Crystal 68). With a highly industrialized

economy, it is the largest economy of the four countries of the United Kingdom. London as

the political, legal, administrative and commercial centre of the UK also occupies a crucial

position in the linguistic landscape of England because it is home to a major spoken

English variety.

Based on a linguistic rather than geographical classification, two major language varieties

have been identified in England namely: North of England and South of England varieties.

This classification serves to further emphasize the North-South dichotomy which has

pervaded the consciousness of Britons from the eighteenth century till present and which

also formed the discourse of a number of nineteenth-century novels which are regarded as

social commentaries regarding this period. Described by Mugglestone as “prime signifier

of the social divide” (96), these novels include Gaskell‟s North and South, Dickens‟ Hard

Times and Benjamin Disraeli‟s Sybil. Commenting on the latter for instance, Disraeli

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describes: “two nations… who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different

food, and are ordered by different manners” (Mugglestone 84)

Besides the two major North/South classifications, minor varieties which are a sub-set of

the North and South varieties have been identified in Hughes, Trudgill and Watt as follows:

North-east, Central north, Central Lancashire, Merseyside, Humberside, North-west

Midlands, East Midlands, West Midlands, South Midlands, East south-west, West south-

west, South-east and East Anglia (70). From these areas arise regional varieties such as

London English, Norwich English, Bristol English, Liverpool English etcetera. However,

in line with the characteristic nature of language variation in general, the varieties listed

above are not distinct spoken varieties as such but exist on a continuum with each accent

consisting of inter-related pronunciation features.

Aside from a regional classification such as that presented above, socially stratified

varieties of English originating from the social class divisions of the 17th century can also

be identified within England as follows: Upper class, Upper middle class, Middle class,

Lower middle class, Upper working class, working class, Lower working class and

Underclass (Hughes, Trudgill and Watt op cit.). Factors such as home, attitudes, clothing,

mannerisms, occupation, position, education and speech determined this assessment. In

England, at the uppermost rung of the social ladder are the title holders of nobility and their

relatives, some with substantial inherited wealth, while individuals reliant on state benefits

for income are those at the lowest rung, forming the underclass. The characteristic fluidity

within the regional varieties is also present in the social class varieties as it can be observed

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that many individuals do not stay within particular social classes throughout their lives.

Movements in and out of social classes occur due to changes in occupation, financial

circumstances and social standing and these also tend to affect speech characteristics. The

aspirations of members of the lower classes for upward mobility in terms of economic

circumstance also occurs in language use as the stigmatized features of the speech of the

lower classes is often abandoned in favour of the prestige speech of the members of the

upper classes. However, despite these aspirations, it is not always possible to erase lower

class speech features from the speech of upper-class speakers. To the discerning therefore,

when an Englishman speaks, it is usually possible to identify his/her geographical origin

and social status.

However, at the apex of these regional and social class varieties of English within England

is a regionless spoken English variety with origins in the south-west of England named

Received Pronunciation (RP).Thus, the earlier reference to the Standard British English

accent, refers to the totality of the phonemic contrasts and tone group associated with this

accent (Received Pronunciation). This accent is spoken in England and is also variously

referred to as BBC English (British Broadcasting Corporation English), Standard English,

Southern British Standard, and Public School Pronunciation (PSP). It is more commonly

referred to “talking proper or “talking posh” (Mugglestone 209).

Received Pronunciation (abbreviated RP) is the name with which linguists generally refer

to this accent. Received in this name refers to the nineteenth-century sense of the accent as

“accepted in the most polite circles of society” (Ramsaran 47) . RP is said to be regionless

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because even though it is historically linked with the speech of London and surrounding

areas, it is not the accent of any particular region. This is due to its propagation by the UK

public schools which are in practically every region of England. Thus, RP is linked with

public school education, being the accent of those educated at these elite private schools

which are beyond the means of many parents. The elitist nature of RP is probably why it is

the model taught to foreign learners of British English. It is also the most widely used

accent among the British Broadcasting Network (BBC) newsreaders, the most widely

understood accent within England, the most thoroughly described English accent and the

accent of the British colonial officers of the sixteenth century.

1.2.2 The Development of the Nigerian English Accent (NEA)

The phenomenon of language variation which explains the existence of varieties such as

RP mentioned above is a linguistic situation which is sometimes further complicated by

language spread. Language varieties which have been created by such complex interplay of

factors include national and regional varieties of English such as American English,

Caribbean English, Singaporean English, South African English and Nigerian English. Of

particular interest in this study is Nigerian English whose origins can be traced to the

British colonial explorations of the sixteenth century.

The spread of English beyond its native shores to Nigeria and other former colonies of

Britain has been well documented by several scholars (cf. in South Asia by Kachru; in

Africa by Spencer; and in the West Indies by Craig). The spread of the language in these

regions has led to the development of dialects of the English language referred to as non-

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native dialects. These are dialects of English which are used by non-native speakers of

English. The English language is not just spreading fast in former colonies of Britain but it

is also spreading fast in China, the former Soviet Republic and even the Arab world where

it is used for specific purposes such as education and international communication. Kachru

represents the global profile and overwhelming presence of English across the world in a

model referred to as the Concentric circles of English (47). The model comprises three

concentric circles which reflect the nature and roles of the English language in countries

around the world. The model provides examples of Inner Circle countries where English

is the mother tongue ( i.e. USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand); Outer Circle

countries are those where English has been transplanted as a result of colonialism and the

language functions as a second and official language (i.e. Nigeria, Ghana, Malaysia,

Zimbabwe, Singapore, Bangladesh) and the Expanding Circle countries where English is

strictly learnt as a foreign language ( i.e. China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Caribbean

countries). „Expanding‟ refers to the increasing number of countries adopting the language

for the purpose of international communication.

In a detailed description of the nature of English in these countries, Kachru refers to the

pluricentricity of these Englishes to reflect the gradual development of new local centres

for authentication of the models and norms of acquisition, teaching, and creativity of non-

native Englishes (31). Further analysis classifies the users of English into two distinct types

– the norm providing and the norm depending. Two levels of norm-providers are

recognized as L1 and L2 norm-providers for Inner Circle and Outer Circle norms

respectively while the Expanding Circle countries are the norm dependents. In the Outer

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and Expanding Circle countries where there was already a language or even several in

existence before the introduction of the English language, accent variation is even more

complex due to bilingualism and multilingualism. The sociolinguistic implications of such

contact between languages include the nativization and acculturation of the English

language in the new environments and this has led to the emergence of distinct varieties of

the language with different national and regional names such as Indian English,

Singaporean English, Ghanaian English, Chinese English, and Nigerian English.

The process of the emergence of the Nigerian variety of English is not unlike what takes

place in other language contact situations where numerous indigenous languages co-exist

with the English language. In Nigeria, interference is another consequence of language

contact which plays a crucial role in shaping the characteristics of this second language

variety of English. These interference features occur at every level of language description,

but are perhaps most noticeable at the phonological level where these peculiar features

characterize the accent. Mother tongue interference features are further complicated by the

improper teaching methods adopted by a majority of second language teachers which

either: (a) assume that there is no need to teach listening comprehension to students, or (b)

teach the four basic principles for acquisition of language proficiency in reverse order. The

second method involves the teaching of writing skills or spelling of words first, followed

by reading passages/poems and then the student is encouraged to speak. In this way, the

typical order of listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW), which is the order

unconsciously adopted when learning the mother tongue, is reversed. This technique has

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also often produced individuals who are very proficient in the writing of English but lack

similar levels of oracy.

This peculiar ordering and interference features are some of the factors responsible for the

evolution of this accent leading to characteristics which make it unique and different from

its British counterpart. However, similar to RP, the totality of the phonemic contrasts and

tone group associated with the educated variety of English spoken in Nigeria constitutes the

Nigerian English Accent (NEA). It is against this backdrop of language variation that we

intend to investigate the topic: Intelligibility of the Standard British English accent to

Nigerians.

1.3 RESEARCH PROBLEM

In recorded history, the present global spread and use of English is unparalled. An estimate

provided by Crystal of the number of English speakers is about two billion (8). Year 2001

estimates provided by Crystal puts Inner Circle/native speaker population at 380 million

while the Outer circle and Expanding circle populations are put at 500 million and 1,000

million respectively (61).

This global spread of the English language in terms of use and characteristics has resulted

in concerns over the issue of maintaining mutual intelligibility between diverse speakers of

the language (Christophersen, Kachru, Munro, van der Walt, and Rajadurai). The most

recent of these concerns have made calls for rigorous comparisons and contrasting of native

and non-native accents with a view to assisting interlocutors achieve communication goals.

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These concerns have been voiced in relation to all the dimensions of language study but the

achievement of intelligibility is perhaps most crucial at the level of phonetics/phonology

where variation is most noticeable.

The imperative of achieving speech intelligibility in communication can only be grasped in

light of the current critical situation among speakers of different accents of English.

Sometimes, variation between accents is so marked that speakers of different accents of

English have even imagined their interlocutor to be speaking another language entirely and

not merely another accent of English. Numerous instances of misunderstanding have been

observed and while some of the incidents are hilarious (Smith and Christopher 92-3,

Shockey 119); others are serious, sometimes leading to disastrous consequences (Brown 1,

Atechi 60, Rocha 98). An example of a funny incident arising out of intelligibility failure is

that narrated by Smith and Christopher (op cit.) in which Salmon Rushdie‟s wife, an

English woman met an Indian intellectual on the train. They were both conversing in

English but each thought the other was speaking another language. The traumatic

experience of a 19-year-old Dutch undergraduate has also been narrated. After studying

English for 6 years at a grammar school and 1 year at a Dutch university, this student went

to England for the first time and had to ask for directions to the bus station from a porter.

However, he could not understand a single word the porter said to him. Brown also

reported that in England, “many overseas students are unable to understand English as

spoken by university and college lecturers, sometimes to such an extent that they give up

their course of studies” (1). One tragic consequence of lack of intelligibility and what is

possibly the most deadly accident in aviation history occurred in the year 1977. In this

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incident which occurred on the Spanish island of Tenerife, 583 people lost their lives in an

air crash because the airport traffic controller and a German pilot did not understand each

other even though they were both speaking English. This incident led to major

communication and language training reforms in the airline industry.

Other scholars have even gone beyond merely expressing concerns over the issue of

maintaining mutual intelligibility between speakers of different varieties to suggesting that

English is undergoing a process of radical change which will eventually “lead to

fragmentation of the language into a family of languages” (McAuthur 39). This is

suggestive of the devolvement of the Romance languages (i.e. French, Italian, Spanish,

Portuguese and Romanian) from popular Latin.

While the same process of radical diversification may not yet have occurred between RP

and the Nigerian accent of English (NEA), there are variations between the two accents

which may affect intelligibility. These differences have been highlighted in relation to the

unique features of the NEA. Areas of divergence of the NEA from RP have also been well

documented. These areas of variation are well documented by scholars such as Adetugbo,

Awonusi, Udofot, Jowitt, Banjo and Bamgbose. Unique features of NEA which

differentiate it from RP have been identified by these scholars and are listed as follows: a

reduced vowel system, a reduced intonation system, non-differentiation in some aspects of

length, absence of glottalization in some contexts, the voicing of non-voiced consonant

endings, the insertion of vowels in syllabic consonants, the insertion of epenthetic vowels

in some consonant clusters, substitution of alveolar fricatives for interdental fricatives

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etcetera. These are features which characterize the Nigerian accent of English and lead to

intelligibility problems between speakers of the NEA and their interlocutors who may not

be familiar with the accent. Tiffen‟s 1974 study of the intelligibility of Nigerian English

identified some of these features as constituting intelligibility problems between Nigerian

speakers and British listeners. In other countries, intelligibility studies have measured the

level of intelligibility of non-native speakers to native speakers of the English language.

Bansal on Indian English, Elalani on Jordanian English, and van der Walt on South African

English are a few examples. The main aim of these studies is usually to make

recommendations for the second language learner in order to improve the level of

intelligibility to the native speaker. The outcome of such studies is usually a description of

second language speech as “annoying and burdensome” to the native speaker, thereby

focusing on the native speaker as the listener-judge and ascribing to him a higher rank in a

subtle hierarchical ordering of the communication process (Elalani 84). Another example

of condemnation of non-native English speech is a commentary on the English

pronunciation of a black Namibian newsreader that: “[H]e mispronounced almost every

word, messed up almost every sentence, and sent my blood pressure roaring with every un-

understandable news item” (Harlech-Jones 276).

As true as the positions above are that lack of proficiency often hampers the speech of the

second language speaker, anecdotal evidence does suggest that non-native speakers have as

many difficulties understanding native speakers as the native speakers have being

understood by the non-native speakers. However, many studies on intelligibility have not

considered a reversal of the communication process in which the native speaker is the

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speaker and the educated non-native speaker, the listener and judge of intelligibility. Even

more specifically, none that we know of has considered the level of intelligibility of any

native speaker accent to Nigerians. There is often no consideration of the difficulties which

the Nigerian L2 speaker faces in understanding native speaker RP speech. This study

attempts to examine intelligibility from a different (non-native speaker/Nigerian)

perspective based on the following assumptions:

a. That variation exists between the Standard British English accent and the Nigerian

English accent.

b. That as accent variation leads to problems of intelligibility in face to face

communication involving Nigerian speakers and British listeners, it will also lead to

intelligibility problems in face to face communication involving British speakers

and Nigerian listeners.

c. Empirical research has revealed that non-native speakers (not Nigerians) do not

always find native speakers highly intelligible showing that native speaker

phonology is not inherently intelligible. (Smith and Rafiqzad, Bent and Bradlow,

Munro, Deterding & Kirkpatrick, Gupta ). This may also be true with Nigerians.

There is a need for this study in view of the crucial role of the RP accent as the

pronunciation model in Nigeria. It is hoped that this study will explore this area as there is

presently a dearth of research in this field.

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1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

In exploring how speakers of the Standard British English accent and Nigerians negotiate

intelligibility in the face of accent variation, this study is guided by the following

objectives:

1. To measure the general intelligibility of the Received Pronunciation accent to

Nigerians and identify the features which determine intelligibility.

2. To establish the extent to which intelligibility of RP to Nigerians is affected by the

segmental features of the Standard British English accent (RP).

3. To ascertain the influence of the nuclear/emphatic stress features employed by RP

speakers on intelligibility of the accent to Nigerians.

4. To investigate how intelligibility is influenced by the intonation contours employed

by the speakers of RP at the suprasegmental level of phonological analysis.

5. To explore the impact of accent familiarity on intelligibility negotiation between

speakers of the Standard British English accent (RP) and Nigerians.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following questions have been formulated to guide the exploration of the

sociolinguistic and intelligibility issues central to this study.

1. What is the intelligibility level of the Standard British English accent (RP) to

Nigerians and what features determine it?

2. To what extent do the segmental features of the Standard British English accent

(RP) determine its speakers‟ degree of intelligibility to Nigerians?

23

3. Do the nuclear stress patterns of the Standard British English accent (RP) affect the

degree of its speakers‟ intelligibility to Nigerians?

4. To what degree do the intonation features employed by the speakers of the Standard

British English accent (RP) affect its speakers‟ intelligibility to Nigerians? (at the

suprasegmental level of phonological analysis).

5. What is the impact of the Nigerian listeners‟ extent of familiarity with the Standard

British English accent (RP) on the degree of intelligibility?

1.6 SCOPE & LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The range of disciplines covered by this study includes intelligibility, sociolinguistics and

phonetics/phonology. Catford provides a broad view of intelligibility as “level of

understanding” (3). However, as understanding may take place at various levels, further

delimitation is necessary to enable us specify the precise issues covered by the study.

Three categories of understanding which may take place in communication are identified

by Smith and Nelson (429) as follows:

(a) word/utterance recognition;

(b) word/utterance meaning; and

(c) meaning behind word/utterance.

This study is concerned with the first category of word/utterance recognition which on the

continuum of intelligibility corresponds to phonological intelligibility. The other categories

involve other levels of language study which roughly correspond to semantics and

pragmatics.

24

Phonological intelligibility is the area of intelligibility testing which involves the use of

particular vowel or consonant sounds and particular rhythmic, intonational and other

prosodic features. It also includes the structural and systemic interrelationships between

them and the phonological representations of the rules governing the relations between all

these features of an individual or a group‟s pronunciation. These pronunciation features

constitute accent which in this study involves two accents of English: the Standard British

English accent (RP) and the accent of English used by educated Nigerians (NEA).

Extra-linguistic variables such as age, sex, socio-economic class, educational background

and educational attainment are some of the factors which are relevant to the study and

therefore necessitated the introduction of certain themes in the realm of sociolinguistic

theory for adequate explication. These themes are explored by focusing on a specific social

and linguistic group in a university in England and another in Nigeria, the two locations of

the research study. The undergraduate level of education was selected as the educational

level of interest in order to achieve a parallel comparison of both societies. Besides the

appeal to qualitative sociolinguistics, the quantitative nature of intelligibility studies is also

explored as the objective framework of intelligibility testing rather than the subjective is

used for data generation, analysis and interpretation. The objective framework involves

assigning numerical values to various test materials on the segmental and suprasegmental

features of RP speech which were designed for the study. The combination of both the

quantitative and qualitative modes of analysis and interpretation not only emphasizes the

25

interdisciplinary nature of the study, it also reveals previously unexplored areas on

intelligibility of this native speaker accent of English to Nigerians.

The findings of this study may have certain limitations with regards to the veracity of

claims of the subjects concerning their parents‟ educational level as there was no way of

verifying the truthfulness or falsity of the information supplied in the questionnaires.

However, it is assumed that the rigorous pre-selection tests which successful informants

were required to undergo is adequate enough to overcome such limitations. Another

measure that was taken to overcome this observer‟s paradox is that the subjects were

reassured of their anonymity as they were instructed not to supply their individual

identities.

1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study differentiates itself from most studies in the field of intelligibility research

because it represents a change in perspective from the previous view of intelligibility as a

concept which may be examined only from a native speaker viewpoint. The traditional

view of intelligibility has a subtle suggestion of the linguistic superiority of native speaker

English accents over non-native English accents in the hierarchical order of the

communication process. By attempting to judge the level of intelligibility of a native

speaker English accent such as RP through the examination of the responses of Nigerians, a

unique attempt is made to examine the process of communication from a Nigerian

perspective. This study is necessary in view of the insights offered by this substitution of

roles which serves to reveal the nature of intelligibility negotiation between speakers of RP

26

and speakers of the Nigerian English accent, with the educated Nigerian non-native speaker

of English playing the role of listener and hence judge of intelligibility.

The study further distinguishes itself from other studies due to its establishment of gender

as a viable variable in native/non-native speaker communication. The study goes beyond

the correlation of socio-economic, linguistic, educational background and educational

attainment alone with intelligibility. It attempts to establish the link between gender and

intelligibility in relation to the peculiarities of RP and the Nigerian English accent.

In addition to this, the study gives due cognizance to the present unprecedented migration

of Nigerians to the United Kingdom and seeks to examine the effect this may have on

intelligibility. Therefore, several Nigerians living in the United Kingdom were selected to

represent Nigerian Diasporic dwellers in the UK who form a significant population. This

enables us examine the effect of accent familiarity on intelligibility. This correlation of

listener factors with intelligibility from a Nigerian perspective reveals the effects of listener

factors (which are external to the speaker) on intelligibility.

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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 INTRODUCTION

Having established the basis for this study in the introductory chapter, a review of relevant

literature and authourities on intelligibility will now be attempted. Relevant works relating

to the concept as well as aspects of previous studies on the intelligibility are examined in

this chapter. Factors affecting intelligibility are also discussed while the chapter is

concluded with a consideration of descriptions of the Nigerian accent of English.

2.1 SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY

Intelligibility, like any other concept in language is controversial in nature. This seems to

be due to a lack of consensus among scholars on appropriate terminologies for the

explication of the concept. Jenkins for example, acknowledges that: “there is as yet no

broad agreement on a definition of the term intelligibility: it can mean different things to

different people” (149).

However, the ambiguity involved in the use of the terminologies may be simplified by

reconciling the various definitions with different levels of linguistic analysis. On that basis,

it becomes obvious that the different terminologies such as „effectiveness‟,

„comprehension‟, „word/utterance recognition‟, „interpretability‟ etcetera, seem to have

been employed to refer to basically the same notion. In the following section, major works

that employ various terminologies and definitions are reviewed in relation to the

28

dimensions of linguistic analysis to enable us determine the specific level to which they

belong.

Catford identifies the steps towards the achievement of intelligibility between a native

speaker of a language and a non-native speaker as follows:

Step 1: Selection of appropriate words, morphological and syntactic systems and the

appropriate sounds by a speaker.

Step 2: Execution of the selected forms through the production of an utterance.

Step 3: The transmission of sound through the physical medium.

Step 4: Discrimination between perceived sounds and the sounds of the listener‟s

own language. A failure in identification occurs if the hearer fails to

distinguish between two sounds that are auditorily similar but affect

meaning.

Step 5: Correct interpretation of the message by the association of the linguistic

forms with the appropriate elements in the situation. Correct interpretation is

demonstrated by making a correct response. If the listener‟s response to the

utterance is not in accordance with the expected response, then a failure in

interpretation has occurred.

Catford also argues for the crucial role of linguistic and situational context in the

attainment of intelligibility. Linguistic context is described as: „…the given form of a word

which consists of the words or other linguistic forms with which it is associated or

surrounded‟ while situational context is “everything else in the situation which is relevant

29

to the speech act…includes, therefore, not only the speaker and the hearer themselves, and

their relative positions and actions at the moment of utterance… but, the hearer‟s linguistic

background and experience, his educational and cultural background, etc”.(13)

Furthermore, Catford distinguishes between a „lower threshold‟, „a medium threshold‟ and

a „higher threshold‟ of intelligibility. A hearer‟s threshold of intelligibility is defined as the

point on a scale at which a speaker‟s utterance in a given context becomes completely

intelligible for that hearer.

Regarding the use of terminology, Catford uses the terms „intelligibility‟ and

„effectiveness‟ to describe the process of communication. However, „intelligibility‟ is

involved from the first stage up to the fourth stage out of the five stages discussed above,

i.e. the stages of selection of linguistic forms, execution of linguistic forms, transmission

from speaker to hearer and hearer‟s identification of linguistic forms. The utterance is said

to be „effective‟ only if the last stage of the process which involves the hearer‟s

interpretation of the linguistic forms is achieved.

Although Catford distinguished between intelligibility and effectiveness: „the effectiveness

of an utterance …is not identical with what is usually meant by the term intelligibility‟, it is

not clear why it is included in the process of communication given the following reasons.

First, the speaker may be quite intelligible to the hearer, but the hearer may be unable to

make the appropriate response due to certain limitations. Secondly, the hearer may

willfully make inappropriate responses even though the speaker was perfectly intelligible.

30

That „intelligibility‟ may occur without effectiveness being achieved shows that

effectiveness is outside the realm of intelligibility. It belongs, perhaps in pragmatics

because it was stated that it depends on extra-linguistic factors for its attainment.

A more practical viewpoint of intelligibility is provided by Smith and Rafiqzad which is

rather different from Catford‟s perspective. In what is possibly the largest empirical study

of intelligibility, Smith and Rafiqzad investigated the validity of the proposition that the

educated native speaker of English is more likely to be more intelligible than the educated

non-native speaker. The research spanned eleven countries and involved 1,386 people from

Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, The Phillipines, Sri Lanka, USA,

Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand. Collaborators were employed

from these countries to choose educated speakers of English between the ages of 20 and 40.

Other criteria used for the selection is that none of the participants had: (1) spent more than

four consecutive months in any English speaking country; (2) been formally educated in

schools directed by native speakers of English; or (3) ever lived with English speaking

families or groups.

Each speaker was taped while giving a ten minute speech to a group of 10 educated fellow

countrymen. A cloze procedure test of the speech was then prepared and every sixth word

in the passage was deleted. This passage was then presented to the listeners along with a

questionnaire to test listening comprehension. The conclusion was that the native speaker

was not always the most easily understood person.

31

Due to the empirical nature of this work, the notion of intelligibility which is proposed

seems to be practical in orientation. It is closely related to the research design of the study.

It is stated that “the operational definition for intelligibility is capacity for understanding a

word or words when spoken/read in the context of a sentence being spoken/read at natural

speed” (371). Therefore, the more words the listeners were accurately able to fill in on the

cloze test, the higher the speaker‟s intelligibility.

The three concepts of „intelligibility‟ and „comprehension‟ and „understanding‟ are used

interchangeably in the study as it is initially argued that “we realise that the greater the

comprehension of the context material, the more likely intelligibility will occur” and also

that “…the difficulty rank ordering correlated highly with the rank ordering of both

intelligibility and understanding” (375). Also, the questionnaire presented to the listeners

along with the cloze test was to test how the results from this questionnaire would compare

with the intelligibility results of the cloze procedure test. This further shows that to them,

intelligibility and comprehension are closely related. However, a somewhat contrary

opinion is expressed thus: “we feel comprehension involves a great deal more than

intelligibility” (367). This statement appears to be contradictory as no definition or

description of comprehension is offered anywhere in the study. The lack of adequate

description makes it difficult to ascertain the level of linguistic analysis each of the notions

refers to. But it seems that it may be safely assumed that both „intelligibility‟ and

„understanding‟ correspond to phonological and grammatical intelligibility while

„comprehension‟ belongs with semantics which involves another level of analysis.

32

Another empirical study which provides a definition of intelligibility which is related to the

methodology is that conducted by Munro and Derwing. They employed three terms,

„accentedness‟, „comprehensibility‟ and „intelligibility‟ and attempted to measure the

interrelationships among them through an examination of second language speech. The

study involved 18 native speakers of English and 10 Mandarin speakers of English. The

Mandarin speakers were presented with a page of cartoon and asked to describe the events

depicted within a sound-treated room. Short excerpts of their speech was then extracted and

presented to the 18 native speakers. All the speakers had some linguistic or phonetics

training. This was done deliberately. The listeners performed two different tasks. The first

was an intelligibility assessment task which involved writing down what they heard in

standard English orthography. The second task was to measure comprehensibility on a

scale of 1 to 9 where „1‟ is equal to extremely easy to understand and „9‟ is equal to

impossible to understand. A third test was done a few days later to test the degree of

foreign (non-English) accent of the Mandarin speakers. This was done to avoid skewing of

the results due to exposure to the accent. Again, a 9-point scale was used, where 1 is equal

to no foreign accent and 9 equal to very strong foreign accent. Three sets of scores were

generated based on the assessments of intelligibilility, comprehensibility and accentedness

of the speech samples.

The three notions were measured using different tests and they were also defined separately

as follows: intelligibility as „the extent to which a speaker‟s message is actually understood

by a listener‟ (76); accentedness as „variables that caused the speech samples to sound

deviant‟ (91); while comprehensibility was simply „ease of interpretation‟. Munro and

33

Derwing assert that while there is a relationship between the three concepts, they

„correspond to related but partially related dimensions‟ (90). However, the correspondence

between the notions and the dimensions is never provided as no correlation was found

between the scores obtained in the three tests: “the distributions of perceived

comprehensibility and accent scores were noticeably different…the strength of the

correlation among any of the three possible pairings of dimensions tended to be in the

moderate range for most listeners; there was not one perfect correlation” (90). Another

finding that supports the assertion that there is no correlation between the tests is the

evidence that “foreign accent scores did not predict intelligibility very well” (91).

These findings seem to provide credence to the view that the three notions belong to

different dimensions though they are never implicitly or explicitly linked to any dimension.

However, it may be concluded that because the intelligibility scores were based on

speakers‟ phonemic and phonetic errors, intelligibility relates to the dimension of

phonological recognition. Comprehensibility was measured through listeners‟

impressionistic judgements on how easy or difficult it was to understand the accent and this

also relates it to understanding of phonetic and phonological content of the utterances. It is

generally acknowledged that accent involves prosodic elements of language varieties and

so accentedness may be said to also belong to the phonetic/phonological dimension.

The next propositions of intelligibility provide brief theoretical viewpoints. They are

similar to Catford‟s essay in terms of being theoretical in nature. The first consideration is

Kenworthy‟s proposal. Two terms “intelligibility” and “understandability” are employed

34

interchangeably to refer to the dimension of understanding of the speaker‟s words which is

defined as „the more words a listener is able to identify accurately when said by a particular

speaker, the more intelligible that speaker is‟ (13). However, the third term seems to be

unequivocal as it is identified as: „communication‟ and described as, „involves reading the

other‟s intention‟ (13). Communication clearly refers to the more complex level of

understanding of the speaker‟s intention. It is also asserted that:

[C]ommunication is much more complex than intelligibility and

understandability, as intentions only exist in the other person‟s mind, and

listeners need to make use of all the information available to them in order

to guess the speakers‟ intentions. The information comprises the knowledge

listeners have about the situation, the knowledge speakers and listeners

share, and so on (16).

Kenworthy‟s definitions of intelligibility, understanding, and communication seem to refer

to two dimensions. The first two refer to the phonological level while the third notion is

related to pragmatics.

Dalton and Seidlhofer propose the terms “accessibility” and “acceptability”. They argue

that a speaker makes his/her utterance accessible if “he/she succeeds in making an

interlocutor understand it” while acceptability involves the listener factor of attitude which

is defined as “the value interlocutors ascribe to the speaker‟s accent (19)”. They relate the

two concepts to pronunciation and to „social and psychological factors‟ (9). Accessibility

is determined not only by the interlocutor‟s expectations and feelings, such as „experience

35

with and tolerance of low prestige or foreign accent‟ (10). Acceptability on the contrary,

depends on the value the interlocutors ascribe to the speaker‟s accent. Thus, for them, an

utterance may be phonetically accurate but not acceptable. Dalton and Seidlhofer‟s

accessibility clearly refers to the dimension of phonological intelligibility while

acceptability cannot be readily linked to any linguistic dimension as it relates to

psychological value-judgements that are non-linguistic in nature.

A one-term proposition is suggested by Bamgbose to cover the three dimensions of

understanding the speaker‟s words, understanding the speaker‟s meaning and also grasping

the intentions. The term is intelligibility which is defined as “a complex of factors

comprising recognizing an expression, knowing its meaning and knowing what that

meaning signifies in the sociocultural context” (10). It is described as a communicative act

which „involves a speaker and addresse, both participants contribute to the speech act and

its interpretation, and part of this contribution is making an allowance for the accent and

peculiarities of the other person‟s speech‟ (11). Thus, Bamgbose‟s single-term definition

can be linked to the three levels of phonology, semantics and pragmatics.

In a similar manner, James proposes one cover term “comprehensibility” to refer to the

three dimensions of understanding the speaker‟s words, understanding the speaker‟s

meaning and also grasping the intention. His definition of comprehensibility as “ a cover

term to refer to all aspects of the accessibility of the content - opposed to the form - of

utterances” (56) clearly relates the single term to three different dimensions.

36

Jenkins defines the concept of intelligibility as “the production and recognition of the

formal properties of words and utterances and in particular, the ability to produce and

receive phonological form” (10). This definition suggests that her concept is linked to only

the first level of language use which is phonological understanding.

Field proposes two terms: „intelligibility‟ and „comprehensibility‟ which were defined as

“the extent to which the content of the message is recognizable” and “the extent to which a

speaker‟s message is understandable, thanks to a combination of appropriate vocabulary,

correct (or appropriate) syntax, sensitive pragmatics and mastery of basic features of

pronunciation” respectively. Field‟s definitions, thus, correspond to two levels:

understanding of the speaker‟s words and understanding of the speaker‟s intentions which

involve the phonological and pragmatic levels respectively.

Smith and Nelson propose three terms – “intelligibility” which they define as

“word/utterance recognition”; “comprehensibility”- which they define as “the meaning of a

word or an utterance”; and “interpretability” which they define as “the meaning behind the

word or utterance” (334). To enable us link these definitions to the appropriate levels, we

may have to refer to the context of the empirical research in which they offered the

definitions. The definitions were based on a cloze procedure test in which the listeners

filled in the appropriate word(s). To Smith and Nelson therefore, the intelligibility of a

passage is high if the reader is able to copy the passage or fill in the blanks of the missing

words without much difficulty; a passage read is comprehensible if the reader is able to

make sense of the sentences or paraphrase them and interpretability is high if the reader is

37

able to identify the author‟s intentions. The first two terminologies seem to correspond to

Catford‟s “intelligibility” which is linked to understanding of the speaker‟s words while

“interpretability” is clearly linked to the higher dimension of understanding the speaker‟s

intentions.

To conclude this discussion on the inter-relationship between terminologies and levels of

language use, mention must be made of Smith and Nelson‟s assessment of intelligibility in

which they concluded that the terms “comprehensibility” and “interpretability” relate to the

discourse notions of “locutionary force” and “illocutionary force” respectively while

intelligibility relates to word/utterance recognition, corresponding to phonological

intelligibility. Intelligibility is further described as „recognising words and other sentence-

level elements of utterances‟ (430). Comprehensibility is described as „the category of

understanding meaning or the „speech act of request for a particular activity‟ (334).

Interpretability is also described as „the apprehension of intent, purpose, or meaning behind

an utterance‟. To illustrate the inter-relationship between the dimensions, these three

components are presented in an interactional scenario which is narrated below: An

Australian woman was having a conversation in English with a taxi driver in Istanbul.

Things were going well until she asked the driver to turn off the interior light as the driver

refused sharply. Since her request seemed innocuous to the passenger, and since a mutual

compatibility in English had been established by the preceding conversation, she thought

there had been a simple failure of intelligibility or comprehensibility – that the driver had

misheard or misunderstood some part of her utterance - so she repeated it, only to receive a

38

near-hostile negative response and marked silence until the end of the trip, which

terminated in the driver almost snatching the fare from her and driving away rapidly.

The story illustrates the fact that cultural differences (relating to pragmatics) cannot be

divorced from intelligibility. Turning off the light while a man and a woman are alone

together is almost taboo in Istanbul while it does not have the same cultural significance in

English culture. The driver heard the woman but did not successfully grasp the meaning

behind it because her reasons for wanting the light turned off were misinterpreted by the

driver. These discourse notions refer to the situational, social and cultural interpretations of

utterances which are extralinguistic as they depend on factors outside the linguistic form

for their interpretation. On this basis, it may be concluded that „intelligibility‟ (the level of

understanding the speaker‟s words/utterances), is limited to the field of

phonetics/phonology and does not extend to either „comprehensibility‟ or „interpretability‟

which correspond to higher levels of word/utterance meaning. These two are major

preoccupations in the field of discourse analysis/pragmatics.

These clarifications were necessary to enable us establish the scope of this investigation. It

has assisted in defining the interests of the present study as being limited to the recognition

of words/utterances, thereby linking it to phonetic/phonological intelligibility. Thus, this

area of study serves as the background for our investigation of accent intelligibility.

Another area which requires some discussion is factors affecting intelligibility. Background

noise, speaker‟s voice quality, speech rate, and familiarity are some of the variables that

39

have been linked to intelligibility in terms of either aiding it or hindering it. The

relationship between noise and intelligibility was suggested by Flege, Einstein & Verdi,

Clopper & Bradlow and Rogers & Dalby. Any unwanted or disturbing sound during a

communication process constitutes noise. Examples of disturbances which may impair

intelligibility include the ringing of telephones, traffic noises and extraneous conversations

etcetera. According to Rogers and Dalby, noise can occur at different levels of low,

medium and high depending on the volume. An investigation of different noise levels on

intelligibility was conducted which involved experimentation with three levels of low,

medium and high noise to determine effect on dialect recognition. Their conclusion was

that:

listeners are sensitive to dialect variation in noise---although

dialect classification is quite difficult under all listening conditions,

comparisons between the results…revealed that overall accuracy

and interpretability…were better in the more favorable listening

conditions than the degraded conditions (31).

However, noise can be avoided by ensuring that the recordings for intelligibility testing are

done in quiet places, free from unwanted distractions. Sound attenuated booths may also be

used during recordings. These are specially designed sound-proofed rooms which help to

ensure noise-free recordings. High quality recording microphones and digital recorders

could also be utilized to avoid electronic interference which also constitutes noise.

40

Apart from background noise, the voice quality of the speakers in an intelligibility test also

affects intelligibility. Voice qualities such as breathy, creaky, nasal, tense, hoarse, harsh

and whispery usually serve two purposes. First, they perform communicative functions of

speech prosody such as assigning stress and conveying linguistic distinctions and emotional

tone. Secondly, they convey information about the physical, psychological and social

characteristics of a speaker. But apart from providing linguistic and extra-linguistic

information about the speaker, Ramig has reported that voice characteristics may also

adversely affect speech intelligibility. Based on the examination of various acoustic and

perceptual reports of voice characteristics, he argues that “voice quality may have

detrimental effects on speech intelligibility” (124).

Speech rate is defined by Deterding as “the number of syllables spoken per second” (225).

The speed of an utterance may be calculated as the total duration divided by the number of

syllables. In the calculation of speech rate, the final syllable is usually excluded while the

value is stated in syllables/s. Previous research on speech rate has yielded a common

finding that a fast speaking rate results in reduced speaker intelligibility because a lot of

reduction or under-articulation of segments takes place in fast speech. Native speaker

speech is often described as being faster than non-native speech, so we can therefore

conclude that speed of delivery may contribute to intelligibility (Anderson-Hsieh &

Koehler, Munro & Derwing).

Two types of familiarity often affect intelligibility. They are accent familiarity and topic

familiarity. However, while it has been sufficiently established that topic familiarity

41

influences intelligibility, the same conclusion has not been adequately proven for accent

familiarity. For topic familiarity, there is some evidence that the use of technical words and

specific register reduces intelligibility. For instance, Smith and Rafiqzad observed that

intelligibility level differed according to the difficulty level of the passages used in their

experiment. However, there is no such consensus for the conclusions on accent familiarity

and intelligibility. On one hand, Gass & Varonis, Gupta and Major all agree that

intelligibility is affected by accent. Bross also supports this position by claiming that “the

key to intelligibility is the concept of calibration” (37). Calibration is the listener‟s ability

to make rapid correlations between the different sounds of an unfamiliar accent with the

sounds of the listener‟s own accent. It is argued that once the listener has been able to

calibrate the message, then intelligibility will naturally take place. On the other hand,

Eisenstein & Verdi, Strevens, Eisenstein and Hopper all disagree with the proposition that a

high degree of accent familiarity guarantees intelligibility. They base their conclusion on

the results of empirical studies which seem to indicate that accent familiarity is not a

significant determinant of intelligibility.

2.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON INTELLIGIBILITY

Intelligibility studies involving the comprehension of non-native accents of English to

speakers of Received Pronunciation will first be considered and thereafter, Tiffen‟s 1974

study which is the major investigation on the intelligibility of Nigerian English will be

examined. Other relevant studies on the intelligibility of various varieties of English will

also be reviewed in this section.

42

Bansal‟s study of the intelligibility of Indian English is probably the first major work on

intelligibility. It was a pioneering effort which set the trend for several others in terms of

perspective. These studies are informed by a viewpoint that non-native language varieties

are in some way deficient compared with native varieties. Bansal, for example stated the

need for the study as due to:

the emergence of a wide variety of foreign dialects of English ... These

foreign dialects do not diverge to any appreciable extent from native

English, as far as morphology, syntax and vocabulary are concerned, but in

pronunciation they seem to differ so much from native English that

sometimes they do not sound English at all and are hardly intelligible (6).

In order to achieve this aim, an objective approach of intelligibility testing was adopted. It

involved twenty four educated Indian speakers of English from different mother tongue

backgrounds and 178 listeners of varied nationalities including the UK, the US, Nigeria,

and Germany. Various types of test materials were used for data gathering. They were:

connected speech in which the speaker was asked to speak about himself, work, interests

and hobbies for a few minutes, several reading passages, sets of sentence lists and word

lists. The listeners made both oral and written responses to the speakers‟ utterances. In

other words, the listeners gave oral repetitions of what the speakers had said. In certain

cases when the listeners‟ oral responses were not clear, they were then asked to write down

what they had heard. In addition to this, an opinion assessment scale of effort, the Richards

43

and Swaffield test was presented to the listeners. The listeners were to indicate on a scale of

1 to 9 the amount of effort that was required to understand the Indian speaker. Both

quantitative and qualitative methods of assessment of intelligibility were employed. This

involved attaching a numerical value to the Indian speakers‟ utterances correctly identified

by the listeners which was then followed by phonetic analysis of the instances where the

responses were incorrect.

The main conclusion was that the average intelligibility level of Indian English to speakers

of Received Pronunciation is 70% with intelligibility scores for individual speakers ranging

from 53% to 95%. From the analysis of the speech of the least intelligible Indian speakers,

the major causes of intelligibility failure were identified as follows:

a large number of divergencies in the distribution of vowels and consonants,

and in word stress, sentence stress and intonation. What makes these

speakers less intelligible is the frequency of the divergences from the normal

patterns of the distribution of vowels and consonants and the patterns of

stress and intonation in RP (147).

Besides this, the use of wrong stress patterns by the Indians was also identified as

being largely responsible for lack of intelligibility while phoneme substitutions

affected intelligibility only to a lesser extent. The most common substitutions

involved the following RP consonants and vowels:

and . Other causes of

44

unintelligibility were wrong sentence stress and rhythm, lack of clear articulation,

unfamiliar proper names, incorrect vowel length, and lack of aspiration in

voiceless plosives. To avoid these problems of intelligibility, the recommendation

for the Indian speakers was that “the correct distribution of English consonants

and vowels should be learnt by the constant use of a pronouncing dictionary”

(173).

Comparison of the performances of the British, German and American listeners

revealed that:

The German listeners understand Indian English less well than

British listeners. This is particularly marked in the connected

speech and reading passage tests. The conclusion is that it is

features of connected speech that present special difficulties to

German listeners…there is no significant difference in the scores

obtained by the American listeners (118).

The averages obtained by the 16 Nigerian listeners were 52% (connected speech), 34%

(reading passage), 54% (sentence list) and 66% (word lists). The findings regarding the

Nigerian listeners are as follows:

[T]he scores with the Nigerian listeners are significantly lower

throughout. The fact that Nigerian listeners understand Indian

English much less well than British listeners is understandable.

45

Nigerian English and Indian English have diverged from British

English in different directions and they are now farther apart

from each other than either is from the parent language, British

English (115).

Bansal‟s study is significant in terms of the fact that it is the first major study of the

intelligibility of second language speech. The relatively large sample of listeners also

makes the conclusions quite reliable and the adoption of a dual analytic mode also

enhanced the reliability of the intelligibility scores obtained by the speakers. However, the

selection of the speakers was without any identifiable set of criteria. Of major concern is

the fact that the educational and English proficiency levels of both the speakers and the

listeners varied widely as “thirteen of them (Indian speakers) were students but their

subjects of study covered a very wide range…one speaker was employed in the tea trade as

a tea taster” (39). The sample also included university lecturers of English and postgraduate

students of English phonetics. The same trend was observed with the listeners as some of

them were undergraduate and postgraduate students of English. Apart from the widely

differing proficiency levels, 12 out of the 24 Indian speakers were resident in England and

some of the American listeners also lived in England. It is rather doubtful that the

performances of these Indian and American speakers and listeners would have remained

unaffected by their stay in the native speaker community. Their interaction with native

speakers of English may have resulted in significant modifications to their speech. In terms

of institutional viewpoint, Bansal‟s orientation seems to support the view of the inherent

superiority of the native speaker. This view is supported by the recommendation that

46

approximation of native speaker speech norms should be the target of the second language

learner. Thus, he maintains that:

[A]mong the Indian speakers, the best speakers of English are those who

consciously tried to imitate the BBC accent, and those who tried to change

…pronunciation by attending a practical course in phonetics and spoken

English….the less efficient speakers were (those) who have not made any

effort to conform to any minimum standard of English pronunciation

based on British RP (168).

Following the same ideological and methodological frameworks employed by Bansal were

studies such as: Elalani on Jordanian English, Strevens and thereafter Brown on Ghanaian

English and Tiffen on Nigerian English.

With 15 Jordanian teachers and university students in addition to 48 British listeners as

speakers and listeners respectively, Elalani studied the intelligibility of Jordanian English

with the aim of the investigation being “to determine the linguistic variables causing

interference in the Jordanian use of English” (9). The recordings were made in Jordanian

classrooms, with both teachers and children joining in, and in addition, group conversations

were also taped. From these recordings, extracts were made for the listeners to listen to.

The study employed both the objective and subjective approach to intelligibility testing,

with the listeners being required to write down utterances as well as rate them according to

a 3-point scale as follows:

47

Intelligible, i.e. readily comprehensible

Just intelligible, i.e. difficult to understand, but of which sense could be made

Unintelligible, i.e. impossible of comprehension.

The main finding was that “defective pronunciation and inadequate language selection”

(45), were the major causes of unintelligibility. Problem areas for the Jordanian speakers

which constituted problems for the British listeners were the consonants and vowels, lack

of weak forms and differing stress and rhythmic patterns.

However, the specific segmental or suprasegmental features which led to lack of

intelligibility were not stated, neither was a hierarchy of features leading to unintelligibility

done. This makes it impossible to conclude on causes of intelligibility failure. Besides this,

the study seemed to have two methodological defects: firstly, the recordings were done in

Jordanian classrooms which implies that the environment was noisy; secondly, extracts of a

recording was used for the test and the listeners may have found this material to be rather

disjointed.

Two studies have been made on the intelligibility of Ghanaian English. Strevens conducted

“a quantitative assessment of the intelligibility which a West African pronunciation

possessed for speakers of …two accents” (119). With one RP speaker and about a hundred

Ghanaians from the Southern part of Ghana, the conclusion was that:

48

the average score of Received Pronunciation-speaking subjects was

84%, while the average score of Type 2-speaking subjects was 62%.

When it came to the recordings made by the speakers of Type 2

pronunciation, the averages were 27% by Received Pronunciation–

speaking subjects, and 35% by Type 2-speaking subjects. Even allowing

for imperfections in the design and conduct of the tests, it seems an

inescapable conclusion, on the basis of these figures that Type 2

pronunciation is a less efficient means of communication (120).

This conclusion was rather surprising because it claims that the speakers of RP were better

understood by Ghanaian listeners than other Ghanaian speakers of English as the general

observation in intelligibility testing is that speakers of the same accent understand one

another better than speakers of other accents. However, Brown‟s conclusions were

conversely different as he found that Ghanaians understood each other better than they did

the Britons. With an RP speaker and 45 Ghanaians from different mother tongue

backgrounds, the average intelligibility of the two varieties is as shown below:

Twi listeners: Twi reader 83%

RP reader 72%

Ewe reader 72%

Ewe listeners: Ewe reader 78%

Twi reader 73%

RP reader 70%

49

The scores indicate that all the Ghanaian speakers found other Ghanaians considerably

more intelligible than the RP speakers while Ghanaians with the same mother tongue

backgrounds were more intelligible to one another than Ghanaians from different mother

tongue backgrounds.

Tiffen conducted a major study on the intelligibility of Nigerian English to speakers of RP.

It remains the most comprehensive research on the intelligibility of Nigerian English till

date. The participants in the study were 24 Nigerians and 240 British listeners. While the

24 Nigerians were all undergraduates from Northern Nigeria and Southwest Nigeria, the

British speakers had widely varied levels of education. Some of them possessed

educational qualifications as low as primary education and others had higher levels such as

postgraduate degrees. The motivation for the study was stated as the need to ensure that

Nigerian speakers of English should try to approximate to the norm, which of course is RP.

It is clearly stated in the opening paragraphs:

For this reason, it is important that the type of English used

should keep within certain norms, if speakers are to be mutually

intelligible. If English should become so distorted - and there is

some evidence that this is already happening – as to become

incomprehensible both within and without Africa, one of the

main purposes for which it has been learnt will have been

thwarted (13).

50

Five types of tests were employed in the study namely: connected speech, reading passage,

phonemes, stress and attitude and intonation. A dual method of assessment was adopted as

the British listeners had to not only listen and write down what they heard but they also had

to fill in an opinion assessment scale of how easy/difficult it was to understand the Nigerian

speaker. The results of the opinion assessment scale were found to correlate with the

intelligibility scores as the most intelligible Nigerian were found to be the most easily

understood while the least intelligible Nigerians were the most difficult to understand. The

conclusion was stated as follows: “the listeners‟ subjective opinions of the speakers‟

intelligibility correlated closely with the scores obtained on Test 1. Averaged over 10

listeners, subjective grading of speakers is a satisfactory form of assessment” (187). As for

the intelligibility scores of the objective method of assessment, the average intelligibility of

the Nigerian undergraduates to British listeners is found to be 64.4% with a range of 29.9%

and 92.7%. A summary of the intelligibility scores for the various tests is presented below.

Mean scores (%)

Connected speech 64.4

Reading 65.5

Phonemes 76.4

Stress 40.4

Intonation 60.1

RP speaker 99.4%

Most intelligible Nigerian speaker 92.7% (Hausa speaker)

Mean of Nigerian speakers 64.4%

Least intelligible Nigerian speaker 29.9% (Yoruba speaker)

51

From the intelligibility scores, it was concluded that stress is the most crucial speech

component affecting intelligibility between Nigerian speakers and British listeners as stated

below: “faulty stress and rhythm was the most frequent cause of intelligibility failure”

(187). This conclusion was also supported by the scores of the connected speech test which

was the test assumed to be the most fundamental for intelligibility testing. Other features of

the Nigerian English accent were arranged in order of the impact they had on intelligibility.

This is presented as follows: incorrect word stress, incorrect phrasing, mispronunciation of

vowels, mispronunciation of diphthongs, mispronunciation of consonants,

mispronunciation of consonant clusters, incorrect elision, incorrect assimilation,

metathesis, incorrect and unfamiliar lexis and unusual syntax. Other conclusions reached in

the study include the finding that the Hausa speakers were more intelligible to the Britons

as the scores revealed that „10 of the 12 Hausa speakers scored above the mean, while 9 of

the 12 Yoruba speakers scored below the mean‟ (187). The final conclusion of this study

echoes Bansal‟s conclusions on Indian speakers of English that education correlates highly

with proficiency in English as Tiffen infers that:

[T]he above average speakers had better qualification at Credit

and Distinction level in Oral English than the below average

speakers. More of the above average speakers also had

qualifications in English at HSC level…the above average

speakers began English later and used it as a medium later than

the below average speakers at primary school, but at secondary

52

school they had more and earlier contact with native English

teachers (187).

This implies that the Nigerian speakers whose speech was closest to that of the native

speaker were the most intelligible. It is note worthy that the same conclusion had also being

reached by Bansal, thus establishing that education correlates very highly with

intelligibility.

This study is significant because it makes useful contributions in several ways including:

providing detailed characterization of the Nigerian accent of English, identification of the

features that are most crucial for the achievement of intelligibility, assisting to provide a

better framework for the teaching of spoken English. However, certain weaknesses put

limitations on the generalizations of the findings: perhaps the most important being that

Igbo speakers (from Southeastern Nigeria were excluded from the study. The Igbos of

Eastern Nigeria represent a significant population, being the third major ethnic/language

group in Nigeria apart from the Yorubas and the Hausas. Their exclusion is significant as it

may have influenced the findings of the study in terms of the conclusions reached on

positions as regards the most intelligible language group. Besides this, while the Nigerian

listeners were a homogeneous group in terms of educational level, there was no

corresponding homogeneity of educational level among the British listeners. The levels

varied from between primary education to post graduate training. This may have influenced

the listeners‟ listening proficiency. Another source of concern raised by the study is the

insistence on native speaker norms as the standard. Descriptions of the areas in which the

53

Nigerians deviated from native speaker speech norms were labelled as „errors‟,

„mispronunciations‟, „misinterpretations‟ and „incorrect‟. This seems to imply an

expectation of rigid compliance with RP standards, which is not only unattainable but also

undesirable given the existence of endonormative standards which are nationally

intelligible. Strict compliance with native speaker speech norms is even more undesirable

given the evidence from various empirical sources that native speaker accents are not

always highly intelligible.

A number of significant studies have reached the conclusion that native speaker accents are

not always among the most intelligible. Among such studies include those conducted by

Smith and Rafiqzad on speakers of Standard American English, Major et al on Standard

American English, Smith on both RP and Standard American English, Munro and Derwing

on RP, Deterding and Gupta on RP and lastly Atechi on both Standard American English

and RP. These studies are examined below in relation to their relevance as to the provision

of empirical evidence towards the establishment of the fact that native English phonology

is not inherently intelligible.

The study conducted by Smith and Rafiqzad is perhaps the foremost pioneering effort on

the testing of native English accents to non-native speakers. The opening statements

demonstrated that the focus of the study was clearly different from previous studies on

intelligibility which are informed by the ideology of the inherent intelligibility of native

speaker phonology. The aim of the study was therefore to discover “whether or not these

propositions are well founded” (371). To achieve this aim, 1386 Asians and Americans

54

were involved in the study which spanned 11 countries and involved nationals of Hong

Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, The Phillipines, Sri Lanka, USA, Bangladesh,

China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand. Collaborators were employed from these

countries to choose educated speakers of English between the ages of 20 and 40. Other

criteria used for the selection are that none: (1) had spent more than four consecutive

months in any English speaking country; (2) had been formally educated in schools

directed by native speakers of English; or (3) had ever lived with English speaking families

or groups. Each speaker was taped while giving a ten minute speech to a group of 10

educated fellow countrymen. A cloze procedure test of the speech was then prepared and

every sixth word in the passage was deleted. This passage was then presented to the

listeners along with a questionnaire to test listening comprehension.

Based on the combination of the objective approach which consisted of a cloze-procedure

test and the subjective approach which consisted of a listening comprehension

questionnaire, the results are as follows:

[B]ased on the intelligibility averages in eleven countries, the ordering

would be as follows: Sri Lanka 79%, India 78%, Japan 75%, Malaysia 73%,

Nepal 72%, Korea 68%, Phillippines 61%, United States 55%, Hong Kong

44%. (376):

55

The comprehension questionnaire also yielded the following results:

Speakers Average

Hong Kong: 57%

India 76%

Japan 75%

Korea 61%

Malaysia 76%

Nepal 67%

The Philippines 69%

Sri Lanka 76%

U.S.A 64%

The conclusions of the study seemed to disprove the proposition that native speakers are

always easily understood as the evidence shows that the native speaker (American) was

always among the least understood. This conclusion is further reinforced by the rank order

correlation of the scores which is presented below:

Difficulty Intelligibility Understanding

(Least to most) (Most to least) (Most to least)

India Sri Lanka India

Japan India Sri Lanka

Malaysia Japan Malaysia

Sri Lanka Malaysia Japan

Philippines Nepal Philippines

56

Nepal Korea Nepal

United States Philippines United States

Korea United States Korea

Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong

(378)

Even considering a prominent methodological shortcoming which was the differing

difficulty levels of the cloze procedure passages used in this research which as admitted by

the researchers “influenced the degree of intelligibility and understanding of the speakers”

(376), it may still be concluded that the native speaker is not always found to be highly

intelligible. This is clearly stated in the final paragraphs: “since native speaker phonology

doesn‟t appear to be more intelligible than non-native phonology, there seems

to be no reason to insist that the performance target in the English classroom be a native

speaker” (380).

Major, Fitzmaurice, Bunta and Balasubramanian also attempted to measure the

intelligibility of a native speaker accent to non-native listeners. According to them, the

research was necessary because „it is widely believed that listeners understand some

dialects more easily than others, although there is very little research that has rigorously

measured the effects‟ (37). The research participants consisted of 180 potential takers of

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) who were all enrolled at either pre-degree

courses or were undergraduates at various American colleges and universities. They

comprised Chinese, Japanese and Spanish second language speakers of English as listeners

and 60 undergraduate and postgraduate native speakers of Standard American English from

57

U.S universities as speakers. The objective system of assessment was employed through a

test based on recordings of 12 short lectures. The participants were questioned based on the

recordings. For adequate comparison, other speakers were included in the test. They

include speakers of Southern American English, African American English (AAVE),

Australian English and Indian English. After the recordings were made, they were edited

and test tapes were constructed from the initial studio recordings. Multiple-choice answers

followed the test items. Statistical analysis showed that „both native and non-native

listeners are affected by a speaker‟s dialect--- and for non-native listeners, there were no

significant differences between Standard American and South American speakers‟ (58).

The conclusions further buttressed the point that the speakers of Standard American

English were not significantly more intelligible than speakers of other varieties because it is

maintained that:

[T]he results do not…support…that native-English speaking

listeners and ESL listeners would perform better on listening

comprehension tests in English based on lectures delivered by native

speakers of Standard American English (58).

Despite the fact that the focus of this study was listening comprehension rather than

phonological intelligibility, the results are relevant to intelligibility testing as

comprehension is related to understanding. However, the study suffered from a limitation

which is common to almost all listening comprehension test in that there was no control for

background knowledge. Some listeners may have had undue advantage over other listeners

if they had previous background knowledge of the topic.

58

Smith examined the intelligibility of both RP and Standard American English to second

language speakers of English. Among the other English varieties which were tested were

educated accents from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, the Phillipines

and Taiwan. The major aim of the study was to help determine: „what differences, if any,

there are in the intelligibility…of selected taped material of nine national varieties. There

were 29 undergraduate participants and they were all balanced for age and sex. The test

material consisted of a recoding on forms of address used in each speaker‟s country to

address outsiders in English. The difficulty level of the test materials was controlled and

judged to be about the same level through the following means:

[B]oth speaker and respondent were fully proficient in English and

believed themselves to be educated speakers of their national variety

of English, each person spoke clearly and the number of embedded

sentences and the speed of delivery were approximately the same.

Thereafter, a cloze procedure of the passage was constructed with every 7 th word deleted

from the passage, leaving ten blanks which the listeners had to fill in. The passage was then

presented to the listeners to test intelligibility (word/utterance recognition). In addition, a

subjective questionnaire was also presented to the listeners. The listeners were to indicate

how easy or difficult it was to understand the speaker.

59

The important findings of this study include the following results: (a) the native speakers

were not as able to correctly identify their fellow native speakers as speaking standard

varieties of English an the non-native speakers were; (b) the non-native speakers was more

critical and seemed to have stricter criterion for identification of standard English, many

thought that the speaker of Standard American English was speaking non-standard English;

and lastly, (c) the results easily support the interpretation that it is possible for Standard

English to be spoken with many different accents. But what was perhaps the most striking

results of the investigation is the conclusion that „native speakers (from Britain and the

United States) were not found to be the most easily understood---thus, being a native

speaker does not seem to be as important as being fluent in English‟ (441).

A likely limitation of this study is the reliability of the findings of a study based on just ten

items. A ten-item test is perhaps not sufficient to measure the intelligibility level of an

accent. Perhaps a more extensive test would have been more adequate to achieve the aims

of the study. Nevertheless, the findings do seem to strikingly support the view that native

speaker accents is not inherently intelligible.

A similar study which is similar in orientation was that which was conducted by Atechi on

the intelligibility of two native speaker varieties to Cameroonians. This study is significant

as it is the perhaps the first to consider the intelligibility of a native speaker accent to

African non-native speakers. Thus, besides attempting to disprove the notion that native

speaker accents are inherently intelligible, the researcher also set out to:

60

[D]ismiss the trepidation nursed by scholars that the emergence of non-

native varieties around the world would cause English to disintegrate into

mutually intelligible varieties…and to contribute to the debate on the level

of phonological analysis that is suggested to pose the greatest threat to

intelligibility between native and non-native speakers (10).

The selected Cameroonians were all undergraduates while the native speakers of English

included both students and non-students. The age range of the Cameroonians was between

18 and 28 years while that of the native speakers extended to 60 year olds. Five types of

tests were designed to measure intelligibility in the study. They are as follows: connected

speech, passage reading, sentences with embedded phonemic contrasts, nucleus placement

in words and nucleus placement in sentences. The objective mode of assessment which

involves attaching a score to the items correctly identified by the listeners was adopted.

Based on this, the result for the American speakers was: „there is a wide range in the

intelligibility of native speakers of English…intelligibility scores in this column vary from

86.4% to 26.6%, with a mean score of 56.3%‟ (125); and for the Britons „the range (of

intelligibility) is fairly wide as the scores vary from 86.4% to 38.4%, with average of

58.7%‟ (127).

Atechi‟s study was a two-way investigation in the sense that it also considered the

intelligibility of speakers of Cameroonian English to Americans and Britons. A comparison

of the intelligibility scores obtained by all three groups of Cameroonians, Americans and

Britons is presented below:

61

Speakers and Listeners Intelligibility scores in %

Cameroonian speakers to British listeners 62.9

Cameroonian speakers to American listeners 59.7

British speakers and Cameroonian listeners 58.7

American speakers and Cameroonian listeners 53.9

An important inference can be drawn from these figures: the non-native accent was more

intelligible than the native speaker accents. However, perhaps these results should be

interpreted with a little caution. Several limitations are observable in the study as regards

the following: First, the wide margin between the speakers‟ ages and the listeners‟ ages (18

to 28 for the Cameroonians and 18 to 60 for the Americans and Britons); second, the

number of listener participants in the study is rather low – 40 – as it has been suggested in

the literature that a relatively large number of listeners is required for any useful

conclusions; third is the possibility that the Americans and Britons may have had their

speech influenced as they were resident in Germany; and lastly, there was no clarification

provided as to the specific British or American accent used by the native speakers. These

factors make it necessary to approach these conclusions with some caution. Nevertheless,

the conclusion reached is that: „this clearly shows that the native speaker of English is not

necessarily the most intelligible English speaker nor is… the native variety the most

intelligible‟ (130).

62

Another significant achievement of the research is the identification of the features of

American and British native speaker accents which affected intelligibility to the

Cameroonians. The study revealed that „the suprasegmental level was the most problematic

area of native English speech for the Cameroonian listeners as it led to the highest number

of intelligibility failures (46.5%) while the segmental level (40.2%), phonotactic

differences (11.8%) and lexical differences (01.5%) were less problematic‟. These

conclusions are in line with previous findings on the intelligibility of native speakers of

English, however it does seem that the number of listeners involved in the study was rather

low compared to the usual number of listeners in intelligibility studies as it has been

suggested that a relatively high number of listeners is necessary to provide any meaningful

conclusions.

To conclude this section of our review, it is pertinent to state that the current focus of

accent intelligibility studies seems to be the intelligibility of native speakers of English

(usually speakers of either RP or Standard General American) to non-native speakers. This

current re-orientation is not only crucial but timely because as argued by Rajadurai, “there

is need for a reconsideration… as empirical research has raised doubt about the

intelligibility of Inner Circle speech worldwide… the Inner Circle speaker was always

found to be among the least intelligible, showing that L1 phonology is not always

inherently most intelligible” (95). In the light of these intelligibility assessments, one may

consider the nature of RP and how Nigerians who are L2 speakers of English perceive the

accent in terms of intelligibility. These considerations as well as other related issues are the

problems which we shall attempt to resolve through this research. In order to resolve these

63

problems, a comprehensive description of both RP and NEA is necessary in order to fully

appreciate the degree of variation between the NEA and RP. Therefore, a discussion of the

NEA is attempted in the following section.

2.3 THE NIGERIAN ACCENT OF ENGLISH (NEA)

It has been established earlier that human language is subject to change. However, several

other factors apart from the natural processes of language change have contributed to the

evolvement of the Nigerian accent of English. Notable scholars such as Awonusi have

argued that these factors include:

mother-tongue interference, the history of the introduction of

English, the tradition of teaching English in Nigeria, the influence

of orthography or spelling, articulatory settings, social-cultural

values and incipient foreign values (207).

Interference is a phenomenon which characterizes multilingual societies such as Nigeria.

An estimated 505 languages are spoken in Nigeria (Grimes and Grimes 452). Of the

indigenous Nigerian languages, Igbo (spoken in the South-East), Yoruba (spoken in the

South-West) and Hausa (spoken in the North) are the major languages. Many Nigerians

are bilingual or multilingual with a command of several Nigerian languages and non-

indigenous languages such as English, Arabic and French. In view of this, Awonusi has

identified that interference which is characterized by the adaptation of the system of a

second language to that of a mother tongue is therefore observable in the speech of many

64

Nigerians, with an illustration of the dental and interdental fricatives providing an

illustration of this phenomenon. The absence of these sounds in the phonological systems

of the three major Nigerian examples is usually adjudged to be responsible for the inability

of some Nigerians to articulate these sounds accurately. British trading missions of the

sixteenth century which later developed into colonial rule also influenced the evolution of

the Nigerian accent of English. The majority of the British colonial officers in Nigeria

came from the upper or middle classes of British society, speaking RP. The initial contact

with RP developed into greater dominance of the accent with the establishment of

missionary schools where English was taught by native speakers of RP. Since then, the

teaching standard has been RP. However, other influences such as a language attitude

which seems to favour a „local‟ accent rather than a native-like accent has also contributed

to the evolution of this accent.

As a result of these influences, there is a diversity of spoken English in Nigeria. A further

complication is the lack of rigorous attempts at codifying these varieties. As of now, no

uniform and universally accepted description of a standard Nigerian spoken English exists

(Gut 818). What exists are some experimental and instrumental studies and a large body of

impressionistic studies. Due to the lack of quantitative data and the great variability of

Nigerian spoken English, most descriptions of spoken English in Nigeria are based on the

phonological tendencies of three major varieties. These major varieties correspond to the

three major Nigerian languages of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, thus leading to spoken English

varieties such as the Hausa accent of English, Igbo accent of English, and the Yoruba

accent of English.

65

The descriptions of NEA that have been undertaken have employed the criterion of

educational background for the description and classification of English accents in Nigeria.

Many studies which involve the correlation of speaker competence and educational

background include Brosnahan, Adetugbo, Jibril, Banjo and Udofot. A discussion of the

classifications provided by Banjo and Udofot is presented below as the two views seem to

represent the linguistic realities in Nigeria. Banjo proposed four varieties with distinct

linguistic features:

- Variety I is used by those Nigerians who picked up English as a result of the requirements

of their occupation. They are possibly semi-literate people with only elementary school

education. It is characterized by a high transfer-rate of phonological features from the

mother tongue and is unacceptable even nationally.

- Variety II speakers are likely to have had at least primary school education. It features

some transfer from the mother tongue and does not make „vital phonemic distinctions‟.

This variety of English is accepted and understood both nationally and internationally.

- Variety III is associated with university education and is recommended and is

recommended as the model for Nigerian Standard English. It is most widely accepted in

Nigeria.

-Variety IV is equal to British English and is less accepted in Nigeria than Variety III as it

sounds affected.

Udofot claims that Banjo‟s Variety IV is not a variety of Nigerian English and that spoken

Nigerian English can be divided into at least three sub-varieties. These sub-varieties

66

collectively show phonological differences from British Standard English in both

segmental and prosodic terms, and in many cases, the speaker‟s education is correlated

with the degree of proficiency. Three varieties are proposed by Udofot. They are Non-

Standard Variety, Standard Variety and Sophisticated variety. They seem to correspond to

Banjo‟s Variety I, II and III respectively.

In order to present a comprehensive description of the varieties of spoken English in

Nigeria, our review attempts a global view of the NEA through reference to the general

English accent used in West Africa. Certain trends have been observed in both the NEA

and the West African accent of English. These trends include the high correlation of

variables such as education and competence for the classification and description of both

accents of English. More importantly, many areas of convergence have also been identified

between all West African varieties of English including the NEA. Areas of convergence

have been identified by researchers such as Bobda, Gorlach and Kachru. Convergence has

been linked to one common influence which is colonization. In recognition of this,

Omoniyi has argued that „no doubt…(this) may be a consequence of the same general

political experience, i.e. colonization‟ (172). Therefore, our review includes references to

areas of convergence between the three main accents of English in Nigeria and the broader

West African accent of English. This is done in order to provide a more globalized

description of these Nigerian accents of English. Notions often associated with issues of

accent convergence which are employed here include: common core or nucleus and

periphery. Common-core or nucleus has been described by Nelson as „the set of features

and characteristics which all varieties have in common‟ (738). „Periphery‟, is a related

67

concept used to refer to „those features which are unique to individual varieties, and are not

shared with any variety‟ (738). Therefore, this aspect of the review will consider certain

features which form the common core features of West African Englishes and also include

the periphery features – that is, features which are specific to the NEA. Another

consideration which informs this review is that as Omoniyi rightly observes, the literature

on second language English varieties is mostly written from two main viewpoints. The first

is those written from a micro-analytical framework which “seeks to establish and describe

the nature of deviation or difference from default native–speaker Englishes”, while the

second involves a macro-analytical framework that “explores contact situations for the

sociopolitical relationships they promote and the impact of these on English, indigenous

languages, and societies as language users” (175). It is added that a major consequence of

writing from these orientations is that “while the former retains the trinity of ENL, ESL and

EFL, the latter dissolves it”. It is pertinent that we state this distinction because it divides

the literature in this section along these lines. While some of the descriptions present the

phonology of West African Englishes as mere deviations from native speaker norms (RP),

others examine them as legitimate varieties without reference to native speaker varieties.

The intention is to present some sort of pronunciation atlas for Nigeria and the section

draws mainly from the work of Gut, Awonusi, Udofot and Mesthrie. These studies are

some of the most current descriptions in this area and they also provide what we consider

to be adequate descriptions of the NEA. It must also be stated that the entire description

presented below is guided by Schneider‟s general comment about the difficulty of

cataloguing pronunciations of English:

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[T]he amount of detail of sound realizations - idiosyncratic, phonologically

conditioned or not, socially or regionally motivated – is extremely difficult

to grasp and categorize...difference in levels of details...ranges from minute

phonetic analyses with lots of diacritics to essentially broad phonemic

categorizations (1111).

Besides this, other principles which guide the review are as follows:

(a) a certain degree of intra-speaker, inter-speaker and stylistic variation characterizes

spoken language and the observations here are no exception. Therefore, it may not

be right to make generalizations about all the features at all times.

(b) Well‟s standard lexical sets are used for easier differentiation between phonemes.

When different accents are being compared, this system is a better alternative to

using minimal pairs. The key word for each standard lexical set appears

conventionally in capital letters, and is shorthand for a whole list of other words

sharing the same vowel.

(c) Reference words are underlined, and;

(d) iNEA, yNEA and hNEA stand for Igbo accent of English, Yoruba accent of

English and Hausa accent of English respectively.

2.3.1 Short Vowels

West-African varieties of English have either a 5- or 6-vowel system for the short

monophthongs. Two other features which characterize the vowel system is (a) schwa is

marginal and (b) length distinction between vowels is not a general feature. The educated

69

accent of Nigerian English (henceforth ENEA) has a 6-vowel system comprising the KIT,

DRESS, TRAP, LOT, STRUT and FOOT vowels.

KIT

This is the front, high, spread vowel. Generally in West Africa, the realization is , a

tense, long variety. The same realization occurs among Yoruba speakers of English in

Nigeria (henceforth yNEA), and Igbo speakers of English in Nigeria (henceforth iNEA).

This lengthening leads to a lack of distinction between word pairs such as sit and seat.

Some Igbo speakers also realize this vowel as a pharyngealized , while the realization

among the Hausa speakers is a close approximation of the RP realization .

DRESS

The front, mid, half-open vowel has two variants within RP. While is found among

younger RP speakers, is more common with older speakers. The same realization is

the variant commonly found in West Africa while free variation between and occurs

in yNEA and iNEA. The Hausa speakers of English in Nigeria (henceforth hNEA)

have a different realization of this vowel, oscillating between the schwa, and .

TRAP

This is the central/back, open, low vowel. Two variants of this vowel occur in RP. in

Modern RP and in Traditional RP. There is uniform realization throughout the varieties

of spoken Nigerian English with being the realization of the vowel. However, there is

usually a raising to .

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LOT

The back, low vowel is realized as in both traditional and modern RP. In West Africa,

this vowel is variously realized as , or but it is realized as in both yNEA

and iNEA. In hNEA, it is .

STRUT

This vowel is fairly central, neutral and half-open. There is usually a lowering or backing

of the vowel in West Africa. This leads to realizations such as and . is the

variant found in yNEA and iNEA, while , an allophone close to RP or sometimes

also is found in hNEA.

FOOT

This is the high back, half-close vowel. Variants in West Africa include a weakly rounded

or well- rounded or a short . In yNEA and iNEA, the distinction between full and

fool is neutralized due to the realization of this vowel as . In addition to this, a

pharyngealised variant of , which is is sometimes also found in iNEA. A very

similar realization to RP is the variant in hNEA.

2.3.2: Long Vowels

A 5-vowel system is usual for West African Englishes for long vowels (Mesthrie 2004).

This system includes,, or the lexical distribution sets of FLEECE, GOOSE,

THOUGHT, NURSE and BATH. It excludes the RP lexical sets of CLOTH and PALM.

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Besides this, the set of BATH is most likely the most distinguishable feature of traditional

and modern RP. While traditional RP consistently has , modern RP realizations are

and . With being more prevalent.

BATH ~

In West Africa, this vowel has a front realization which is . Other less common variants

are or . In both yNEA and iNEA, the realization is such that word

pairs such as march and match are homophones. For hNEA, the realization is .

CLOTH

The realization for this vowel in modern RP is while for traditional RP, it is between

~. The variant for yNEA, iNEA and hNEA is while hNEA also includes the

variant .

NURSE

There is immense variation in the realization of this vowel with six variants in West Africa

alone. The vowel is in Ghanaian English, in Northern Nigerian English, in

Southern Nigerian English and also ,, and . The variant for yNEA is depending

on the spelling, in work, in girl, in dirty, in perch, in sir. The realizations

are the same for iNEA but hNEA has only the vowel for the set of NURSE.

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FLEECE

As with most long vowels, shortening occurs in West African varieties. The realizations in

West Africa are or . For both yNEA and iNEA, the realization is , while it is

for hNEA.

PALM

A front variety of this vowel occurs in West Africa. This variant is also the realization

in yNEA, iNEA, and hNEA. The implication is that word pairs such as march and match

are homophones.

THOUGHT

Short forms of this vowel characterize West African varieties. They are variants such as

, and unlengthened or . In yNEA, the realization is so that caught and

cut become homophones. The same realization occurs in iNEA but in hNEA, the

realization is , a closed variant of the RP vowel.

2.3.3: Diphthongs

FACE

The variants of this vowel found in West Africa include or . is the variant

most commonly found in yNEA, in iNEA and so that the distinction between let and

late is neutralized.

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PRICE

Realizations such as are common in West Africa but is also an alternative form.

The realization in yNEA and iNEA is but in hNEA, the first element may be

centralized. When this occurs, the onset may be raised to or .

CHOICE

This vowel shows relatively little variation. Realizations in West Africa include and

. is the variant found in yNEA, iNEA and hNEA.

MOUTH

This vowel also shows slight variation as it is throughout West Africa. In yNEA and

iNEA, it is also but the realization differs slightly in hNEA as the first element may be

centralized to .

GOAT

This vowel is usually monophthongized into throughout West Africa. The realizations

in yNEA and iNEA vary from to while it is in hNEA.

SQUARE

Immense variation occurs with this accent with realizations including half-open and half-

close qualities such as ,,,, in West Africa. The general realization in the

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Nigerian accent of English is a diphthongal realization with some speakers realizing it

as .

NEAR

Diphthongal realizations occur throughout West Africa as and . In yNEA,

iNEA and hNEA, the realizations are or with an epenthetic as .

START

In yNEA, iNEA and hNEA the realization for this vowel is .

NORTH

In the accents of English in Nigeria, this vowel is usually realized as .

FORCE ~

The realization in yNEA, iNEA is , while in hNEA, the vowel is realized as ,

or .

CURE

There is a great deal of variation found in West African accents of English with this vowel.

Variants include , , and the monophthongal realization .

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2.3.4: Other Vowels

happY

This vowel is realized as and . Generally in Nigerian accents of English the vowel

is realized as . It is also realized sometimes as and sometimes as in words such as

greeted because of the influence of spelling pronunciation

lettER

The West African variants for this vowel are and . It is realized as in yNEA,

iNEA and hNEA.

horsES

Variants in Nigerian English are and .

commA

The realizations of this vowel in West Africa are and . , one of the West African

variants is also the realization in yNEA, iNEA and hNEA.

2.3.5: Triphthongs

Awonusi points out that “NEA has virtually no triphthongs” (220). Instead of triphthongs,

glide formation processes apply in the accents of Nigerian English. This process changes

the middle vowels into the corresponding semi-vowels as in:

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fire

lion

power

our

2.3.6: Consonants in NEA

The description of NEA consonants will be brief as consonants are not usually crucial in

issues of accent variation. General commentaries about consonant sounds in NEA are as

follows:

NEA is non-rhotic. Both yNEA and hNEA speakers use the tap in all positions while some

iNEA speakers use the roll. Besides this, while all NEA accents use the linking , the

sandhi or intrusive is “practically non-existent.” (Awonusi 244). With regards to the

nasals, only two of them , are phonologically significant for NEA. exists in the

speech of very few speakers. The same occurs for the postalveolar fricative .

Another general feature of the NEA is the spelling-induced pronunciation of words. This

occurs generally as in debt and bomb pronounced with a terminal , loan words such as

elite , plateau , and the pattern which Awonusi (op.cit) described as h-

restoration which is the use of in words which are less in RP e.g. heir and hour.

Another spelling-induced feature is the voicing of certain non-voiced consonants such as

increased - because the orthography suggests it. Voicing of in maximum

and laxity is also reported by Gut (821).

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Several consonant cluster simplification strategies occur in NEA but the most significant

for the educated speakers is the insertion of epenthetic vowel or between word- final

syllabic consonants and the preceding consonant as e.g. in bottle t.

Other phonological processes in NEA include metathesis, e.g. the pronunciation for

ask.

2.3.7: Sentence Stress

Many scholars have made commentaries on the nature of Nigerian English prosody. They

include Jubril, Jowitt , Udofot, Eka , and Simo Bobda. A summary of their observations

will be attempted here as there are no systematic studies available.

Five features which are general to sentence stress in the Nigerian accent of English are as

follows:

(a) Sentence stress is rarely used for emphasis or contrast. Instead, extra words are

introduced for emphasis. For instance, instead of saying “Mary did it” Nigerians

tend to say “It was Mary who did it”.(Gut 826)

(b) Given information is hardly de-accented.

(c) An overall preference for “end-stress”, i.e. the placement of the nucleus, on the

most prominent accent.

(d) A large number of extra accented syllables occur in which virtually all verbs,

adjectives and nouns are accented.

(e) Accent, which is defined as “the phonetic realization of stress in speech” (Gut

890), is primarily realized by tone with lexical words receiving high tone on the

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stressed syllable and non-lexical words receiving low tone. The stressed syllable

of lexical words is produced with a high tone, which then spreads to the end of

the word. Any unstressed syllables preceding the stressed syllable are produced

with a low tone.

2.3.8: Rhythm

The rhythm of the Nigerian English accent has been described as “syllable-timed”

(Adetugbo 131), “inelastic” (Eka 9) and “full-vowel timed” (Udofot 20). These labels are

pointers to the roughly equal intervals between syllables in Nigerian English. This has also

been confirmed by Akinjobi and also by Gut. Suggestions that Nigerian English is syllable-

timed follows the traditional division of the languages of the world as either syllable-timed

or stress-timed. Speech rhythm, according to Gut is the “periodic recurrence of events such

as syllables in .... syllable-timed languages and the feet in…..stress-timed languages. (cf

Gut 818). Therefore, the presence of full and strong vowels rather than reduced vowels in

unstressed syllables gives the Nigerian accent its characteristic timing which differs from

the stress-timed rhythm of Standard British English.

An alternative to the traditional view of speech rhythm as discrete units has been proposed

by Dauer . This view is based on the assumption that the rhythm of any language is a result

of phonological, phonetic, lexical and syntactic facts about the language. In Dauer‟s view, a

composite of these features will locate any language along a rhythm continuum instead of

in a distinct class of syllable-timed vs. stress-timed. This approach provides a better

explanation because it offers a fluid classification for all world languages. The approach

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also applies to the NEA as it supports the views expressed by Eka that NEA should not be

categorized as strictly syllable-timed, but should be described as a language variety with “a

tendency towards syllable-timing” (10).

Speech rhythm is central to this study because it is one of the features in which marked

accent variation occurs between the two accents in focus in the study and is therefore a

crucial determinant of speech intelligibility between Nigerians and the speakers of RP.

2.3.9: Intonation

This is the final segment in our consideration of the NEA. A striking difference exists

between NEA intonation tunes and RP tunes. These differences are noticeable in terms of

the patterns and range of the tunes. Adetugbo, Tiffen, Eka, Jowitt and Udofot and Ufomata

concur that the mastery of RP intonation patterns is a problematic area for Nigerians. To

overcome these limitations, Nigerians use “more words, longer utterances and gestures in

place of using tonic placement to agree, disagree or express doubt” (Ufomata7).

Nevertheless, several empirical studies have been undertaken to attempt a description of the

intonation patterns employed by Nigerians and two of them (Udofot 2002 & Jowitt 2000)

which seem to be the most comprehensive have similar conclusions. The prevalence of

falling tones over rising tones and unidirectional tones over more complex tones was

revealed in Udofot; while Jowitt considers Nigerian English intonation system to be

„simplified‟. The principal elements of Nigerian English intonation were listed as follows:

1. falls predominate in statements, wh-questions, and commands;

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2. rises predominate in yes-no and tag questions;

3. complex tomes are seldom used, although there is some use of the fall-rise

in non-final subordinates and of the rise-fall for strong emphasis;

4. “end-stress” is a general rule for intonation groups;

5. where the “core” pattern includes a falling nucleus, it is a low-falling nucleus.

The picture that has been drawn here is that the NEA presents marked differences in

comparison with RP. However, the degree of variation between the two accents cannot be

fully appreciated until the description of RP is also presented. The following chapter

presents some of the major commentaries on the phonetic/phonological features of RP,

particularly areas which may impinge on intelligibility.

CHAPTER THREE: ASPECTS OF RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION

3.0 Introduction

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In this chapter, an attempt will be made to establish the phonetic/phonological description

of our RP accent variety with a view to further delimiting the focus of the present study. In

our consideration of RP, the names with which this accent has been variously referred is

first examined. Several sociolinguistic themes which run through the major names of RP

are also discussed. This is subsequently followed by an assessment of sub-varieties of the

accent, while phonological features which constitute a “mainstream” accent of RP are

thereafter discussed.

3.1 Received Pronunciation

Standard British English accent is one of the names given to a particular accent of British

English. But what is probably the most common name and also the name which linguists

use to refer to this accent is Received Pronunciation. The earliest recorded use of this

term is by Ellis where it is described as follows:

in the present day we may…recognize a received pronunciation

all over the country, not widely differing in any locality, and

admitting a certain degree of variety. It may be considered as the

educated pronunciation of the metropolis, of the court, the pulpit,

and the bar (23).

„Received‟ is used by Ellis in the 19th century archaic sense of the word when it meant

„accepted in the most polite circles of society‟ (25). In the first half of the 20th century, the

term Received Pronunciation was again adopted by Daniel Jones, the first Professor of

Phonetics at University College, London. Although he initially used the term Public

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School Pronunciation in 1916, in subsequent works he used the term „Received

Pronunciation‟ to refer to an accent which is “the everyday speech of the families of

Southern English persons whose men-folks have been educated at the great public boarding

schools”(45). Jones later expanded the users of this accent to include non-Southern English

people “but who have been educated at these (public) schools” (45). These descriptions

focus on the educational background of the speakers of RP of which Jones himself is a part

having attended a public school. Jones also based the description of RP in the editions of

his pronouncing dictionary (English Pronouncing Dictionary) on his own pronunciation.

Thus, it may be concluded that a public school education is a criteria for the identification

of the speakers of RP.

The association of this accent with public school education probably provides an

explanation as to why the accent is also referred to as Public School Pronunciation (PSP).

This term was first used by Daniel Jones in the first edition of English Pronouncing

Dictionary (EPD) in 1917. Windsor Lewis uses the term General British, while Wells and

Colson use Southern British Standard to also refer to the same accent. The term BBC

English is used by Roach and Hartman to refer to this accent probably because of its

familiarity as the accent used by announcers and newsreaders in the BBC (The British

Broadcasting Corporation). This company was founded in 1922 with a policy of employing

“men who in the presentation of programme items, the reading of news bulletins and so on,

can be relied upon to employ the correct pronunciation of the English tongue”

(Mugglestone 273). However, accent leveling has forced the BBC to reassess its policies

and practices and this has led to lesser linguistic hegemony, leading to comments by BBC

83

authourities in the early 1970s that “a far greater variety of presenters and attendant

linguistic patterns being available on-screen, with a stronger sense of different voices”.

(Mugglestone 280). This re-visioning makes has made the term BBC English somewhat

misleading. However, the most widely known term for this accent remains Received

Pronunciation, as Wells also notes that:

the accent which enjoys the highest overt prestige in England is

known to phoneticians as Received Pronunciation (for short, RP).

This name is less than happy, relying as it does on an outmoded

meaning of received („generally accepted‟)…It is what English

people mean when they say that someone „hasn‟t got an accent‟

(though to Americans it is a typical British accent). (117)

A careful look at the naming practices associated with RP reveal certain recurrent themes.

The principal ones are non-localizability of the accent, upper-class society and

association with public school education. These themes are examined below:

3.1.2 RP and Non-localizability

A philologist, who was dubbed „father of modern phonetics‟ by the Philological Society,

Alexander J. Ellis through this description of RP as: „a received pronunciation all over the

country, not widely differing in any locality, and admitting a certain degree of

variety…may be considered as the educated pronunciation of the metropolis, of the court,

the pulpit, and the bar‟ (23: emphasis added), established the geographical neutrality of this

accent. It has often been said that RP is not the accent of any particular region because it

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may be encountered as the native accent of people who come from all over Britain.

However, its origin is traceable to the south-east of England, most especially London and

its adjacent counties. This is an area that has for long been the bastion of wealth in

England. Nevertheless, its origin is merely traceable to this region as RP cannot be said to

be „synchronically southern‟ (Ramsaran 15). Certain key phonological characteristics of the

south-eastern accent such as t-glottalling in prevocalic environments and the use of [

rather than in the happY lexical set readily differentiate it from RP (Wells 303). Other

markers also distinguish RP from all other regional accents in England, thereby making it

geographically neutral. Hughes, Trudgill and Watt summarize the key phonological

characteristics of regional accents of English in the British Isles in a table showing the

salient features of each accent. The table is reproduced below to demonstrate the unique

differences between regional accents within the British Isles and RP.

in in in in in in in in in in mud path palm hazy bar pull harm sing few gate

Scotland & + - - - + - + - + -

N. Ireland

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S. Ireland + + + + + + + - + -

Northeast - - + + - + + - + -

Central north - - + - - + - - + -

Central Lancs. - - + - + + - + + -

Merseyside - - + + - + - + + +

Humberside - - + + - + - - + -

NW. Midlands - - + - - + - + + +

E. Midlands - - + - - + - - - +

W. Midlands - - + + - + - + + +

S. Midlands + + + + - + - - - +

E. South-west + - - + + + - - + +

W. South-west + - - + + + - - + -

South-east + + + + - + - - + +

East Anglia + + + + - + + - - +

Wales + - + + - + - - + -

(Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 71)

Though RP has distinct features which differentiate it from all other regional accents in

Britain, care must be taken not to create the impression that each of these accents

represents discrete varieties. Rather than this, the varieties form a continuum, a gradual

changing of pronunciation which occurs from Scotland to the Southwest of England to

Wales. RP occupies one extreme end of the accent continuum due to its total lack of

regional features. At the other extreme are the broadest forms of regional accents which

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contain localized features. Besides the continuum of regional variation, the association of

RP with the upper classes also implies that accents in Britain may be identified on a

continuum of social variation with RP again occupying one extreme while accents used by

the lower classes occupy the other extreme. The relationship between RP, regional

variation and social variation is often modelled as having the form of an equilateral triangle

or a pyramid as in the figure below:

social

variation

regional variation in pronunciation

(After Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 10)

The base of the triangle is broad, implying considerable amounts of phonological variation

between the different regional accents spoken by the lower classes. Going upwards from

the base, the increasing narrowness of the triangle implies decreasing regional variation

between the accents of speakers higher up on the social scale. Similarly, the point at the top

of the triangle indicates the total lack of regional variation which we have already noted is

characteristic of the RP accent, spoken as it is by people at the top of the social scale. There

is no doubt that this model is an effective one because it explicates a well known fact which

87

is that it is impossible to tell where an RP speaker comes from. Between the top of the

triangle and the base are speakers with different degrees of regionally marked speech; and

the higher the person is on the social scale, the less regionally marked will be his or her

accent. Therefore, it is usually possible to tell from which broad origin of the British Isles,

middle-class speakers come from. Working-class speakers can usually be pin-pointed even

more accurately to their geographical origins. At the apex of the triangle is RP whose

speakers are impossible to identify as coming from any particular region, hence the

description of the accent as non-localizable. The relationship between RP and regional

accents is described rather succinctly by Wells:

[T]he more localizable (and hence non-upper-class) characteristics an

accent has, the „broader‟ we say it is. A maximally broad accent reflects

(i) regionally, the highest degree of local distinctiveness, (ii) socially, the

lowest social class, and (iii) linguistically, the maximal degree of

difference from RP. An important and defining characteristic of RP is thus

its non-localizability within England. (14)

3.1.3 RP and the Upper-class society.

The class-specificity of RP is often linked to the high social status, substantial wealth and

political power of its speakers. It is not co-incidental that most RP stereotypes have upper-

class connotations. References to RP stereotypical speakers include: „dowager duchesses,

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certain army officers, Noel Coward-type sophisticates, and popular images of elderly

Oxbridge dons‟ (Wells 133); and also „retired admirals and brigadiers; dukes and their

families‟ (Ramsaran 39). This stereotype is even more finely ingrained on the

consciousness when it is realized that all the twentieth century English Prime Ministers and

of course the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth are all speakers of RP.

Therefore, the use or non-use of RP may be said to polarize the British society because the

accent acts as a segregating influence, dividing the population into those who speak RP and

those who do not. This division has been likened to a linguistic shibboleth (Judges 12: 5-

6), and an accent bar (Abercrombie 226). The story is told in the bible of how language was

used as a means of group identification. In the book of Judges, Jephthah had mobilized the

Gileadites army to attack the Ephraimites. However, many of the Ephraimites escaped but

the Gileadites waited for them at the Jordan River. As the Ephraimites attempted to cross

the river, they were asked if they were Ephraimites. In order to confirm their responses,

they were asked to pronounce the word shibboleth because the Gileadite guards knew that

the Ephraimites „could not frame to pronounce it right‟ (Judges 12:6). Instead, they

articulated sibboleth. In this way, the Gileadites were able to identify the Ephraimites and

they were subsequently executed.

This story has become rather symbolic of the way language acts as a marker of group

identity just as RP has become the linguistic symbol of upper class British society. But

instead of language being a marker of ethnic identity as it is in this biblical account, it is a

marker of class identity in England. An observation of the social significance of RP within

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England informs this conclusion. The significance of RP within England seems to go

beyond a mere means of communication, hence, Waller‟s observation of RP serving as „an

instrument of communication and also of ex-communication‟ (16). This was stated in

reference to the manner in which RP speakers are accorded certain priviledges in the

society which non-RP speakers are not accorded. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence of

how RP has been used as an instrument for the ex-communication of non-RP speakers

through exemption from certain employment priviledges. However, the evidence remains

anecdotal because discrimination is not permitted in most modern societies including

England, so there is scant documentary evidence of this. But Trudgill has confirmed this

observation regarding RP that the accent „has been the necessary passport to certain kinds

of jobs such as BBC newscaster and presenter positions and telephone sales jobs‟ (267).

RP has also been likened to an „accent bar‟ by Abercrombie. This again refers to the way in

which language affects access to priviledges in the English society. This term was coined

on the model of the „colour bar‟ which exists in some societies. It is an analogy used to

describe the accent prejudice in England which favours speakers of RP who are „on the

right side of the bar‟ (49). One of the consequences of the accent bar was this story of a

young English girl reported in the press which was provided by Abercrombie. As the

consequence of a divorce, this girl had gone to live with her father, while her brother and

sister lived with the mother. The father sent the girl to an expensive school, the result being

that she became an RP speaker. Her brother and sisters continued to speak with their local

accents. A judge had to take a decision on the girl‟s future and the judge‟s decision was

that she should stay with her father because she now spoke RP and had moved into a

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different social class „so as not to have to mix with speakers of a socially inferior accent‟

(Abercrombie 50).

Sociolinguistic interviews conducted by Fabricius also stress that accents other than RP are

often judged to be deficient and consequently put their speakers at a disadvantage. The

interviewee, a male undergraduate RP speaker claims that:

I think it would be …you‟d be hard pushed to say at the moment

that your accent doesn‟t make a difference to your chances of

getting into Cambridge for example, and I don‟t think at least I

would like to think that none of it‟s deliberate but I think if you

have you know if you have a very strong North Welsh accent for

example, it‟s or strong Scottish accents or something which seems

quite alien I don‟t think I think if you‟re having to concentrate that

much more on listening to it, I can well believe that you‟re not

consciously saying “dear oh dear they‟re not as good” but

somehow you feel as if you‟re not getting on with them as well

because you‟re having to put so much more effort in just talking to

them um and I don‟t I hope none of this is done deliberately but I

can see that if you‟re… as inevitably happens at your interview,

hundreds of people, you‟re relying to an extent on a gut feeling.

(40)

3.1.3: RP and Public School Education

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The association of the RP accent with public school education started in the nineteenth

century with the establishment of the first public boarding schools in England for boys.

These schools catered for boys aged between eleven to eighteen years. While at these

schools, the boys were usually isolated from their surroundings and only met pupils of

other public schools when playing against them at various sports. This system of Victorian

education for boys has been thoroughly described by Mugglestone as „officially established

through the 1860 appointment of the Royal Commission as an endowed place of education

of old standing, to which sons of gentlemen resort in considerable numbers‟ (209). The first

set of schools included Eton, Westminster, Winchester , Harrow, Rugby, Charterhouse and

Shrewsbury. Of these, Winchester dates back to 1382, Eton to 1440, Westminster and

Shrewsbury to 1560, and Harrow to 1571. Although they were originally founded to absorb

intakes from the less-privileged members of the society, „the poor and needy of the local

area‟, this changed later on in the century. Initially, the masters were, in addition to private

(fee-paying) pupils also allowed to take a limited number the poorer children on

scholarship so that the patterns of intake included sons of earls, bishops, vicars, stewards,

blacksmiths and cooks. However, a gradual change began to take place as the rich and

affluent began to displace the „poor and needy‟ at a number of these schools (210). For

example, as noted by Mugglestone, out of 3000 pupils who entered Eton between 1755 and

1790, only thirty eight were the sons of tradesmen and by 1930, this had dropped to zero.

Even though some of the headmasters of these schools attempted to put a stop to the

discrimination in the admissions policies, this apartheid system of schooling became so

pervasive that the School Inquiry Commission set up in 1868 to conduct an investigation

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into the problem. Mugglestone noted that one of the headmasters that were questioned

responded that:

[H]ad very numerous applications from „persons of good standing in

the world and good fortune‟, and that he had invariably been asked,

„What is the character, station and position of the home boarders?‟

When he answered that they were „of all classes down to the sons of

blacksmiths and washerwomen‟, the application had immediately

been withdrawn. Of these „home boarders‟‟‟, he stated that he had

succeeded in gaining them perfect fair play in school‟, but that he

had had to separate them out of school and that „mainly for the sake

of the village boys‟. He felt that if he allowed them to associate, „he

should have a constant fear of their being ill-treated. (223)

The reason for this behaviour was pointed out by the headmaster: “It is not the fault of the

boys, it is the fault of society…I never yet saw a man who would send his boy to a school

in order to associate with those lower than himself” (223). Some of the advantages of these

prestigious schools which were usually monopolized by the elite included the inculcation

of religious and moral principles, gentlemanly conduct and intellectual ability. Thus, the

products of these schools tended to be a blend of social elegance, refinement, wealth, good

manners, and perfect gentlemanly conduct.

However, education at such public schools was not only for the purpose of producing a

gentleman but was also for the purpose of remedying „linguistic provincialities…a means

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of integration into the linguistic as well as social properties of an elite… to protect its

pupils against those habits of faulty pronunciation, together with those vulgar and offensive

tones in reading and speaking‟ (Mugglestone 229). It appeared that this aim was generally

well attained because in referring specifically to Eton, one of the first such schools, Wells

comments on the homogenization influence of these schools noting that “an Old Etonian

sounds much the same whether he grew up in Cornwall or Northumberland” (119).

Abercrombie identifies the linguistic influence in these schools as RP: „Just as RP is a

unique accent, a unique institution provides its basis. This institution is the English public

school‟ (49). The sustenance of RP in the public school system was no doubt ensured by

peer pressure because even though RP was never explicitly taught in these schools, the

students seemed to effortlessly acquire it from fellow pupils who came from RP-speaking

homes. The social and linguistic hegemony of these schools continued for much of the 19th

century as Mugglestone states: „though in previous decades it had been acceptable an even

advisable for a gentleman to be educated at home…by the end of the nineteenth century,

the dominance of the public school tradition was such that this was the archetypical

education for a gentleman, or for those who wished to be numbered amongst such‟ (217).

This is also reinforced by the conclusion that at the close of the nineteenth century:

it was… the homogenization of social environment amongst the pupils

at such schools which in itself prepared the ground for the

homogenization of accent later associated with them. They reinforced

notions of „proper‟ English through a sense of collective identity in

which this too operated as a sign of membership and

integration…Conceptions such as these tended to function as a self-

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perpetuating paradigm, confirming the associations of the „best‟ accent

and the „best‟ education in schools of this order by means of the

emphasis given to the social composition (and social sensibilities) of

their intake (282).

In present day England, the public school institutions are now officially referred to as

independent schools and the focus remains high academic achievement as expressed in

Mugglestone:

UK independent schools achieve the very highest academic standards. Of

the 500 schools listed by The Times as achieving the highest GCSE re-

sults in 1999, about 380 were independent schools. About 80% of pupils at

independent schools (including special schools) gain five or more GCSE

passes at grades A-C (compared with a national average of 43%). Eighty

per cent of independent school A-level candidates gain three or more

passes, compared with a national average of 61%. Nine out of ten-A-level

leavers from independent schools go on to higher education. At the

primary level, most prep schools taking part in national curriculum testing

report attainment levels well above the national average. It is sometimes

claimed that this academic success is due to selective admissions policies.

Some independent schools do admit only children of the highest academic

ability; many, however, admit a much wider range of ability. Evidence

from the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE Statistical

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Bulletin no 4/95) suggests that pupils at all levels of ability do better in

independent schools. Comparing A-level results from schools of all kinds,

it concluded that, at every level of ability, there was a clear tendency for

candidates in independent schools to achieve higher A/AS51 level scores

than those in maintained schools (251).

However, it appears that the same social and linguistic homogenization tendencies of the

public schools of the preceding centuries continue to characterize the independent schools.

The schools remain elitist charging fees well beyond the reach of the average parent. The

least expensive day schools tend to charge around £1000 per term, while the the most

exclusive boarding schools charge over £5000 per term, for full boarding. Fabricius

provides details of the linguistic influences of present day public schools through a series

of interviews held with former independent school students in 1997 and 1998. By then, the

interviewees were university undergraduates and graduates. Their ages ranged from 18 to

31 years. The interview protocol comprised questions which were primarily aimed at

gathering information on the social and linguistic influences that they experienced while

attending the independent school. For example, when asked if there were changes in the

way they spoke after they were admitted into an independent school, a male interviewee

responded that:

I think it happens entirely involuntarily um, so many times I‟ve rung

home and my sister had picked up on something I‟ve said and maybe

phrase I‟ve used or even just the way that I‟ve formed you know just

said the word and pointed out quite how you know public school it

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sounds but when you‟re living amongst you know boys who are all

speaking the same effectively then then it doesn‟t it doesn‟t you don‟t

doesn‟t occur to you but it‟s sad because I mean in the same way as all

dialects in this country are all sort of gradually you know meandering

towards a form of London English, the boys at school who came from

Yorkshire (or) whatever were… people did pick up on their accents and

joke about them you know they all ganged up on them you know

because so many of us all came from um the south and all spoke the

same way it was you know kind of group mentality I mean not in a nasty

way of course but it was noticed and to notice it is as much to say that‟s

not the norm (54).

When also asked if they changed the way they spoke after having left the independent

school, a female speaker responded that:

[N]ot, after I left school yes, um because when I came out of

[public school] I I played it down basically I my… both my brother

and my sister um, it‟s something you notice more in boys or at

least I notice more in boys that they tend to have a more plummy

accent or that they‟re not, less aware of having it… when I came

out of school, I had a very very very plummy accent and I I still do

but not as much as I used to I‟ve played it down a lot. (55)

3.2: Sub-varieties of RP

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Having considered the naming of RP, we turn to a consideration of sub-varieties within RP.

These include U-RP, Refined RP, Regional RP, Adoptive RP etcetera. There is the sub-

variety used by the royal family, the aristocrats, upper-class families, professions which

have traditionally recruited from upper-class families (i.e. the Navy) which Wells (279)

identifies as U-RP (meaning upper-crust RP) and Cruttenden (78) refers to as Refined RP.

Wells distinguishes this from other forms of RP, describing the stereotypes associated with

this variety as:

…special voice quality and manner of delivery. …the speech…of an

elderly Oxbridge don; and to that of the popular image of a jolly-

hockey-sticks schoolmistress at an expensive private girls‟ school

(280).

Similarly, Cruttenden‟s classification describes Refined RP as follows:

that type which is commonly considered to be upper-class…a

speaker of Refined RP has become a figure of fun and the type of

speech itself is often regarded as affected…Refined RP reflects a

class distinction (78).

The descriptions of this variety given by both Wells and Cruttenden coincide in terms of

being strictly upper-class and inciting a negative attitude.

Regional RP is a somewhat contradictory term which Cruttenden adopts to represent

varieties which unlike Refined RP and U-RP do not reflect class distinction but regional

differences. It is described as “the type of speech which is basically RP except for the

presence of a few regional characteristics which go unnoticed even by other speakers of

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RP” (78). This variety supports the idea of an RP accent with regional features such as

Northern England RP and Cockney RP. The contradictory nature of such descriptions is

also noted by Cruttenden that “part of the definition of RP is that it should not tell you

where someone comes from” (78).

RP varieties which reflect other considerations rather than class or region are adoptive RP

and near-RP. Speakers of adoptive RP are “adults who did not speak RP as children”

(Wells 281). Such adults are motivated to learn RP as a result of social pressure from RP

speaking circle of friends or office colleagues. They may be regarded as „social climbers‟

who recognize the advantage that an RP accent may offer in terms of better job

opportunities etc. However, there is a distinction between such people and native speakers

of RP. This is that they “lack control over the informal and allegro characteristics of RP”

(284). Characteristic features of native RP informal speech include reduction phenomena

such as elision, assimilation, and smoothing. However, speakers of adoptive RP tend to

avoid such characteristics, consciously or unconsciously regarding such variants as „lazy or

slipshod‟ (284).Without this distinction, it would otherwise be difficult to draw a line

between adoptive RP and native RP.

Near-RP is another variety which is neither based on class or regional considerations.

Wells (297) describes this variety as:

any accent which, while not falling within the definition of RP,

nevertheless includes very little in the way of regionalisms which would

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enable the provenance of the speaker to be localized within England (or

even as Australian, New Zealand or South African).

It seems that near-RP coincides with Cruttenden‟s Regional RP as Wells supports the

argument of the existence of not one but “several” varieties of near RP similar to

Cruttenden‟s view of the existence of “regional RPs in the plural” (78). Besides this,

several usages which are representative of varieties of near RP but also differ significantly

from RP based on the criteria of phonemic, phonotactic, phonetic and lexical distinctions

are provided by Wells. They include the absence of any of the phonemic distinctions found

in RP particularly between and ; and , rhoticity in non-prevocalic

environments, yod dropping, diphthong shifting, and the use of rather than in -ed and

-es suffixes.

However, it is note-worthy that despite the identification of these features, the

difficulties involved in treating accent varieties as monolithic entities are

recognized by Cruttenden:

General RP, Refined RP and Regional RP are not accents with

precise enumerable list of features but rather represent

clusterings of features…thus there are not categorial boundaries

between the three types of RP or between RP and regional

pronunciations; a speaker may, for example, generally be an RP

speaker but have one noticeable feature of Refined RP (79).

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The same justification regarding the impossibility of making clear distinctions

between RP accent varieties is stated by Wells:

[I]t is open to question whether it is desirable or possible to draw

firm lines of demarcation between RP, Near RP, and non-RP.

The justification for my proposing the term „Near-RP‟ is that it

conveniently refers to a group of accent types which are clearly

„educated‟ and situated away from the lower end of the socio-

economic scale, while differing to some noticeable degree from

what we recognize as RP (301).

The difficulty involved in drawing lines of demarcation between accent varieties is also

revealed in the controversy involving Estuary English. While some writers have identified

it as a distinct accent variety, others simply describe it as RP with influences from Cockney

(Rosewarne,Coogle, & Haenni). Cruttenden also states that “Regional RP will vary

according to the region involved” and identifies a London influenced form of RP as

„Estuary English‟ (79). This name was coined by David Rosewarne and was first published

in his article in the Times Educational Supplement in 1984. This accent is described as a

“middle ground” between Cockney and RP which is characterized by a “mixture of non-

regional and local south-eastern pronunciation and intonation”. The name Estuary English

was used for this accent because of its link to the geographical spread of the accent as the

features associated with the accent are features which spread outwards from London along

the Thames Estuary into Essex and North Kent in England.

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Initially used only among journalists, this name eventually became popular among

phoneticians who described it as a modification of RP towards Cockney. It is also similar

to RP in the sense that it is an upper/middle class accent which is adopted by “those

wishing to avoid the stigma of RP as „posh‟ and by upwardly mobile speakers of local

dialects” (79)who usually speak RP. As Mugglestone concurs,

this …(accent) is the mode of speech which could be adopted by

Diana as the „People‟s Princess…and similarly deployed by

Tony Blair as a representative of Labour as the „People‟s Party‟,

an „everyman‟ who speaks to all (286).

Furthermore, Estuary English has been proclaimed by David Rosewarne in his newspaper

articles of the mid 1980s as „the new standard English‟, „tomorrow‟s RP‟ and the new

mode of „talking proper‟. Evidences of the declining prestige of RP are observable in

various dimensions. First is the negative value judgements of arrogance and snobbishness

which was observed by sociolinguistic studies of the 1990s. Such negativity may be

perceived in the following commentary on the present status of RP:

whereas once, people aspired to be posh; it was the voice of the

people in power – in the law, in the City, in the Establishment. Now

there are plenty of people who would be ashamed to speak like that.

A posh voice is seen as naff and unfashionable. (Mugglestone 281):

This negative trend is also reinforced in the media industry as RP‟s role as the accent of

choice in modern films exhibits role reversals whereby heroes and heroines are no longer

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depicted using RP accents as in many nineteenth century novels. Instead, it has regularly

been deployed for those roundly depicted as villains as Fabricius notes:

[T]he humour of, for example, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, tended to

exploit such affected accent stereotypes, while Disney films for children

seem to reflect the more negative, slightly sinister (because of being

exclusive and arrogant) aspects of U-RP speech: most of the villains of

these films have been U-RP or conservative RP speakers (31).

Trudgill confirms that advertising in Britain has regularly moved away from RP as the

most effective endorsement of a product‟s claim because „messages couched in RP …

proved to be less persuasive than the same messages in local accents‟ (176).

Some writers confirm the decline of RP which Coogle has noted that „many younger

priviledged people make an effort not to sound too “posh”, as they know that this makes

them unacceptable in their peer group‟ (retrieved on the 14th August 2011 from

www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/estufaqs.htm.) While the phonetician Susan Ramsaran

comments that „a real or assumed regional accent has come to have „a greater (and less

committed) prestige for younger speakers‟ (86).

Other writers have sought to determine the nature of Estuary English on the basis of its

reported linguistic features. Haenni, reported in Fabricius discusses selected accent features

(such as t-glottalling, l-vocalisation, and certain vowel phenomena) used to determine

whether they can define a rigid boundary between Received Pronunciation, Estuary English

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and Cockney. The survey fails to find any single clear-cut „marker of Estuary English‟ On

the basis of this examination of academic and journalistic comments on the linguistic

features of Estuary English, as well as of people‟s awareness of the term, it is concluded

that:

It is thus very difficult to uphold the notion of Estuary

English as a distinct variety in its own right … it appears

rather daring to assign it a place among the stereo-typed (or,

at least, the most „dialectally prominent‟) accents of Britain.

(34).

Estuary English has continued to generate commentaries but the general consensus as to its

existence as a distinct variety of spoken English seems to be skepticism.

3.3 The Phonological Core of a Mainstream RP Accent.

We will now attempt to identify the phonological features which may be found in a

mainstream accent of RP. By this, we mean a clustering of features which form a central

tendency of all RP accent varieties. The description includes a list of both phonemic

distinctions and phonetic features of the accent. For the purposes of this study, we define a

mainstream RP accent as an amalgam of the features listed in Collins and Mees, Wells and

also Cruttenden. The entire section presents a summary of views expressed in notable works

on the phonology of RP such as Wells, Upton, Cruttenden, Brown and Collins & Mees. Our

list of RP phonemic distinctions is an uncontroversial list of 20 contrastive vowels and

diphthongs as stated below:

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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These vowels and diphthongs are all recognized RP phonemes except which has a very

limited occurrence and the variable pronunciation as . Wells points out that “there are

plenty of RP speakers who pronounce some or all of poor, moor, your and sure with ,

and they are on the increase” (287). Besides this, lexical variability is also an important

consideration of the phonemic status of RP vowels and diphthongs. Pronouncing dictionaries

sometimes offer as many as five alternative pronunciations for one word, all within

mainstream RP.

The consonant sounds of our mainstream RP accent are less controversial and are stated

below:

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The phonemic status of these 24 consonant sounds are not in doubt but the voiceless labio-

fricative is not included here even though it is a possible phoneme on the basis of

minimal pairs such as which and witch. According to Wells, “the use of /hw/ in where, wheel

etc is restricted to the speech conscious,” (285) meaning that it has a low frequency of

occurrence.

Statistics for consonant frequencies in RP is provided by Cruttenden and the data reveals the

same 24-consonant phoneme inventory presented above ranging from - 1.97% to -

0.10%. and also show relatively high percentage frequencies (3.56% and 2.81%

respectively). It was noted that structural conditioning occasioned by the frequent

occurrence of determiner the and pronouns in <th-, wh-> probably accounts for the

comparatively high scores of these particular phonemes. Another observation is that “the

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alveolar phonemes emerge as those which occur most frequently in English, this being a

generalization which appears to be applicable to many languages” (196).

Setting aside the segmental phonemes of RP for now, a consideration of the supra-segmental

features of the accent also reveals certain phonetic/phonological features which define

mainstream RP.

3.3.1 Stress & Rhythm

Stress and rhythm are inter-related isochronic features of speech. For the purpose of this

study however, consideration of stress is limited to sentence stress while rhythm is fully

explored. Native English speech is usually classified as „stress-timed‟ in direct opposition to

second language English speech varieties which work on the principle of „syllable-timing‟

(Gut 828).

In mainstream RP as well, stressed syllables tend to occur at roughly equal intervals of time

as the unstressed syllables in between give the impression of being compressed if there are

many and expanded if there are few (Collins & Mees 108). The shortening of vowels from

their full forms to reduced forms or weak vowels such as , , in addition to various

phonetic/phonological processes of connected speech give mainstream RP speech its

characteristic rhythm. These features may be classified into three broad areas namely:

1. Allophonic variation: Realisational variations of phonemes due to adjustment of

tongue positions to facilitate co-articulation with adjacent or near-adjacent

segments. (Wells 42; Collins & Mees 116).

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2. Assimilation: The replacement of a phoneme by a second under the influence of

a third phoneme (Collins & Mees 118).

3. Elision: Deletion of a phoneme which necessitates a change from the ideal form

in connected speech (Collins & Mees 118).

These three areas are crucial to the present study because these patterns of allophonic

variation, assimilation and elision are distinctive to mainstream RP speech. These processes

are not only limited in the Nigerian English accent but when they do occur, they follow a

different patterning (Gut 825). Variations such as these may constitute intelligibility

problems which form the central point of the present study. The views are generally in

agreement and cover the areas of allophonic variation, assimilation and elision particularly

as they relate to recent changes within mainstream RP.

3.3.2 Allophonic Variation

The height and degree of centralization of the vowel varies, but is largely relatively open and

central. It is also usually symbolized by unstressed syllables.

The same central and open qualities of are associated with this vowel and it is also

symbolized by .

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A fronted and more open realization of which is symbolized by usually occur with

this vowel.

This vowel usually involves a glide from to . This makes it diphthongal in all

contexts except before fortis consonants. Another notable phonological characteristic of this

vowel is what is termed „happY tensing‟. This feature affects the final vowels in words such

as happy, lucky and coffee. It involves the realization of the final vowel with a closer

quality (). This quality is similar to a short variety of .

There is considerable variation in the realization of this vowel with qualities ranging from

close mid to open mid. This results in realizations of for unaccented syllables.

It is diphthongal , fronted and becoming gradually less rounded particularly following

palatal and palato alveolar and .

Relatively central, lacking lip-rounding. This often results in a realization which is similar to

. It is also noted that some speakers take this process even farther so that the realization

of the vowel is close to .

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This diphthong has changed its traditional starting-point to a more fronted position while the

second element is unrounded and also fronted making it similar to .

This either has the same starting point with or is backed to a position similar to

.

The starting point of the diphthong is central and the realization is very similar to or

. The diphthongal movement is very little and there is also minimal lip rounding.

An important phonological process which often characterizes the realization of this phoneme

is the process of smoothing. It is a process of monophthongization of this vowel through the

omission of the glide. This smoothing process also applies to other diphthongs and is

discussed more extensively below under elision.

Because of the monophthonging process described above, a long monophthong is the

usual realization of this diphthong.

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The most usual realization of this vowel is

The staring point for this diphthong varies between close-mid and open-mid. It is also

usually monophthongized into .

Monophthongization of this vowel also occurs in some cases.

RP triphthongs

All the RP triphthongs namely , , and have their individual vowel

elements maintained in careful speech. But the second element is usually omitted in faster

speech.

Setting aside RP vowels, and turning to RP consonants, only the alveolar plosive is

noted to present any considerable allophonic variation. Glottal reinforcement (also called

pre-glottalisation) and t-glottalling (also known as glottal replacement) are the phonological

features which are involved in variable pronunciation. Although both features were

considered to be restricted to lower class accents such as Cockney, they are certainly

observable in certain environments within the RP accent. This observation is made by Wells

(201):

Glottalling is the switch from an alveolar to a glottal articulation of ,

whereby in a range of syllable–final environments. This is by now

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very firmly established in casual RP before obstruents … and is increasingly

heard before other consonants (, , ). Among younger RP speakers it can

even be heard finally before vowels… or in absolute final position.

Fabricius (145) also supports this observation in a commentary of the current

sociolinguistic status of t-glottalling in modern RP:

1. T- glottalling in modern RP is stable in pre-consonantal environment in both

speech styles and is accepted by these speakers in formal and non-formal

speech.

2. It has entered modern RP as a vernacular change (spreading out from

London), but its vernacular status is obscured by other factors.

3. It has to some extent lost its stigma, but not yet acquired prestige in word-

final pre-pausal and pre-vocalic environments.

3.3.3 Assimilation

This term refers to the effect created as a result of phonetic conditioning, when one phoneme

is replaced by a second phoneme. Assimilation is one of the features which create the special

allegro characteristics of mainstream RP speech, thereby differentiating it from the speech of

the typical Nigerian. Some of the commentaries on this speech feature which are examined

below show that the patterns of assimilation in RP speech are distinct and rather more

extensive than that of the Nigerian English accent. For instance, Collins and Mees basing

their typology of mainstream RP assimilation on direction and type of assimilation recognize:

leading, lagging, reciprocal, place, energy and manner assimilations . Leading

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assimilation is described as a situation whereby as a result of phonetic conditioning, features

of an articulation may lead into those of a following segment. On the other hand, lagging

assimilation involves the holding of the articulation features of a preceding segment over

another segment. Cases involving a two-way exchange of articulation features were termed

reciprocal assimilation. Place, energy and manner articulations were terms used to refer to

„types of influences in assimilation‟. Three types of influences were described: assimilations

involving a change in place of articulation (place assimilation), assimilation involving a

reduction of the fortis/lenis contrast (energy assimilation) and assimilation involving a

change in the manner of articulation (manner articulation). Likewise, Cruttenden (301-303)

provides a detailed explanation of this phenomenon by identifying regressive or

anticipatory, coalescence and progressive assimilation. Regressive/anticipatory

assimilation and coalescence assimilation correspond to Collins and Mees‟ leading and

manner assimilation respectively. Progressive/perseverative assimilation is described as an

uncommon process which may occur when a plosive is followed by a syllabic nasal and the

nasal undergoes assimilation to the same place of articulation as the preceding plosive.

Collins and Mees also add that greater complexity be may introduced into the process of

assimilation in two ways: (a) when two types of assimilation affect one phoneme; and (b)

when more than one phoneme is affected by an assimilation.

3.3.4 Elision

A historical view of elision is presented by Collins and Mees (118) in their examination of

the status of this phenomenon in both older varieties of English and contemporary English.

„Historical assimilation‟ is the term that is suggested to cover cases where the deletion of a

phoneme in a word has become fixed and the original ideal forms have become extinct. The

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„silent letters‟ of English illustrate cases of historical elision (e.g. talk, comb, know, iron).

However, Cruttenden, Wells, Brown and Gimson provide accounts of the processes of elision

in present-day English. Elision is generally described as a process whereby a phoneme is

deleted or elided, unlike assimilation which involves the replacement of a phoneme by a

second one. Cruttenden (303) provides two major environments in which elision may occur

in mainstream RP. They are word-internal position and word-final or word-boundary

positions. Elision in the former usually involves the loss of a vowel, consonant or entire

syllable involving weak accents. The alveolar plosives and and consonant

clusters are also identified as the commonly elided segments in word-boundary positions.

Another type of elision which involves mainstream RP diphthongs and triphthongs is an

innovatory phonological process known as smoothing. Described by Wells (238) as a

„monophthonging process‟ in which the quality of the resultant monophthong is that of the

starting-point of the underlying diphthong, it involves vowels with front and back; mid to

close quality. Commenting on the same process, Cruttenden admits that it results in “the

reduction of the phonetic sequences , to , … new homophones are

produced in this way, e.g. tyre, tower; shire, shower; sire, sour (145). Of all the RP

phonetic/phonological connected speech processes discussed in this section, „smoothing‟ is

perhaps the most crucial for intelligibility and Gimson may well be right in his observation

that „this monophthongization of and and their coalescence with is

likely to be one of the most striking sound changes affecting southern British English” (140)

3.3.5 Intonation

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The final supra-segmental feature to be considered in this review is intonation.

Differences exist in the intonation of RP and NEA and this affects intelligibility as

agreed by Cruttenden that:

while the variation in intonation between languages (and between

dialects of English) is not as great as that involved in segments, it is

nonetheless sufficient to cause a strong foreign accent and in some

cases lead to misunderstanding (270).

Intonation is a speech feature which is usually acoustically manifested by pitch with three

principal functions. However, for the purpose of the present study, only the discoursal and

attitudinal functions of intonation are relevant. The traditional approach which employs the

nuclear tone to describe the shape of tunes is adopted in the discussion of RP intonation.

Generally, there is agreement among scholars on RP intonation tunes and their meanings.

Roach and Cruttenden reflect this agreement as regards the following:

(i) Declaratives: falling tones

(ii) Yes/no-interrogatives: low-rising tones

(iii) Tag-interrogatives: a falling tone (high fall or low fall ) or a rising

tone (usually low rise).

(iv) Polite imperatives: Rising tone (low rise or fall rise

(v) Exclamatives: Falling tone.

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Cruttenden also includes a description of tones for certain formulaic expressions such as

„thank you‟, „good morning‟. In such situations, it is claimed that falling tones and high fall

tones generally show sincerity in the first and second expressions respectively.

In conclusion, the examination of aspects of segmental and suprasegmental variation

between NEA and RP has revealed striking differences. There is little doubt that these

differences are bound to affect intelligibility. What we do not know are the specific features

which are crucial for intelligibility and the extent to which intelligibility is affected by

these phonetic and phonological differences. These are the questions which we will attempt

to answer in the subsequent chapters of this study.

CHAPTER FOUR: THEORETICAL & METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

4.0 Introduction

This study attempts to examine the issue of accent variation and how it impinges on

intelligibility. It is based on the assumption that language is heterogenous rather than

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homogenous and therefore requires a framework which recognizes the heterogeneity of

language for adequate investigation and explanation. The sociolinguistic theory which

represents a heterogeneous view of language provides a general view of linguistic variation

and is discussed in this chapter. In addition, sub-fields of this theory which are more

directly related to the explication of the issues of accent variation involved in the present

study are also subsequently identified and explored in the present chapter. The framework

of intelligibility testing is an appropriate procedure for the achievement of the main

objective of the study which is to measure the level of intelligibility of the Standard British

English accent to Nigerians. In due recognition of the suitability of this framework, an

attempt is made to establish its appropriateness as a tool in this chapter. The section is

concluded with a discussion of the procedures which were adopted for the data gathering.

4.1 The Sociolinguistic Theory

Emerging in the 1960s, sociolinguistics represents a departure from the previous view of

language structure as a homogenous unit, by recognizing the heterogeneity of language. It

is a theory which seeks to account for the full variety of the individual‟s linguistic

behaviour in three major ways. The three approaches are as follows: (a) language variation

in different social circumstances (b) variations existing between different

individuals/groups within the same speech community, and (c) variation along geographic

divisions. Sociolinguistics can therefore be described as that branch of linguistics which

seeks to describe language in terms of variation along several dimensions.

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There have been various attempts to describe sociolinguistics as a branch of the social

sciences (Downes; Fasold , Eckert and Rickford, Chambers, Trudgill & Schilling-Estees

etc.) In all of these attempts, the themes tend to include language and social structure,

language use as a social phenomenon, how language contributes to making community

possible, social aspects of language, linguistic aspects of society, language variation etc.

Language and society are therefore two central themes in sociolinguistics and it serves as a

meeting ground for linguists on one hand and social scientists on the other hand. Coulmas

recognizes two „centers of gravity‟(8) within sociolinguistics which correlate with the twin

themes of language and society. They are macro and micro sociolinguistics or

sociolinguistics in the narrow sense and sociology of language respectively. These views

represent different research agendas. While macro-sociolinguistics involves investigations

of language attitudes and language shift among other things, micro-sociolinguistics is

engaged with language centered issues such as how language varieties correlate with

various attributes. In this distinction, sociolinguistics is concerned with investigating the

relationship between language and the society with the goal being a better understanding of

the structure of language and how languages function in communication; the equivalent

goal in the sociology of language is trying to discover how social structure can be better

understood through the study of language. Hudson has described the difference as follows:

sociolinguistics is „the study of language in relation to society‟, whereas the sociology of

language is „the study of society in relation to language‟ (4). In other words, in

sociolinguistics, language and society is studied in order to find out as much as we can

about what kind of thing language is and in the sociology of language, the direction of

interest is reversed. Using the alternative terms above, Coulmas points out that:

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micro-linguistics investigates how social structure influences the

way people talk and how language varieties and patterns of use

correlate with social attributes such as class, age and sex. Macro-

linguistics on the other hand, studies what societies do with their

languages, that is, attitudes and attachments that account for the

functional distribution of speech forms in society, language shift,

maintenance, and replacement, the delimitation and interaction of

speech communities. (2)

An examination of these descriptions shows clearly that the issues in this study center

around micro-sociolinguistics. This particular area is the focus of this study because of its

concern with the issue of language variation. Investigations of language variation

undertaken in the area of micro-sociolinguistics are often referred to as variation studies

while the theory usually employed for the explication of language variation issues is the

variation theory.

4.2: Variation Theory

The variationist approach is a language-centered viewpoint within the realm of

sociolinguistics. Its concern is the internal variation which exists in languages and the way

in which speakers make use of the many different possibilities that language offers to them.

The major task of variationists is to try to specify the norms of linguistic behaviour that

exist in particular groups and then try to account for individual behaviour in terms of these

norms. In the accomplishment of this task, several issues have been identified by

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Wardhaugh as being of great concern to variationists. They are: identity, group

membership, power and socialization (6). These themes are described in relation to

language variation as follows: Identity is perceived in terms of individual and group

identity and variationists try to explicate language behaviour in terms of „people seeking to

negotiate, realize, or even reject identities through the use of language‟. Group membership

is seen to be a major determinant of group behaviour as a group‟s language behaviour is

influenced by the desire of its members „to achieve a sense of solidarity‟. Power also plays

a significant role in language variation as its use produces linguistic effects which result in

certain consequences such as the following: the creation of standard languages, standard

accents, gendered styles of speaking and specific types of discourses. The themes identified

above correlate with the major divisions of variation studies which are geographical and

social variation. Differences in pronunciation, choices and forms of words and in syntax

over a wide region constitute geographical or regional variation.

4.2.1 Geographical/ Regional Variation

The study of geographical or regional variation is informed by a fundamental assumption

of the geographical sensitivity of linguistic forms. It recognizes that geographical varieties

arise over time and as a result of historical processes. One of the earliest explanations

which informs this theory is the classical wave theory put forward by Schmidt. In this view,

linguistic changes are visualized as waves or meteorological fronts which spread at

different rates and in different directions, thereby leading to different innovative features.

This implies that geographical variation is similar to the act of dropping a stone in a pond.

This produces ripples that move farther and farther away from the center, producing a

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wave-like pattern. In linguistic terms, as forms move farther and farther away from the

center, more divergent forms or dialects are created in a language. Schmidt‟s view seems to

explain the emergence of the Nigerian dialect of English as a form which developed from

the English used in England, thereby linking the two varieties. A similar view is expressed

by Dittmar who argues for the equality of language varieties. It is claimed that all regional

dialects and social dialects are functionally equivalent in their expressive possibilities and

their capacity for logical analysis since they have a common source:

[W]hat we find is not well-formed and regulated activity as

opposed to ignorant or careless, but rather a conflict of definite,

fixed locutions, one of which for some reason is “good” while the

others are “bad”...The scientific view…will bring us farther. It has

the disadvantage of not been based on a more extensive survey of

various languages and of their history than any one person could

make; also it has the advantage of methodical approach. This last

means that we shall not operate with the terms “good” or “bad”

language or their equivalents, since it is precisely these that we are

trying to define ….. In this way, wherever there are lines across

which communication is hampered- water, mountains, deserts,

political boundaries and the like – we find differences in speech

(113).

From these arguments, it may be inferred that because all varieties of a language may be

traced to a common origin, none should be considered as intrinsically better than the other.

This seems to suggest that considerations of the Standard British English accent as being

superior to the Nigerian English accent may not be based on any empirical evidence as

such but on mere conjecture.

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Two main types of processes have been identified in terms of the creation of regional

varieties. They are: relocation diffusion and expansion diffusion (Britain 622). The

process of the creation of varieties through the migration of individuals or groups from one

location to another is termed relocation diffusion while expansion diffusion involves the

process of the creation of a variety through day to day passing on of new variants from

those who have acquired them. The process which led to the formation of the Nigerian

accent of English may be likened to relocation diffusion described above. The migration of

British traders and colonial government officials to Nigeria at around the sixteenth century

is very similar to this process.

Another theorist whose views have a bearing on this study is C.J Bailey. Bailey proposes a

theory of speech variation in the frame of the competence theory developed by Noam

Chomsky; but stresses that it can only succeed when the Chomskyan view of the

homogeneity of the language community is abandoned in favour of an assumption of

heterogeneity. Employing the Chomskyan notions of deep and surface structure, an attempt

is made to establish the proposition that two or more varieties of a language can be said to

be dialects of a language if they have the same deep structure identity. Arguing that

regional varieties of a language can be described by co-existent grammars, this model does

away with the traditional linguistic distinction between synchronic and diachronic, in

favour of a polylectal model.

This model represents the adult listener‟s internally constructed unified grammar which

subsumes dialect differences by enabling him/her to summarize variety differences in a

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form which enhances understanding. The same ability is perhaps employed by the non-

native speaker in understanding, interpreting and perhaps even predicting the speech of

native speakers. This concept attempts to explain the process of negotiating intelligibility

between interlocutors who speak different accents. The conclusion which may be drawn

from these arguments is that interlocutors speaking different varieties are able to achieve

mutual intelligibility due to a shared underlying form of both accents.

Many other scholars have contributed to the development of this theory in terms of

empirical, theoretical and practically oriented works. Theoretical works on languages in

contact by Weinreich and Ferguson have strongly influenced variation research as some of

the concepts are also used in the study of language variation. This includes the notion of

interference (phonological, lexical, and grammatical), and the notion of transfer. These

concepts are useful in studies involving the comparison of accents. Other useful concepts

include contagion or spatial diffusion concept which were introduced by Bailey. The

concept represents an attempt to build in historical as well as social variation into

geographical variation and explain how variants spread from central focal areas. These

concepts are useful in an accent variation study such as this because they provide

explanations for this phenomenon. A relatively new but related area of study which focuses

on the notions of convergence and divergence within ethnolinguistic diversification is geo-

linguistics. Identified by Britain, it is a sociolinguistic concept within the realm of

spatial/geographical variation which attempts to show how language varieties converge and

diverge at the same time. Focusing on the interrelatedness of accent variation and

geographical variation, it emphasizes the important role of topography in accent

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delimitation. Britain argues that wherever natural impediments exist (such as rivers and

mountain) creating boundaries between communities, one is likely to find both areas of

similarities and differences in the speech of the communities.

Most of the views that have been examined above have explored geographical and social

variation within the field of accent phonology. The following subsection deals with this

concept and how it creates social divisions in human societies.

4.3 ACCENT PHONOLOGY

Accent phonology aims at identifying the structure behind linguistic systems in spoken

language. Based on the sub-systems of segmental and supra segmental phonology, it

attempts to show the systematic nature of the consonants, vowels, tonal patterns, stress

patterns, syllable shape etc., which exist in individual languages or in languages generally.

It basically seeks to provide a linguistic explanation for phonological structure through the

establishment of permissible and non-permissible phonological patterns which may exist in

phonological space. In describing the two-pronged approach which accent phonology

entails, Wells employed the terms „bottom up phonology‟ and „top down phonology‟ (40).

On one hand, he argues that bottom-up phonology „involves the segmentation of the mass

of speech sound and the identification within it of relevant features of sound patterning…so

that the phonetically essential is separated out from the phonetically redundant or

irrelevant‟. On the other hand, top-down phonology involves the prediction of

pronunciations in a way that illuminates the differences between geographical and social

varieties.

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These explanations for phonological structure are usually made in relation to the notions of

standard vs. nonstandard which are used in descriptions of accent variation. Hence, accent

varieties are commonly described in terms of variation from or approximation to the sounds

of a standard variety of accent.

The notion of a standard accent is central to accent variation studies. Standard accents are

usually associated with extended education and the use of prestige variants rather than

stigmatized variants. Stigmatized variants are usually associated with non-standard accents.

Both standard and non-standard accents can be represented on the accent continuum –

developed by Stewart and Bickerton - and used to classify linguistic features as spread

along a line, showing clusterings around the acrolect (standard variety), the mesolect (the

speech of the majority of the population) and the basilect (broadest possible accent forms).

The notions of hyperlect and paralect, introduced by Honey refer to clusterings between the

acrolect and the mesolect.

The description of accent variation is central to both phonological and sociolinguistic

theory, but at the intersection of sociolinguistics and phonology is sociophonology.

4.4 Sociophonology

This field is an aspect of sociolinguistics that focuses on socially significant pronunciation

differences rather than all aspects of language variation (Honey 92). The social variables

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which are identified as being significant in sociophonology are socioeconomic class, region

age, sex (gender), ethnic group, social network and contextual style (Labov, Chambers and

Trudgill, & Milroy). Central to Sociophonological studies such as those listed above, are

distinctions between variants in terms of their relationship to social significance. One of the

leading scholars in sociophonological studies, Labov, identified the following core

notions of the field:

(a) indicators: variants to which little or no social significance is attached, and may

indeed be perceived by observers with linguistic training;

(b) markers: which are readily perceived variants with social significance; and

(c) stereotypes: which are popular and conscious but imprecise general

characterizations of the speech forms of particular social groups.

The association of these notions with linguistic and social variables has been the focus of

several theoretical and empirical studies in the area of sociophonology. (Labov Trudgill,

Petyt, Milroy and Milroy; Chambers and Trudgill) However, in ESL situations such as that

which exists in Nigeria, the social variable which is most often correlated with

pronunciation is education. Major studies involving such correlation which have been

undertaken in Nigeria include: Jubril , Banjo and Jowitt and they all seem to agree that

there is a close correlation between spoken English and educational attainment.

Another important contribution to sociophonology which is relevant to this study is Le

Page and Tabouret-Keller‟s concept of acts of identity. This concept offers an explanation

of “how and why speakers adjust, in any given situation to what seems to them as the

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appropriate speech norms” (106). They claim that interlocutors are strongly motivated to

adjust their speech behaviour in line with the speech norms of their interlocutor.

Assessments of this claim in relation to the speakers of Nigerian English have been

attempted by Bamgbose and Awonusi. The major conclusion is that attempts at

approximating to the RP accent or any foreign accent for that matter is usually met with

disdain in Nigeria as such individuals are regarded as “wanna bees” implying the ridiculing

of non-localised speech norms.

These notions are useful in a study of this type which involves the investigation of areas of

divergence and convergence between the Standard British English accent (RP) and the

Nigerian English accent and the implications for intelligibility. While due cognizance must

be given to the importance of sociolinguistics and its sub-fields in the explication of the

phenomena of accent variation, it does have limitations as regards the actual measurement

of intelligibility. Therefore, in order to fully achieve our major objective of measuring the

intelligibility of the Standard British English accent to Nigerians, a more suitable tool

ought to be employed. The framework of intelligibility testing which has been successfully

applied in studies of intelligibility measurements is proposed as an appropriate framework

for adoption in the present study. The following section presents a description of this

framework.

4.5 THE CONCEPT OF INTELLIGIBILITY

The framework of intelligibility testing was first proposed by Catford in a landmark

treatise which represents the first serious attempt to grapple with intelligibility as a

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construct of speech. It is stated that speech is intelligible “if the hearer understands the

words, i.e., if his response is appropriate to the linguistic forms of the utterance” (3). For

Catford, a speaker achieves complete intelligibility if linguistic forms are selected

appropriately, that is, if the sounds are appropriate. He further distinguishes between

intelligibility and another inter-related term, „effectiveness‟ which goes beyond

intelligibility to include the hearer‟s grasping of the speaker‟s intention. According to

Catford, “it is normally the speaker‟s intention that the hearer should respond to his

utterance in a manner which is appropriate to his purpose in speaking” (4). He goes further

by demonstrating that intelligibility depends for its realization on at least four out of five

aspects:

1. Selection (of words/utterances by speaker)

2. Execution (of words/utterances by speaker)

3. Transmission (of words/utterances from speaker to hearer)

4. Identification or recognition (at the word/utterance level)

5. Interpretation (of meaning behind utterance as intended message)

It is also argued that intelligibility level can be measured spanning a continuum between

„low intelligibility‟ and „high intelligibility‟ (7), demonstrating that it is a scalar quantity

rather than a binary one. Decades after Catford‟s landmark treatise, Smith and Nelson

advocated the notion of „global intelligibility‟(“World” 441) based on the abstract

parameters of co-operation, appropriateness, effectiveness and threshold of intelligibility.

Proposing three terms for the measurement of intelligibility, they identified a higher level

of understanding which they termed as “comprehensibility” referring to “the meaning of a

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word or utterance” (“World” 438). This is a level of perception higher than mere

recognition of words. The introduction of interlocutor‟s attitude as a variable affecting

intelligibility was done by Dalton and Seidlhofer. The inclusion of this variable emphasizes

the subjective nature of intelligibility judgements as a complex of both speaker and listener

factors. Jenkins presents another approach to intelligibility which is defined by her focus

on the functions of English as a lingua franca between speakers of English from different

L1 backgrounds. Perceiving intelligibility as “Interlanguage Talk” ILT (199). It is proposed

that the recognition of the phonological form, the most basic level of intelligibility as a

precondition for effective communication success among speakers of English in ILT. The

interdisciplinary nature of speech intelligibility was presented by Smith and Nelson based

on the application of concepts used in the Speech Acts and Pragmatics theory to

intelligibility. They divided intelligibility into three categories of intelligibility,

comprehensibility and interpretability in which the last two categories correspond to

locutionary and illocutionary force respectively (441). They argue that the pragmatic

effects of utterances, observable only at the advanced end of the intelligibility continuum

cannot be successfully interpreted without situational, social and cultural awareness.

The conclusions we can draw is that intelligibility can be measured at several levels,

spanning phonological intelligibility to pragmatic intelligibility, but the level which is

relevant to this study is phonological intelligibility or what is otherwise known as

“word/utterance” recognition (Catford 5). The second level of intelligibility, identified by

Catford as effectiveness, will not be investigated. This is because the speaker and listener

will both be in an experimental situation and the listener will not be required to make any

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responses but merely understand what was said. The usefulness of intelligibility testing in

determining the level of understanding in oral communication is well established and we

hope to further demonstrate this.

4.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

4.6.1 The Test Material

Four types of tests were designed for this investigation. The objective was to elicit not only

the entire range of the phonemic inventory of the RP accent but to also ensure that higher

levels of language analysis such as stress and certain connected speech processes which

researchers have identified as distinctly RP were included. The test material consisted of

the following: Test1 - Connected speech, Test 2 - Phonemes, Test 3-Stress and Test IV-

Intonation.

Test 1 -Connected Speech

Of the various types of materials which can be used for intelligibility testing, spontaneous

connected speech is the most important because the elicited text is representative of all the

levels of phonological analysis, from the segmental to the suprasegmental. Another

advantage of this type of material is the naturalness of the text as this type of material is the

closest reproduction of real life conversational communication. However, the effects of

accommodation will of necessity be present in the sort of interview setting created here but

these influences were kept to the barest minimum by letting the interviewee do most of the

talking. Since the focus of the investigation is the interviewee‟s speech rather than that of

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the interviewer, the mutual adjustment which usually takes place in any conversation was

minimized by adopting a monologic style. After the initial introductions and explanations,

the interviewer kept quiet. Questions had been prepared to help interviewees who needed

prompting but the prompt questions were hardly used. The topic presented to the speakers

was a very familiar one and therefore they were all able to speak freely, choosing their own

words and they all spoke for longer than ten minutes which was the desired recording limit.

The chosen topic was their last holiday and as the subjects are Britons who generally enjoy

going on holidays and have had at least one in the past, the conditions were relaxed and

thus elicited naturalistic language which the subjects were likely to use in everyday

conversation. Technical language and difficult words were not used by the speakers as

there was no need for them because of the simplicity of the topic.

Although this is an experiment, all efforts were made to make it as close to real life

situation as possible. This is the rationale behind including the connected speech test in

spite of certain objections towards its use on the grounds that it provides contextual clues

unlike word lists tests. People do not use isolated words alone in conversation. They use

longer stretches with similar structure to the structure of connected speech. Therefore, the

connected speech test is closer to real life situation. Besides, initial exposure to connected

speech with its contextual clues and redundancies instead of isolated words allows the

listeners some time to become familiar with the speakers‟ accent for sufficient „calibration‟.

All speakers experience the phenomenon of calibration which is an attempt to

automatically correlate the sounds of other accents with the sounds of their own accent to

facilitate understanding.

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Test 2

Apart from connected speech tests, phoneme tests are also crucial in intelligibility testing

because articulation tests enable us test specific phonemic contrasts and certain

phonetic/phonological processes in the accents. This list was drawn up based on the

researcher‟s own experience during interactions with British RP speakers and from the

experience of other researchers in the field.

Three other important considerations were involved in the compilation of the word list.

They are as follows: the exclusion of polysyllabic words, the exclusion of certain form

words and the issue of whether or not the words should be embedded in the context of a

meaningful sentence.

Polysyllabic words are generally easier to recognize than monosyllables and it was thought

that the inclusion of polysyllabic words will make the test too easy for the listeners as it

will then mean that the words will be easily recognized. This is the reason why it was

decided that the list should have mostly monosyllabic words, and disyllabic words should

be brought in only where it was necessary for testing a particular phoneme or process. Rare

and unfamiliar words were avoided.

It was considered desirable to omit certain form words such as articles, conjunctions and

monosyllabic prepositions which are usually regarded as weak forms in connected speech

but would have to be given strong forms when said in isolation.

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The issue of whether or not the words should be embedded in sentences to provide some

context was a serious consideration. The advantage of placing the words to be tested in a

context is that this represents a more realistic language situation. In addition, this elicits

more natural speech because the speaker is usually unaware of what is being tested.

However, the disadvantages include the fact that a lower number of items can be tested and

this may make the list less reliable.

Testing the phonemic contrasts in isolation has several advantages. Chief among them is

that it enables both speaker and listener to concentrate on the phoneme/process being tested

and this makes for easier analysis. In addition, more items can be tested as more time is

saved. Time was of essence here because all the speakers and listeners were volunteers who

would not like to be delayed unnecessarily. However, there are two overriding reasons for

testing the words in isolation:

(a) it enables the speaker to concentrate solely on the phoneme being tested; and

(b) isolated words are easier to analyze as extraneous influences are absent.

Therefore, it was decided that the words will be tested in isolation.

Test 3 - Placement of nucleus in sentences (sentence stress)

Test items on sentence stress were designed to elicit certain nuclear stress patterns in

groups of three similar sentences. For example in the sentence No, Tom had fried chicken

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for dinner, the nucleus can be placed in at least three places, depending on the emphasis the

speaker wishes to give. Thus, we have:

No, `Tom had fried chicken for dinner (i.e. not James)

No, Tom had `fried chicken for dinner (i.e. not roasted)

No, Tom had fried chicken for `dinner (i.e. not lunch)

The researcher (called the interviewer in the tests overleaf) asked the RP speakers to

contradict as emphatically as possible the statements put to him/her in the first line of each

dialogue. The statements were read to the speaker with a high falling tone on the key word

the speaker was supposed to contradict, as follows:

Did James have fried chicken for dinner?

Did Tom have roasted chicken for dinner?

Did Tom have fried chicken for lunch?

The 16 speakers produced 380 recorded examples of nucleus placement in sentences.

Test 4- Attitude and intonation

Items were designed to elicit sentences conveying different attitudes by means of

intonation. The test was designed to judge how well Nigerian listeners would understand

different attitudes conveyed by means of varied intonation patterns. To elicit the desired

intonation tunes, short situational dialogues were constructed in which both researcher and

speaker took part. Some of the items contained short prompts for the speakers, in the form

of instructions as to the tone of voice or attitude expected, viz. surprise, doubt, agreement.

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Before the actual recordings were done, the researcher and speaker had a practice run-

through of all the items, in order to familiarize the speakers with the material.

Item 49 aimed at eliciting from the speaker a falling statement pattern, in contrast to item

50 where a questioning, rising nucleus commonly associated with information-type

questions is expected. Other intonation tunes include the following: falling nucleus

commonly associated with information-type questions, rising or fall-rise contour used in

surprised questions, final low falling nucleus and final low rising nucleus to differentiate

between a set of complete and incomplete alternative choices, the falling tone and fall-rise

tone used to convey positive and doubtful attitudes, a low-rising nucleus and a high-rising

nucleus conveying a normal enquiry and a surprised enquiry respectively. Finally, the last

items concern the intonation patterning of question tags.

Test involving a Nigerian Speaker and Nigerian Listerners

In order to provide some measure of validity to the tests as a whole and to test each

listener‟s capacity to listen accurately, a male Nigerian undergraduate was recorded in

Lagos. He performed all the tasks required of the RP speaker.

4.7 POPULATION SAMPLE

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Both speakers and listeners were selected using the stratified random sampling procedure.

The principles which informed the stratification and the recoding details are discussed

below.

4.7.1 The speakers and recording procedures .

There were several important considerations involved in the selection of the speakers for

this study. The first consideration was this: which type of RP accent is the study focused

on? This question is important because no accent is a homogeneous invariant monolith -

including RP - as a lot of variability is found within all accents. For the sake of proper

contextualization and clarity, mainstream RP which contains features which form a

central tendency for all RP accents was selected as our RP variety. Therefore, 16 Britons

who use mainstream RP accent were selected. 8 male speakers and 8 female speakers were

selected. 16 was considered an adequate number to generate enough data representative of

the RP accent. A smaller number of speakers might not generate enough data while a larger

number would have resulted in an over-proliferation of data to be analyzed. The second

consideration was the level of education of the speakers. As the Britons in consideration are

mother tongue speakers of English, level of education was really of no consequence, but in

the interest of homogeneity of sample population, university undergraduates were selected

so that both speakers and listeners would have a comparable level of education.

The selection of speakers was done within certain principles. The principles were set down

to ensure a certain level of homogeneity amongst the informants. The principles are stated

below:

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(i) born and bred in Britain, more specifically in England

(ii) parents must be educated (at least up to university level)

(iii) never have been outside England for a considerable length of time

(iv) a university undergraduate

(v) attended a public school.

4.7.2 Method of selection

The speakers were carefully selected from an initial pool of 70 informants. They were

individually engaged in a chat on their personal biography and information on these issues

was sought. Based on their responses, 16 speakers were finally selected. The principles

which informed the selection will now be examined.

The investigation is concerned with only English people, born and bred in England and

therefore excludes other British citizens such as the Scottish and the Irish. Scotland and

Ireland have their own regional accents as well as educated standard accents which is not

RP. This is why England was specifically stated. In addition, all the RP speakers should be

brought up in mono-lingual situations, English being the only language they speak.

The next principle concerns the parents of the informants. Several sociolinguistic studies of

RP have stressed the prestige connotations of native-speaker RP. Chief among the non-

linguistic factors with which RP is usually highly correlated is education. The accent used

in the home will most likely be that adopted by a child. This is why it was felt that parents

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who had at least a university degree will most likely speak RP and most importantly, their

children will also speak RP.

The third principle is important because of issues concerning „accommodation‟ during

interaction. Individuals who are English by birth but have spent considerable time outside

England are likely to have had their speech influenced by other accents that they have come

in contact with. It is to avoid such undesirable influences that individuals who stated that

they had spent a considerable length of time outside England (more that 6 months at a

stretch) were identified and excluded from the study.

The fourth criterion was included simply to ensure that both speakers and listeners have

comparable levels of education. The study is concerned with educated Nigerians,

specifically, undergraduates and since it is our intention to select undergraduate listeners,

selecting undergraduate speakers will make for homogeneity of both groups of informants.

It should be added here that all the undergraduate RP speakers were students of the

University of Leeds. However, students from the School of English, University of Leeds

and other language departments were excluded for the obvious reason that they would have

had specialized training which might affect the results of the study. But it was possible to

select individuals from widely scattered geographical areas within England due to the large

and widely varied student population of that university.

Lastly, the status of the secondary school attended by the informant was considered. In

England, there exists a distinction between public/private/independent schools and state-

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owned schools. Exclusive boarding/day schools which are privately owned are referred to

as public/private/independent schools. These schools are elitist, charging fees ranging from

5000 pounds sterling per term for boarders and 2000 pounds sterling per term for day

students. RP is the accent norm in these schools and in fact, one of the earliest references to

the RP accent by Daniel Jones referred to the prestige accent as Public School

Pronunciation (PSP). All 16 informants involved in the study were ex-public school

students. Letters were sent out to the students selected for interview. The purpose of the

interview was to collect some background details of the speakers, to have them sign the

consent form and to ensure that none of the speakers suffered from speech defects such as

stuttering or other serious idiosyncratic speech habits.

4.7.3 Recording Details

The speakers were recorded in various locations on the campus of the University of Leeds.

Care was taken to choose quiet locations such as Postgraduate rooms and Computer rooms

in various departments on the campus. It was not possible to record all the speakers at one

location because of time and convenience constraints. Locations close to each speaker‟s

department were therefore chosen for the recordings. However, it was still possible to

obtain clear and noise-free recordings because of the highly sophisticated recording

equipment used. The samples of speech were recorded using a Sony ICD-UX60 IC

Recorder. The IC recorder offered MP3 stereo recording quality and a USB Direct PC link

which was used to transfer the recorded data directly into a Dell Inspiron laptop computer.

The data was then copied into audio compact discs. An Ahuja CTP-10DX body contact

microphone was attached to the IC recorder and clipped as close to the speakers‟ mouths as

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possible to enhance high quality recording. The recording speed was 192kbps. Each

recording session lasted approximately thirty minutes.

4.7.4 Recording Procedures

4.7.4.1 Recording Test 1

Each speaker was asked to talk on the topic: My last holiday. The speaker was told the

topic and asked to think about the subject for 2 or 3 minutes with the aid of the prompt

questions written below. These questions were meant to be a stimulus to enable the speaker

to speak fluently and not be at a loss for words. The recording was started when the speaker

signaled readiness. However, the prompt questions were hardly used as virtually all the

speakers were able to speak for five minutes on the chosen topic.

4.7.4.2 Recording Test 2

The word list illustrating various phonemic representations and various phonological

processes, described earlier were presented to each speaker. They had the opportunity of

reading them silently before recording. The speakers were to pause slightly between each

word and to read at normal speed.

4.7.4.3 Recording Test 3

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As already explained earlier, this section required the speaker to place the nuclear accent on

two groups of three similar sentences with the desired word presented with strong visual

clues e.g. TOM, DINNER. It was explained to the speaker that he/she should contradict the

questions put to him as strongly as possible. Before the recording began, the researcher and

speaker had a practice run in order to let the speaker familiarize himself/herself with the

text.

4.7.4.4 Recording Test 4

As with Test 3, all the sentences were read through once by the researcher and speaker

before the recording. It was explained that the sentences not preceded by a prompt (e.g. the

instructions „doubtful‟, „surprised‟) were to be read, as far as possible, in a normal tone of

voice. As with the earlier tests, there was a run-through session.

Tests 1, 2, 3 and 4 were administered to all the 16 speakers, which resulted in about 6 hours

of recorded speech before the editing. The recordings were made between the 20th of

September and the 25th of October, 2008.

4.8 The Listeners and Listening Procedures

In order to achieve a truly representative sample of educated Nigerian listeners, a slightly

different set of criterion had to be adopted for the selection of listeners. However, to ensure

a relatively comparable set of speakers and listeners, the criterion of School Certificate as

the minimum qualification which was used for the selection of speakers was also used for

the selection of listeners. Another consideration was the competence of the listeners.

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Competence was determined by the ability of the listener to obtain a high score with the

recorded Nigerian speaker. Those that failed to obtain a minimum score were rejected on

account of being „incompetent‟ and other listeners were substituted. Also, listeners who

had considerable exposure to foreign English accents were not acceptable and neither were

listeners with any special training in phonetics or spoken English.

However, a group of listeners made up of Nigerians living in the United Kingdom was

included in the sample for comparison purposes. They represented the Nigerian diasporic

dwellers in the UK. This group was incorporated into the study because it was considered

necessary to investigate the effect of familiarity on intelligibility.

4.8.1 Criteria for Selection

Education is the common criterion which was used in the selection of both speakers and

listeners. For the purposes of this research „education‟ meant a minimum educational

qualification of School Certificate. Other criteria used in the selection of listeners are as

follows: Firstly, the listener must be a Nigerian, born and bred in Nigeria of Nigerian

parents from any of the three major ethnic groups. Secondly, he/she must speak a Nigerian

indigenous language with some fluency. Thirdly, listeners must be second language

speakers of English.

16 Nigerians who had spent a minimum of 10 years in the UK and all living in either

London or Leeds were selected to represent „Nigerians in diaspora‟. 16 was considered an

adequate number as the ratio of Nigerian listeners living in the UK to other Nigerian

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listeners involved in the study would then be 1:10. For this group of Nigerians, their ethnic

orientation was not an important consideration. The criteria used in their selection were as

follows: Firstly, the listeners must be born in Nigeria and to Nigerian parents. Secondly,

they must speak a Nigerian language with moderate fluency. Lastly, the minimum

educational qualification of School Certificate was a necessity for this group of listeners

just as with other listeners and speakers.

Based on these criteria, 160 Nigerian listeners were finally selected. 12 others were rejected

on the grounds of their scores when listening to the Nigerian speaker. Acceptable listeners

were given a number 1-160, preceded by L, to distinguish them from the speakers‟

numbers. Details of each listener were recorded on a form and they were all required to

sign a consent note.

Of the 160 listeners, 108 were female and 52 were males. The preponderance of females

was because females appeared more willing to volunteer than males.

4.8.2 Listening Procedures

Due to the large number of listeners required, it was not possible to have them all in one

location for the listening sessions. Different locations were used for the listening sessions.

Some of the sessions were held in listeners‟ hostels, study areas and even religious centres.

The question of whether to hold individual or group listening sessions was considered. The

advantage of group listening sessions is that it saves time as a larger number of responses

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can be obtained at one sitting. Eventually, both individual and group sessions were held as

the major consideration was the listener‟s convenience.

The use of earphones was considered, but rejected because there were no obvious

advantages they offered. The playback was done using a Dell laptop computer fitted with

external speakers and the sound quality was satisfactory. Care was taken to use rooms free

from distractions and extraneous noises. The listeners were arranged in semi-circles round

the loudspeaker, not more than two rows deep, to ensure that no one listener was too far

away from the speakers to hear properly.

On all occasions, listeners produced written responses. The possibility of having listeners

provide oral responses was rejected on three grounds. Firstly, oral responses were only

possible with individual listening sessions; secondly, there was no guarantee that the

listener would reveal to the researcher all the words he had not understood; thirdly, no

permanent record could be obtained for further study and analysis at a later date. Written

responses had all these advantages.

4.8.1.1 Listening to Test 2

The method of listening adopted for this study is the written response method in which the

listener was to write down what he/she heard. This method produced permanent and easily

verifiable records. The RP speakers‟ connected speech texts were edited to make them all

approximately the same length. The researcher‟s voice was deleted from the recordings.

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The texts of each speaker were then divided into units of approximately 9 or ten words.

This length was considered adequate for the listener to be able to recollect what was heard

sufficiently for accurate writing. Wherever possible, units were divided into sense groups,

ranging in length from 3 to 16 words with a mean length of 9.5 words.

On a number of occasions, however, units had to be divided not according to the sense

groups determined by grammar, but according to the hesitations or pauses made by the

speaker. Pauses and hesitations did not appear to affect the listener‟s ability to comprehend

the whole sentence.

Before each listening session began listeners were told in advance the subject matter of the

text which was „My last holiday‟. Listeners were also told to ignore hesitation phenomena

and pause fillers such as „ehm‟, „well‟, „you see‟.

A problem was caused by the use of abbreviations, place names and some other proper

nouns that would be unfamiliar to some Nigerian listeners. No doubt this will interfere with

the intelligibility of the listeners because it would mean a reduction in the number of items

scored correctly. To avoid this, it was decided that abbreviations, place names and other

unfamiliar items should be revealed to the listeners in advance. These were dictated

immediately before the unit in which they occurred was played back.

During the listening sessions, the connected speech texts were played unit by unit, the

compact disc being stopped by pressing the pause button on the computer while the

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listeners wrote down what they had heard. This procedure continued till all the units were

played through.

4.8.2.2 Listening to Test 2

The procedure adopted for listening to this section was essentially the same with the one

used for the first section. The entire word list was played back one word at a time and the

listeners were given time to write after each word.

4.8.2.3 Listening to Test 3

It will be recalled that different stress patterns were elicited by using short, contextualized

dialogues in which both the researcher and the RP speakers took part. Before presenting the

RP speakers‟ utterances to the listeners, the researcher‟s own speech was erased from the

compact disc. After playing back each utterance, the listener would then have to indicate

which sentence was being contradicted out of several possible ones. The test as presented

to the listeners can be found in the appendix.

4.8.2.4 Listening to Test 4

The listening procedure for this section was done in a similar manner as that adopted for

Test 3. It is an attitude and intonation test in which the listeners were to indicate which

attitude they thought the speaker was trying to convey. The researcher‟s speech was erased

from the recorded contextualized dialogues before being presented to the listeners. It was

explained to the listeners that the term „attitude‟ was an elastic one that also included the

notion of completeness and incompleteness, agreement and disagreement as well as the

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more conventional meaning of that term. The test as presented to the listeners can be found

in the appendix.

4.8.2.4 Order of tests

Tests were presented to all of the 160 acceptable listeners in the following order:

Test 1– Connected Speech

Test 2 – Phonemes

Test 3 – Stress

Test 4 - Intonation

Each listener took part in one listening session only. In this way, the possibility of

„learning‟ through increasing familiarization with the RP speakers was kept to a minimum.

The allocation of listeners to speakers was done on a random basis. Each session lasted

approximately 45 minutes.

One final remark on data: as a second language speaker of English attempting to make

statements on native speaker speech, I am fallible. I therefore had to enlist the help of a

native speaker as a consultant on certain grey areas during the transcription of the native

speaker data.

CHAPTER FIVE: DATAPRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

5.0 Introduction

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In this chapter, the intelligibility scores obtained by the 160 Nigerian speakers in the four

tests are presented in the first section in addition to the phonetic/phonological analysis of

the RP speakers‟ utterances. The analysis of the speakers‟ utterances and the written

responses of the Nigerian listeners was done in order to achieve two purposes:

(a) identify the instances of intelligibility breakdown; and

(b) identify the cause of intelligibility breakdown.

The second section presents the analysis of both the quantitative and the qualitative data for

the four tests administered to the participants in the study. However, an explanation of the

scoring procedures adopted for each of the four tests is discussed first.

5.1 DATA PRESENTATION I: INTELLIGIBILITY SCORES

5.1.1 Scoring Procedures and Intelligibility Scores

In Chapter 4, it was stated that the Nigerians produced written responses for all the tests.

This procedure has many advantages; chief of which is that it provides a permanent record

for comparison and analysis. These written responses were compared to the original

recorded text, making it possible to discover where intelligibility had broken down. It was

necessary to devise a scoring system that would measure the intelligibility of the individual

speakers, compare speakers with one another and to make statistical statements not only

about the performance of the speakers but also about the listeners. To this end, different

scoring procedures had to be adopted for the various tests as it was not possible to utilize

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the same pattern for all of them. The section that follows provides details of the scoring

procedures that were adopted for the study.

5.1.2 Scoring Procedure for the Connected Speech test (Test 1)

As explained in the previous chapter, the speakers‟ texts were presented to the listeners in

units of between nine to ten words, each unit comprising a single sense unit. For the

scoring of this test, each unit was taken as a whole, with no partial or fractional scores such

as half or one third. Thus, a correctly written response had to contain all the key content

and structural words giving meaning to a particular unit and such a correct unit was

awarded one mark. Units were marked either correct or incorrect, with units which had

important elements misinterpreted by the listener marked as incorrect, and units which had

all important elements correctly interpreted by the listener marked otherwise. Hesitation

phenomena and pause fillers such as „I mean‟, „you see‟, „so‟, „erm‟ „aah‟ etc were

discountenanced during the division into units and the subsequent grading. In other words,

it did not matter whether the listener correctly interpreted them or not as grades were not

affected. Also discountenanced were proper nouns such as names of places and people.

This was done because it was observed that a majority of the proper nouns were unfamiliar

to the listeners and this would have negatively affected their scores. Minor verb tense

changes, plural marker changes and substitution of determiners etcetera., were also ignored.

This method may be regarded as favouring the poorer speakers because inability to

correctly interpret a word attracted the same zero score as does the inability to correctly

identify up to seven or eight words. However, this method was considered to be the most

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effective because if partial scores are awarded, there would be subjective judgements of

whether to award half or one-third. Too many subjective judgements such as this may

affect the reliability of the intelligibility scores. Besides this, it was considered that the

poorer speakers were already at an advantage due to the numerous contextual clues which

connected speech provides and this method would provide some balance to ensure that

neither group is favoured. The system of rating each speaker by ten listeners is an added

precaution that was taken to mitigate against skewing in the intelligibility scores. This

procedure entailed having ten listeners listen to a single speaker. Each of the ten scores was

converted to percentages and the speaker‟s final score was the mean of all ten listeners‟

scores. Thus if a speaker‟s text consisted of 42 units and 23 units were successfully

conveyed to a listener, the speaker‟s score with that particular listener would be 54.8%. In

this way, each speaker was given ten scores and the speaker‟s final score was the mean of

all ten scores.

5.1.3 Scoring Procedure for the Phonemes test (Test I2)

The scoring procedure adopted is similar to that of the connected speech test. The total

score for this test was 40. Each speaker‟s score was calculated based on the number of

correct responses given by the listener. The scores were then converted into a percentage.

Thus, if a speaker correctly conveyed 22 out of the 40 items in this test, the speaker‟s

percentage score would be 55%.

5.1.4 Scoring Procedure for Stress (Test 3)

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In a similar manner to the previous test, the number of correctly identified items

represented the speaker‟s score which was then converted into percentages.

5.1.5 Scoring Procedure for Intonation (Test 4)

The items on intonation were presented in this test. The same pattern was employed for the

scoring of this test as the speaker‟s score was also converted into percentages.

5.1.6 Scoring the Nigerian speaker

The listeners‟ responses to all the tests were marked following the same procedure adopted

for the responses to the RP speakers.

5.1.7 The Intelligibility scores.

Following the procedures discussed above, the intelligibility scores obtained in the four

tests by all 16 speakers are shown in the tables that follow:

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. FRP1

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L1 61 29 100 54

L3 66 28 100 61

L5 62 23 100 47

L7 64 24 100 45

L9 63 31 100 49

L10 77 50 100 75

L11 70 20 80 50

L13 58 17 100 46

L15 79 26 100 49

L17 45 28 100 56

Mean Score 64.5 27.6 98.0 53.2

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. FRP2

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L2 55 27 100 67

L4 64 24 80 57

L6 71 28 100 65

L8 59 31 100 55

L12 52 29 100 58

L14 78 22 100 64

L16 68 26 100 59

L18 51 19 100 61

L20 85 55 100 75

L22 63 16 100 58

Mean Score 64.6 28.7 98.0 61.9

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Intelligibility Scores (%)

Speaker No. MRP3

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L19 53 31 100 67

L21 52 26 100 53

L23 49 24 100 58

L25 51 14 100 45

L27 39 26 100 64

L30 67 54 100 73

L29 49 34 80 50

L31 43 21 80 62

L33 41 36 100 48

L35 28 32 100 67

Mean Score 47.2 29.8 96.0 58.7

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. MRP4

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L24 55 34 100 44

L26 52 46 100 55

L28 50 49 100 50

L32 58 32 100 48

L34 63 29 100 58

L36 67 29 100 67

L38 61 35 100 53

L40 71 51 100 70

L42 60 42 100 49

L44 54 46 80 58

Mean Score 45.1 39.3 98.0 55.2

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. MRP5

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L37 57 48 100 67

L39 42 43 100 53

L41 61 47 80 50

L43 55 43 100 52

L45 45 40 100 43

L47 58 41 100 56

L50 77 57 80 82

L49 56 48 100 51

L51 51 43 100 62

L53 60 39 100 40

Mean Score 56.2 44.9 96.0 55.6

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. MRP6

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L46 51 34 100 71

L48 44 49 100 65

L52 59 48 100 52

L54 50 37 80 44

L56 45 31 100 56

L58 59 63 100 83

L60 74 63 100 83

L62 41 23 100 59

L64 48 31 100 50

L66 52 28 100 53

Mean Score 50.7 37.8 98.0 58.5

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Intelligibility Scores (%)

Speaker No. MRP7

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L55 38 26 80 65

L57 67 33 100 75

L59 50 43 100 75

L61 56 38 100 77

L63 54 38 100 69

L65 59 28 100 64

L67 61 41 100 56

L69 31 23 100 59

L70 73 57 100 79

L71 47 31 80 61

Mean Score 53.6 35.8 96.0 68.0

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Intelligibility Scores (%)

Speaker No. MRP8

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L68 65 34 100 50

L72 67 33 100 50

L74 60 28 100 52

L76 58 43 100 43

L78 67 40 100 43

L80 81 58 100 69

L82 58 34 100 34

L84 58 35 100 41

L86 52 35 100 38

L88 49 23 100 38

Mean Score 61.5 36.3 100 46.1

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Intelligibility Scores (%)

Speaker No. FRP9

Listener No. Test 1

Connected

Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L73 50 43 80 33

L75 53 38 100 58

L77 73 43 100 75

L79 82 33 100 50

L81 70 43 100 27

L83 62 33 100 33

L85 68 38 100 50

L87 53 28 100 42

L89 68 50 100 38

L90 82 50 100 74

Mean Score 66.1 38.7 98.0 48.0

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. MRP10

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L92 58 24 100 34

L94 47 24 100 53

L96 63 38 80 45

L98 52 24 100 45

L100 64 52 100 59

L102 43 19 80 42

L104 58 28 100 55

L106 53 28 100 57

L108 48 36 100 47

L112 68 21 100 39

Mean Score 55.4 29.4 96.0 47.6

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. FRP11

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L91 70 48 100 42

L93 63 48 100 42

L95 70 33 100 51

L97 65 48 100 64

L99 68 19 80 68

L101 78 33 100 53

L103 69 43 100 64

L105 67 28 100 55

L107 75 24 100 43

L110 83 57 100 58

Mean Score 70.8 38.1 98.0 54.0

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No.FRP12

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L114 67 48 100 36

L116 73 48 100 45

L118 65 25 80 45

L120 93 67 100 73

L122 71 45 100 36

L124 69 44 80 43

L126 67 38 80 53

L128 65 33 100 55

L132 68 24 100 50

L134 72 31 100 25

Mean Score 71.0 40.3 94.0 46.1

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. FRP13

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L109 73 32 100 71

L111 81 28 100 65

L113 79 42 100 69

L115 62 38 100 63

L117 76 43 100 67

L119 67 33 100 61

L121 75 38 80 62

L123 75 32 80 73

L125 77 38 100 61

L130 83 59 100 79

Mean Score 74.8 38.3 96.0 67.1

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. FRP14

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L136 50 43 100 38

L138 53 33 100 43

L140 82 52 100 64

L142 68 24 80 34

L144 62 43 100 48

L146 63 48 100 45

L148 73 48 100 50

L152 53 43 100 29

L154 72 38 100 38

L156 62 48 80 42

Mean Score 78.6 37.3 96.0 43.1

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. MRP15

Listener No. Test 1

Connected

Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L127 52 38 100 35

L129 62 26 100 51

L131 66 43 80 42

L133 64 33 100 52

L135 67 34 80 50

L137 72 39 100 58

L139 66 47 80 50

L141 64 38 100 33

L143 56 32 100 58

L150 75 54 100 43

Mean Score 64.4 38.4 94.0 47.2

Intelligibility Scores (%)

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Speaker No. FRP 16

Listener No. Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Phonemes

Test 3

Stress

Test 4

Intonation

L145 78 35 100 45

L147 65 38 100 35

L149 79 42 80 44

L151 75 47 100 46

L153 65 45 80 42

L155 69 48 100 45

L157 78 46 80 35

L158 72 42 100 40

L159 56 48 100 40

L160 80 54 100 48

Mean Score 71.7 39.6 96.0 42.0

5.2 DATA PRESENTATION II: PHONETIC/PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

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At the initial stage of the analysis, it was difficult to ascribe the instances of intelligibility

failure to any particular feature of the RP speakers‟ utterances. However, as the analysis

proceeded, a number of clear-cut categories of causes of intelligibility failure emerged. The

phonetic and phonological analysis of the utterances is presented under these categories in

order to present the data in a coherent form. A note on each category follows the list.

5.2.1 Tools for Analysis of instances of intelligibility failure .

The categories finally decided on are as follows:

1. Smoothing

2. Schwa absorption

3. Schwa suppression

4. -reduction

5. Nasal relocation

6. t-alteration

7. r-intrusion

8. t-glottalling & glottal reinforcement

9. Unilateral idiomaticity

10. Large drops in volume and salience

Smoothing

“Smoothing” is the term used to represent instances of the monophthongal realization of

certain sets of diphthongs and triphthongs in a prevocalic environment. It was observed that

whenever smoothing occurred in the speech of the RP speakers, there was no movement of

the articulators from the first to the second element of the diphthong. Instead, there was a

monophthongal realization which is similar but not identical to the starting-point of the

underlying diphthong. For example speaker FRP2 produced poor area as . None

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of ten speakers wrote the correct response. But a few who attempted to respond wrote

„pouring‟ showing that it was the monophthongal realization of the diphthong which led to

intelligibility failure.

Schwa Suppression

“Schwa Suppression” is the term used to represent a context-free process of

monophthonging which was observed to affect the diphthongs. Schwa Suppression

involved the incorporation of a schwa into a neighbouring vowel of a more peripheral

nature. The schwa was usually assimilated by the neighbouring vowel causing the vowel to

be perceived as totally absent and it led to instances of intelligibility failure. Examples are:

„say about‟ which was produced as by MRP4 and „curry a lot‟ which was

produced as byMRP4. These utterances elicited responses such as „say down‟,

„say ban‟, „carry lot‟ , and „carry not‟.

Schwa Absorption

The term “schwa absorption” is used to describe cases where something else in the vicinity

of a schwa takes on its syllabic property but the resulting realization does not have the

openness of a vowel, i.e. the sound that is left has the articulatory qualities of a consonant

but the syllabic qualities of a vowel. Many instances of this occurred in the speech of the

RP speakers and led to intelligibility breakdown. Examples of instances involving this

category include: „people and‟ produced as by (FRP1) and „general‟ produced as

by FRP2. Responses by the Nigerians include: „people in‟ „then run‟, and many

instances of question marks and omission marks.

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Nasal Relocation

This term is used to refer to the process of nasality which was observed with the

phonological sequence VNC (vowel + nasal + consonant), especially where the final

consonant was a voiceless stop. The phonetic reflex produced by the RP speakers was a

nasalized vowel + consonant. For example MRP3 produced the phrase “and I think my” as

and all ten listeners failed to write a word in response.

-reduction

This term is used for the process whereby initial [] in words such as „the, this, that‟

became assimilated to a previous alveolar consonant. Several phonetic realizations were

observed among the RP speakers, ranging from moving the dental to alveolar and also

including a variety of voicing characteristics such as voicing assimilation, manner

assimilation and complete assimilation. The phonetic realizations also included a

lengthened alveolar or a double consonant process referred to as „degemination‟. These

variations led to a lot of confusion among the Nigerian listeners. Examples include „from

the‟ produced as by FRP2 and „all this‟ produced as s] by MRP3.

Responses include „from now‟ and „honeys‟ respectively.

Final alteration

Final t-alteration is the term used to refer to several phonetic variants of /t/. It was observed

that word final or syllable final /t/ led to many instances of lack of intelligibility because

this consonant seemed very prone to change in the sense that it was usually realized in a

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variety of forms or totally elided in the speech of the RP speakers. Examples include

„night- life‟ which was produced with the [t] elided as by FRP2 and „quite

steep‟ produced as by MRP5.

Glottallized /t/ and glottally reinforced /t/.

This term is used to refer to the switching of /t/ from an alveolar to a glottal articulation

This switch was observed to have affected the intelligibility of the RP speakers to

Nigerians. Examples include „beaches‟ which was produced as by MRP13. The

wrong responses included „bitching‟ and „bit cheese‟.

R-liaison

This term is used to refer to linking-r and intrusive-r processes which occurred in the

speech of the RP speakers. Linking-r refers to instances where there is an <r> in the

spelling while intrusive-r or r Sandhi refers to cases in which there was no spelling-induced

<r>. Example include: „sore elbows‟ which was produced as by MRP3 and

„shore and‟ which was produced as by MRP8.

Unusual Vocabulary Items

This refers to lexical items used by the RP speakers which were unfamiliar to the Nigerian

listeners. These are cases of „unilateral idiomaticity‟ where particular lexical items used by

the British speakers became problematic because they were not known to the Nigerians.

However, these items were not unusual in themselves but were simply unfamiliar to the

Nigerian listeners due to the different cultural settings (England/Nigeria) in which the

170

informants live. Examples include veg by MRP6 and interrailing by

MRP10.

Large Drops in Volume and Salience at Utterance End

This phrase was used to describe a progressive drop in volume which was observed in the

utterances of the male RP speakers. It caused parts of the utterances to be almost inaudible.

This speech characteristic caused the Nigerian listeners to find the speech of the male RP

speakers very difficult to understand. Most of the listeners responded with devices such as

space and omission marks.

5.3 Presentation of Data: Speaker by Speaker.

Before the speaker by speaker speech analysis, it is important to state that the conventions

of phonetic representation were strained in order to draw attention to the features of

informal speech presented here. During the analysis, it was frequently observed that it was

not possible to come up with a satisfactory phonetic representation of speech in this mode

as the stretches of obscure acoustic blur often do not permit representation on a segment by

segment basis. In order to avoid any misinterpretation of data occasioned by this and the

limitations of a second language speaker/researcher, the assistance of a native speaker was

employed in certain instances of the transcription process which required such intervention.

FRP1

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

there I

171

boy and

tired

train in

player

poor or

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

there

and

war and

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

similar

people and

unusual

and they

train and

172

station and

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

when was it

VN

went with

VN

parents

VN

then we

VN

found our

VN

and I think

VN

went around that

VN

spent all

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

on the

ALV CONS

173

and they

ALV CONS

all the holes

ALV CONS

and then

ALV CONS

from the

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

bullet (holes)

got (these)

great (photos)

t

quite (grumpy) t

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

right (into)

Intelligibility errors due to r-liaison:

similar in

174

war and

area and

Intelligibility errors due to unusual vocabulary items:

via

bizarre

lisp

FRP2

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

holiday I

year and

go out

ago I

ago it

poor area

now and then Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression

city and

175

go away

bare

know a lot

lower and n

few of v

the amount

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

couple

balanced

was

general

and they

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

5VN

camp

VN

176

springs and

VN

unless

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

on that

ALV CONS

even that

ALV CONS

from the

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

night- life

feet were

that land

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

country

177

Intelligibility errors due to r-liaison:

were up

lower and

MRP3

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

there are

air and

go and

lower and

buy a house

buy a

way around

way I

day and

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression

ago in

178

bizarre and

wander around

sore elbows

really afford

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

and they

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

when we

VN

resent you

VN

and I think my

VN

mint so

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

from the

ALV CONS

179

all this s

ALV CONS

all that

ALV CONS

feel that

ALV CONS

as though

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

got sore

that side

can‟t wander

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

cooped

Intelligibility errors due to r-liaison:

sore elbows

Intelligibility errors due to unusual vocabulary items:

snowboarding

swanky

180

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

I got sore elbows so it was good…. it‟s quite bizarre, really bizarre… so I spent a couple of weeks….

wander around I won‟t like to be cooped up…

MRP4

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

poor areas

go off

may end

they are

there are

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression

curry a lot

181

variety and

say about

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

cows and

fruit and

awful

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

I think

VN

and I don‟t think

VN

something

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

was there

ALV CONS

and they

182

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

white person

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

peeped

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

down the street you‟ll be peeped at…. go wearing their sort of skin revealing stuff…

which is really bizarre… helped release some baby tortoises into the sea… sort of more of traditional dress…

it just seems awful…

MRP5

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing

holiday I

stay in

holiday and

care of r

there again

183

prey on pr

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

try again

go again

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

the lake

problem

another

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

and a

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

and then

ALV CONS

because they ze

184

ALV CONS

from the

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

quite steep

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

you can try again… and I‟d like to go again…

out of the city and in another surrounding…. pre-occupied with going out…

to catch up and go out…

MRP6

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

everywhere I

try it

guy I

I also

holiday a

185

now and

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

menu and

try again

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

gilt and

oyster in

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

spent a

VN

refreshment

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

man the

ALV CONS

asked the

186

ALV CONS

but then

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

stretching

teach

Intelligibility errors due to unusual vocabulary items:

touristy

veg

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

a little bit of red wine…

was incredibly ornate inside…

diverse and the herbs that they use…

just for a refreshment or two…

a little bit noisy…

seven months voluntary work…

setting questions etcetera…

MRP7

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

187

there and

there otherwise

poor areas

try and

how effective

there is

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression

there at

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

you can

brothel

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

percent

VN

was apparent

188

VN

there and

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

and then

ALV CONS

was this

ALV CONS

because they

ALV CONS

and there

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

eight percent

quite hard

Intelligibility errors due to r-liaison:

the east

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

running under such a tight grip…

really just incredible…

too often even in Beijing….

it‟s quite hard to breathe….

189

just to get into Tibet…

earthquake was as well…

which obviously they didn‟t have…

MRP8

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

go off f

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

for about

shore and

nasty and

more of

airy and

tour around

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

similar (design)

currency

190

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

I think

VN

brilliant (exhibition)

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

round the

ALV CONS

down there

ALV CONS

and there

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

sight-seeing

Intelligibility errors due to r-liaison:

shore and

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

places to go out… from how it is now…

was quite fun…

the place was massive…

191

FRP9

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

wear a

their own r

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

saw amazing

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

snorkeling

thousand

kilometre

Intelligibility errors due to unusual vocabulary items:

snorkeling

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

192

VN

camp near

VN

when we went

VN

and she

VN

when we

VN

and then I

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

and they‟re

ALV CONS

and they

ALV CONS

relaxed there

ALV CONS

in there

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

boat trips

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

t

tattoo

MRP10

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

193

bathing in

blower or

drier in

shower as

scare at r

buy a

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

go away

two of us

touristy and

camel leather

collapsing Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

people and

pool and

social

194

people and

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

and then I

VN

and it was

VN

whenever

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

and then

ALV CONS

„cause the

ALV CONS

ended then

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

sat by

ate loads d

195

Intelligibility errors due to r-liaison:

weather in

Intelligibility errors due to unusual vocabulary items:

touristy

interrailing

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

the South of Morrocco…

sat by the pool…

which was good…

which was quite fun…

FRP11

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

row up

196

there are

say is

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

twenty at

tour of v

the only

actually afford

wander around

venture out

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

properly

famous

197

sucker and

travel again

interrailing

to go

bubble and

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

and my

VN

and went

VN

point and

VN

prudent in

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

when this

ALV CONS

loved that

ALV CONS

because they

198

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

upset because

ate fish

FRP12

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

there I

wear a

idea about r

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

actually it

fairly

199

westerner and

money and

to eat

idea about

chilly and

were all

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

westerner and

westerner I‟m

summer and

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

long way

VN

I think my

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

200

ALV CONS

treat them

ALV CONS

that they

ALV CONS

and they‟re

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

FRP13

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

holiday and

clear and r

year or

nearby and

now I

area and

stay in

201

lay out

way as

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

you about

wealthy and

whether it

the other

wore an

way as

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

recent

to get

celebrity

202

rural and

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

spent a

VN

recent years

VN

spent a

VN

different in

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

and they

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

quite rural

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

beaches

FRP14

203

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

stay in

their animals z

there I

here I

my exams

our anniversary

power

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

two and

extra energy

for about

summer I

my exams

204

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

asylum

criminal

moral

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

I think

VN

then went

VN

went in

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

in this

ALV CONS

all this

Intelligibility errors due to final alteration:

t

quite cold

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

205

teach

MRP15

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

there and

buy a

idea as r

go on

know everything

violence

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

more of

more and n

206

community and

clever and

me about

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

electoral

again and

colonizers

prison and

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

spent the

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

problems there

ALV CONS

and then

ALV CONS

207

all these

Intelligibility errors due to glottal reinforcement:

beach

Intelligibility errors due to large drops in volume and salience at utterance end:

also did go to the rift valley…

tree all afternoon…

they had no money… they‟ve got nothing to do…

tree all afternoon…

about that…

FRP16

Intelligibility errors due to smoothing:

way of

day and

208

enjoy and

row and

also about

try and

there every

science

Intelligibility errors due to schwa suppression:

nanny and

pasta and

colorfully and

more of

camel

also about

row and

209

Intelligibility errors due to schwa absorption:

along

and they

rational

Intelligibility errors due to nasal relocation:

VN

garment as

VN

to think

Intelligibility errors due to -reduction:

ALV CONS

in their

ALV CONS

and the

Intelligibility errors due to unusual vocabulary items:

veg

5.4 Mean Intelligibility scores for Test 1 (Connected Speech)

The percentage values presented below were arrived at by first converting the individual

scores obtained by each Nigerian speaker into percentages. The percentage scores were

then added and the total was divided by 10 (the Nigerian listeners were in groups of 10) to

arrive at the average score with each RP speaker. In other words, the percentage values

210

below are the average scores of 10 listeners involved for each particular RP speaker. Table

1.1 below shows the intelligibility scores for all the RP speakers. The scores are based on

the connected speech test as spontaneous speech performance is usually taken to be the

most reliable indication of intelligibility. The scores are based on the number of units

correctly identified by the listener.

Table 1.1: Mean Intelligibility scores for Test I (Connected speech)

Speaker ID Scores in %

FRP1 64.5

FRP2 64.6

MRP3 47.2

MRP4 45.1

211

MRP5 56.2

MRP6 50.7

MRP7 53.6

MRP8 61.5

FRP9 66.1

MRP10 55.4

FRP11 70.8

FRP12 71.0

FRP13 74.8

FRP14 78.6

MRP15 64.4

FRP16 71.7

Average 62.2

The results presented in Table 1.1 show that the average intelligibility level of the Received

Pronunciation (RP) accent to Nigerians is 62.2%. The figure is based on the calculation of

the number of items correctly received by the Nigerian assessors in the continuous speech

test. From the figures above, it can be observed that the RP speakers‟ performance vary

considerably in levels of intelligibility (as assessed by Nigerian listeners). The RP

speakers‟ scores vary from 45.1% (MRP4) to 78.6% (FRP14) with an average score of

62.2%. Seven (7) of the RP speakers scored lower than the average score of 62.2%, while

nine (9) of them scored higher than the average score. The scores for this test (Connected

speech) are relatively high, possibly because contextualized speech stimuli has a lot of

clues and redundancy. The percentage value of intelligibility was calculated based on the

connected speech test (Test 1) because the spontaneous speech test was considered to be

the closest to real life interactional communication and was therefore assumed to be the

212

criterion of fundamental importance in assessing the English speakers level of

intelligibility. The implication of this percentage value is that the Nigerian listeners

involved in this study correctly received about 60% (sixty percent) of the British speakers‟

utterances in spontaneous unscripted speech which is highly similar to real life

communication.

Further investigations of the instances of intelligibility failure showed the features of RP

which caused lack of intelligibility. Following the phonetic/phonological analysis of the

instances of intelligibility failures, the ten features of RP which led to lack of intelligibility

were identified. The following table (Table 1.2) presents these features and the figures of

intelligibility failure relating to each feature.

213

Table 1.2

Causes of intelligibility failure

(Figures relate to the number of listener failures in each category)

Speaker ID

RP speech feature

FR

P14

FR

P13

FR

P16

FR

P12

FR

P11

FR

P9

FR

P2

FR

P1

MR

P15

MR

P8

MR

P5

MR

P10

MR

P7

MR

P6

MR

P3

MR

P4

Tota

l

1. Smoothing 2 3 1 6 7 8 5 3 9 6 6 6 6 6 9 6 89 2. Schwa suppression 1 8 6 2 5 7 3 6 6 5 2 2 5 7 5 2 72

3. Schwa absorption 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 7 4 4 2 2 4 5 1 6 55

4. -reduction 5 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 1 3 4 3 3 3 5 5 50

5. Nasal relocation 1 2 2 1 3 2 3 4 4 1 3 2 3 3 4 8 46

6.Large drops in volume and salience at utterance end

4 5 3 5 4 5 4 6 36

7. t-alteration 4 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 28

8. t-glottalling & glottal reinforcement 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 12

9. Unilateral idiomaticity 1 1 2 2 2 3 11

10. r-liaison 1 1 1 2 1 3 9

Total number of failures 18 20 17 16 22 23 18 25 30 25 24 26 30 35 35 44 408

214

5.5 Rank Order Presentation of Percentage Scores For Test 1

The following section presents the analysis of the scores obtained in the connected

speech test (Test 1). Based on the ten groupings of our phonetic analysis of the previous

section, the section shows the instances of intelligibility failure in numbers. The

individual speaker‟s errors listed in the previous section are summarized in rank order

according to category. The following table (1.3) shows the causes of intelligibility failure

among the RP speakers. At the foot of this table, it will be seen that there is some

variance between the order based on the speakers‟ percentage scores and the order based

on the number of listener failures. This is because the speakers‟ percentage score, as

explained previously was based on the number of correct units. In some cases, incorrect

units contained more than one error.

Among the RP speakers, the process of smoothing is the largest single cause of

intelligibility failure, accounting for 21.8% of the instances of lack of intelligibility. This

is closely followed by schwa suppression (17.6%), schwa absorption (13.4%), -

reduction (12.2%), nasal relocation (11.2%), large drops in volume and salience at

utterance end (8.8%), t-alteration (6.8%), t-glottalling & glottal reinforcement (2.9%),

unilateral idiomaticity (2.6%) and lastly, r-liaison (2.2).

215

Table 1.3

Summary of speakers showing % errors

FRP14 FRP13 FRP16 FRP12 FRP11 FRP9 FRP2 FRP1 MRP15 MRP8 MRP5 MRP10 MRP7 MRP6 MRP3 MRP4 Sub

total %

1. Smoothing 2 3 1 6 7 8 5 3 9 6 6 6 6 6 9 6 89 21.

8 2. Schwa

suppression

1 8 6 2 5 7 3 6 6 5 2 2 5 7 5 2 72 17.

6 3. Schwa

absorption

3 3 2 3 3 3 3 7 4 4 2 2 4 5 1 6 55 13.

4

4. -reduction 5 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 1 3 4 3 3 3 5 5 50 12.

2 5. Nasal relocation 1 2 2 1 3 2 3 4 4 1 3 2 3 3 4 8 46 11.

2 6.Large drops in

volume and salience at

utterance end

4 5 6 6 7 7 4 4 36 8.8

7. t-alteration 4 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 28 6.8

6 8. t-glottalling &

glottal

reinforcement

1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 12 2.9

4

9. Unilateral

idiomaticity

1 2 2 2 3 11 2.6

9 10. r-liaison 1 1 1 2 1 3 9 2.2 Total number of

failures

18 20 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 28 28 30 30 35 38 408

Speaker’s % score

78.6 74.8 71.7 71.0 70.8 66.1 64.6 64.5 64.4 61.5 56.2 55.4 53.6 50.7 47.2 45.1

216

One general characteristic which was found to contribute most highly to lack of

intelligibility is extensive reduction in unstressed syllables. This generally included

vowel reductions involving additions, changes and loss of characteristics. It was found

that this feature led to many Nigerians being either completely at a loss or writing

incorrect responses during the listening sessions. These specific features are smoothing

and schwa suppression/monophthongization. These features led to almost half of the

total number of instances of intelligibility failure in connected speech. Smoothing is the

monophthongal realization of certain set of diphthongs and triphthongs in a prevocalic

environment. Examples from our analysis include the realization of poor in poor (in) as

which led to intelligibility breakdown as most of the Nigerian speakers

responded with pour, bore, pouring or blanks, showing that they did not understand the

speaker. Other examples include the following: boy (and) ; player

; buy (and) ; wear (a) . Instances

of schwa suppression/monophthongization include: war and ;

few of v, bizarre and sore elbows

. Features involving the segmental features accounted for another one-third

of the instances of intelligibility failure. This include schwa absorption, -reduction and

t-alteration. Examples of schwa absorption include: saw amazing

; two of us ; pool and . Instances of -

reduction are: ALV CONS ; in there ALV CONS ;

Examples of t-alteration include: sat by ; The features of nasal

relocation, glottal reinforcement and r-liaison also had a significant impact on

intelligibility. Examples are: and then, camp near VN beaches

217

, and drawing . Two RP speech features of

unilateral idiomaticity and large drops in volume and salience were responsible for about

a tenth of the instances of intelligibility failure . Examples from the speech of the RP

speakers include: veg, interrailing, touristy and swanky for unusual vocabulary items

which were classified as unilateral idiomaticity. ‘Large drops in volume and salience‟

refers to a peculiar habit of fading off at the end of an utterance which occurred in the

speech of only the male RP speakers and which left many of the Nigerians at a loss. It

was observed that this was not an idiosyncratic speech feature because it was found to

occur in the speech of all the male speakers.

5.6 INTELLIGIBILITY SCORES FOR TESTS 2-4

The scores of the tests involving relatively decontextualized speech are presented below.

5.6.1 Presentation of Scores Obtained in the Phoneme Test (Test 2)

The following tables present the data for the intelligibility of the RP segmental features in

relatively decontextualized speech (word pairs). The presentation of the test results is

shown in three different tables: Table IIa: Vowels and level of intelligibility; Table IIb:

Diphthongs and level of intelligibility; Table IIc: Triphthongs and intelligibility; and

Table IId: Consonant contrasts and level of intelligibility.

218

Table IIa: Vowels and level of intelligibility

Word Pairs

Number of intelligibility

failures

Total number of utterances

Vowel Contrast

1. 294 320

2. 256 320

3. 230 320

4. 224 320

5. 93 320

6. 81 320

Total 1178 1920

These results show the descending order of vowels and number of times in which

intelligibility failure occurred. Out of a total of one thousand, nine hundred and twenty

(1920) utterances/responses, intelligibility failure occurred one thousand, one hundred

and seventy eight times (1178). Certain phonemic contrasts were found to lead to a

higher number of instances of intelligibility failure than others. With the RP vowels, the

central vowels in particular were discovered to have the highest contribution to

unintelligibility, while phonologically absent segments and vowel length were also found

to cause confusion in many instances. For example, the RP speakers produced

for the pair of words: fur and for and many Nigerians responded with devices such as

space and omission marks. Other responses included: for in place of fur and vice versa,

from, fun and fall.

219

Chart Ia: Intelligibility level of RP vowel contrasts to Nigerians in relatively

decontextualised speech (Phoneme Test)

The scores obtained in the test of phonemes (vowels) show that there was a high

intelligibility failure rate in the test involving relatively decontextualised speech. The bar

chart below highlights the intelligibility vs. unintelligibility rate for RP vowels.

294

256

230 224

9381

-30

20

70

120

170

220

270

320

1 2 3 4 5 6

1

2

3

4

5

6

Key: 1

2

3

4

5

6

220

These results show the descending order of vowels and number of times in which

intelligibility failure occurred. Out of a total of one thousand, nine hundred and twenty

(1,920) utterances/responses, intelligibility failure occurred one thousand, one hundred

and seventy eight times (1,178).

221

Chart Ib: Intelligibility level of RP vowel contrasts to Nigerians in relatively

decontextualised speech (phonemes)

The scores obtained in the test of phonemes (vowels) show that there was a high

intelligibility failure rate in the test involving relatively decontextualised speech. The

percentage pie chart below highlights the percentage intelligibility vs. unintelligibility

rate for RP vowels.

RP vowels: %

intelligible

39%

RP vowels: %

unintelligible

61%

RP vowels: % intelligible

RP vowels: % unintelligible

222

Table IIb: Diphthongs and level of intelligibility

Phoneme

(Diphthongs)

Number of

intelligibility failures

Total number of

utterances

Vowel contrast

1. 289 320

2. 266 320

3. 228 320

4. 162 320

5. 76 320

Total 1020 1600

The table above shows the descending order of diphthongs and number of times

intelligibility failure occurred. Of a total possible number of one thousand six hundred

(1,600) times, intelligibility failure with the Nigerian listeners occurred one thousand, and

twenty one (1,021) times. The peculiar RP process of monophthongization of diphthongs

was observed to be the major cause of lack of intelligibility. For example, were

monophthongized into . The items for these vowels were beer and bear. The

responses included bee, be, bin, bill etcetera for beer and beg, bell, bend, bad etcetera for

bear. Incidentally, both diphthongs have the realization // in NEA which is quite far in

phonetic space from the RP realizations of these two diphthongs.

223

Chart IIa: Intelligibility level of RP vowel contrasts (diphthongs) to Nigerians in

relatively decontexualized speech.

The scores obtained in the test involving phonemes show a high rate of intelligibility

failure in the test involving relatively decontextualised stimuli (word pairs involving

diphthongs). The percentage bar chart below highlights the intelligibility vs.

unintelligibility rate for RP diphthongs.

289

266

228

162

76

-30

20

70

120

170

220

270

320

1 2 3 4 5

1

2

3

4

5

Key: 1

2

3

4

5

224

Chart IIb: Intelligibility level of RP vowel contrasts (diphthongs) to Nigerians in

relatively decontexualized speech.

The scores obtained in the tests of minimal pairs show a high rate of intelligibility failure

in the test involving relatively decontextualised stimuli (minimal pairs involving

diphthongs). The percentage pie chart below highlights the percentage intelligibility vs.

unintelligibility rate for RP diphthongs.

RP diphthongs: %

intelligible

36%

RP diphthongs: %

unintelligible

64%

RP diphthongs: % intelligible

RP diphthongs: %

unintelligible

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Table IIc: Triphthongs and intelligibility

This table shows the descending order of triphthongs and number of times intelligibility

failure occurred. Of a total number of one thousand two hundred and eighty (1280)

utterances, intelligibility failure with the Nigerian listeners occurred one thousand one

hundred and six times (1106) times. The peculiar RP process of smoothing was observed

to be responsible for the high level of lack of intelligibility of the RP triphthongs. For

instance, the triphthongs in items such as fire, tire, layer and payer were realized as /

for the first pair of items and /e for the second pair. The responses included far, farm,

tar, tap, lay, lame, prey and pay which were all wrong.

Phoneme

(Triphthongs)

Instances of intelligibility

failure

Total number of

utterances

Vowel contrast

1. 289 320

2. 278 320

3. 272 320

4. ; 267 320

Total 1106 1280

226

Chart IIIa: Intelligibility of vowels (triphthongs) in relatively decontextualized

speech

The scores presented in Table 11c above show that there was a high rate of intelligibility

failure in the test involving relatively decontextualised stimuli (word pairs involving

triphthongs). The bar chart below highlights the intelligibility vs. unintelligibility rate for

RP triphthongs.

289

278

272

267

240

250

260

270

280

290

300

310

320

1 2 3 4

1

2

3

4

Key: 1

2

3

4 ;

227

Chart IIIb: Intelligibility of vowels (triphthongs) in relatively decontextualized

speech

The scores presented in Table 11c above show that there was a high rate of intelligibility

failure in the test involving relatively decontextualised stimuli (word pairs involving

triphthongs). The percentage pie chart below highlights the percentage intelligibility vs.

unintelligibility rate for RP triphthongs.

RP triphthongs: %

intelligible

14%

RP triphthongs: %

unintelligible

86%

RP triphthongs: % intelligible

RP triphthongs: %

unintelligible

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Table IId: Consonant contrasts and level of intelligibility

Phoneme (consonants) Instances of

intelligibility

failure

Total number of utterances

Consonant contrasts

1. Final 125 320

2. Medial 119 320

3. Initial ; 79 320

4. Initial 12 320

Total 335 1280

The table shows consonant contrasts, their positions in the word (i.e. word initial

position, word medial position and word final position) and the number of times that

intelligibility failed in the phoneme test (Test 11). Of a total of one thousand two hundred

and eighty (1280) possible times, intelligibility failure occurred three hundred and thirty

five times (335) times. The instances of intelligibility failure for the RP consonants were

few and the commonest errors were concerning the items lose; loose which many of the

Nigerians could not correctly identify and also the items hill; ill which were also not

correctly identified.

Chart IVa: Intelligibility of consonants in relatively decontextualized speech

229

The scores presented in Table 11d above show the rate of intelligibility failure in the test

involving relatively decontextualised stimuli (minimal pairs involving consonant

contrasts). The bar chart below highlights the intelligibility vs. unintelligibility rate for

RP consonants.

125 119

79

12

-30

20

70

120

170

220

270

320

1 2 3 4

1

2

3

4

Key: 1

2

3 ;

4

The results presented below are the listener scores for Test III (Sentence stress test).The

scores were averaged over ten (10) listeners for each speaker and then converted to

percentages.

Chart IVb: Intelligibility of consonants in relatively decontextualized speech

230

The scores presented in Table 11d above show the rate of intelligibility failure in the test

involving relatively decontextualised stimuli (minimal pairs involving consonant

contrasts). The percentage pie chart below highlights the percentage intelligibility vs.

unintelligibility rate for RP consonants.

RP consonants: %

intelligible

74%

RP consonants: %

unintelligible

26% RP consonants: % intelligible

RP consonants: %

unintelligible

The results presented below are the listener scores for Test III (Sentence stress test).The

scores were averaged over ten (10) listeners for each speaker and then converted to

percentages.

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Table III: Mean intelligibility scores for contrastive/emphatic stress

Speaker ID Scores in (%)

FRP1 98.0

FRP2 98.0

MRP3 96.0

MRP4 98.0

MRP5 96.0

MRP6 98.0

MRP7 96.0

MRP8 100

FRP9 98.0

MRP10 96.0

FRP11 98.0

FRP12 94.0

FRP13 96.0

FRP14 96.0

MRP15 94.0

FRP16 96.0

Average 96.7

The average score for this test is 96.7%. The high score indicates that the Nigerian

listeners were able to correctly identify almost all the emphatic stress positions in the

speech of the RP speakers. With reference to the nuclear stress results presented in Table

III, it was found that in the area of contrastive/emphatic stress positions in sentences, the

average degree of intelligibility was calculated to be 96.7%, implying that the Nigerian

listeners were able to correctly identify the contrasts in practically all the utterances. The

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British speakers indicated contrast on some utterances, each consisting of a single high

falling nuclear tone on the first, second or third stressed syllable. Contrast was achieved

by placing nuclear stress on the appropriate stressed syllable. The ability to identify the

part of the sentence being contrasted is similar to that required for the identification of

nuclear stress placement positions which distinguish word classes such as nouns/verbs

(e.g. export (noun) and export (verb). Since most educated Nigerians are quite proficient

in distinguishing between such word classes in utterances, it was not very surprising that

very high scores were obtained in this test. Besides this, the nuclear tunes employed by

the British speakers to signify contrasts were relatively simple tunes which Nigerians are

quite familiar with. For instance, the Nigerians correctly identified the emphatic stress

positions (in capitals) in the following statements:

(a) No, the JEALOUS woman slapped her husband‟s lover.

(b) No, the jealous WOMAN slapped her husband‟s lover.

(c) No, the jealous woman SLAPPED her husband‟s lover.

(d) Table IV: Mean intelligibility scores for attitudinal intonation.

(The scores are averaged over the ten listeners involved for each particular speaker.)

Speaker ID Scores in %

233

FRP1 53.2

FRP2 61.9

MRP3 58.7

MRP4 55.2

MRP5 55.6

MRP6 58.5

MRP7 68.0

MRP8 46.1

FRP9 48.0

MRP10 47.6

FRP11 54.0

FRP12 46.1

FRP13 67.1

FRP14 43.1

MRP15 47.2

FRP16 42.0

Average 53.2

Test IV was designed to elicit varying intonation contours based on different attitudes

expressed by various sentences. The Nigerian listeners‟ performance in this test was

average. The mean score was 53.2% and the range was between 42% and 68%. With

reference to Table 4, an average intelligibility rate of 53.2% was observed for the

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intelligibility level of RP intonation contours to Nigerians. This implies that the Nigerians

were able to correctly identify just about half of the various attitudes conveyed by the

various intonation contours used by the RP speakers. Generally, the Nigerians were able

to identify the intonation patterns conveying a simple question. This utterance involved

the use of a relatively simple, unidirectional intonation pattern. However, utterances

involving more complex bi-directional tones left many of the Nigerians at a loss. The

items which left many Nigerians completely defeated were those involving

complete/incomplete listing of choices, and statements conveying different attitudes

including sincerity and boredom. In addition to other areas that have been pointed out

earlier, the area of intonation contours is another one in which the NEA exhibits

divergence from the RP accent. From a functional perspective, while intonation tunes

seem to serve a lone purpose of provision of information in Nigerian English, they serve

the dual function of provision of information and expression of attitude in the Standard

British English accent. Therefore, compound and complex intonation tunes are hardly

employed by Nigerians, previous analysis of Nigerian speakers‟ utterances have shown a

preponderance of simple tunes. It may be due to lack of familiarity with compound and

complex intonation contours that is responsible for the average score obtained in this test.

Table V below shows the scores of the 16 Nigerian Diasporic dwellers (UK) in the four

tests. These listeners were selected to enable us examine the effect of familiarity on

intelligibility.

Table V: The effect of the listener’s degree of familiarity on intelligibility

Listener ID Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4

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Connected Speech Minimal Pairs Sentence Stress Intonation

L10 77 50 100 75

L20 85 55 100 75

L30 67 54 100 73

L40 71 51 100 70

L50 77 57 80 82

L60 74 63 100 83

L70 73 57 100 79

L80 81 58 100 69

L90 82 50 100 74

L100 64 52 100 59

L110 83 57 100 58

L120 93 67 100 73

L130 83 59 100 79

L140 82 52 100 64

L150 75 54 100 43

L160 80 54 100 48

Average 77.9% 55.6% 98.7% 69.0%

Sixteen (16) out of the one hundred and sixty (160) Nigerian listeners involved in this

study were Nigerian undergraduates in the UK. These 16 are representative of Nigerian

diasporic dwellers (UK). The scores indicate that they correctly identified a higher

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number of units than the other one hundred and forty four (144) Nigerians who are

resident here in Nigeria.

5.7 ANALYSIS OF DATA: 1

In this section, detailed explanation is made of the phonetic causes of intelligibility

failure according to the features that have been identified in the previous section. As

stated earlier, performance in connected speech is considered to be the fundamental basis

on which statements on intelligibility should be made. Therefore, the results of the

connected speech test (Test 1) are discussed first. Thereafter, the results obtained in the

tests involving relatively decontextualised speech are discussed in order to have greater

insight into how intelligibility is negotiated in the face of accent variation.

5.7.1 Causes of intelligibility failure in Connected Speech

Smoothing

“Smoothing” is the term used to represent instances of the monophthongal realization of

certain sets of diphthongs and triphthongs in a prevocalic environment. Smoothing

accounted for 21.8% of the instances of intelligibility failure in connected speech,

translating to about a quarter of all the instances of breakdown in communication. A

diphthong is a complex vowel and the pronunciation has a diminuendo (or falling) effect

in that the prominence decreases as we pass from one element to the second. However, it

was found that when smoothing occurred, there was no movement to the second element

of the diphthong. Instead, there was a monophthongal realization which is similar but not

identical to the starting-point of the underlying diphthong. Smoothing was also found to

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apply across word boundaries. Furthermore, the following observations were made

concerning smoothing.

First, smoothing was most common with the diphthongs and triphthongs with vowels

having a front mid to close quality and also vowels with a back mid to close quality.

These vowels are ;;;;;. Smoothing was found to apply most readily to these

vowels and the resulting monophthongal realizations had a range of qualities which the

Nigerian listeners found confusing.

Secondly, with the triphthongs, smoothing led to the reduction of the number of syllables

by one because in some cases, it involves the incorporation of a schwa into the

neighbouring vowel. Due to this assimilation of the schwa by a neighbouring vowel,

perceived syllabicity was not preserved and this led to many instances of intelligibility

failure. Besides this, in many of the realizations involving smoothing, the remaining

vowel (monophthong or diphthong) seemed longer than normal.

Apart from this, the diphthongs ; and showed a lot of variability as

not only were the second elements missing, the first elements had a different realization

and this also caused confusion for the Nigerian listeners. Lastly, for some of the

diphthongs, two realizations were observed:

(a) in instances when <r> begins the following word, there was a linking r in the

pronunciation; and

(b) in other instances without a spelling <r>, an intrusive r was often added.

238

These realizations further led to lack of intelligibility. However it was generally observed

that the usual effect of smoothing was of the production of a monophthong with the

phonetic quality of the starting-point of the underlying diphthong. A selection of

instances where smoothing led to intelligibility breakdown is presented below:

Instances of smoothing

tired (FRP1)

there I (FRP1)

poor or (FRP1)

air and (MRP3)

buy a (MRP3)

row up (FRP11)

nearby and (FRP13)

Smoothing with a different vowel quality

there I (FRP1)

poor area (FRP2)

everywhere I (MRP6)

wear a (FRP9)

blower or r (MRP10)

Smoothing with linking/intrusive r

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care of r (MRP5)

idea as r (MRP15)

scare at r (MRP10)

their own r (FRP9)

clear and r (FRP13)

idea about r (FRP12)

Schwa Suppression

“Schwa Suppression” is the term used to represent a context-free process of

monophthonging which was observed to affect the diphthongs. It commonly affected the

centring diphthongs ,,, as these diphthongs were generally realized as long

monophthongs. This process was responsible for 17.6% of all the instances of

intelligibility failure in the Connected Speech test (Test 1). This is significant as it

represents about a quarter of all instances of breakdown in communication. Schwa

Suppression involved the incorporation of a schwa into a neighbouring vowel of a more

peripheral nature. The schwa was usually assimilated by the neighbouring vowel. It was

also observed that the diphthongs which were subsequently reduced to monophthongs

were sometimes derived from , and that this process occurred very commonly

across word boundaries.

Apart from this general monophthonging process, a duality and multiplicity of processes

involving Schwa Suppression and other processes were also observed to lead to lack of

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intelligibility. The other processes include elision, assimilation, syllabic consonant

formation and the addition of intrusive r. Several instances are presented below:

Instances of Schwa Suppression

the amount (FRP2)

bare (FRP2)

know a lot (MRP3)

really afford (MRP3)

say about (MRP4)

curry a lot (MRP4)

go again

try again (MRP6)

saw amazing (FRP9)

go away (MRP10)

tour of v (FRP11)

more of (MRP15)

Schwa Suppression with elision and intrusive r

for about (FRP14)

Schwa Suppression with linking r

lower and n (FRP 2)

241

idea about (FRP12)

Schwa Suppression with syllabic consonant formation and assimilation

more and n (MRP15)

Schwa Absorption

The term “schwa absorption” is used to describe cases where something else in the

vicinity of a schwa takes on its syllabic property but the resulting realization does not

have the openness of a vowel, i.e. the sound that is left has the articulatory qualities of a

consonant but the syllabic qualities of a vowel. This process was responsible for 13.4% of

the instances of intelligibility breakdown.

The process was observed to occur in several environments:

(a) In the environment of a lateral

(b) In the environment of a nasal

(c) In the environment of syllabic „r‟ and „w‟

(d) Schwa absorption involving voiceless vowels

In all the environments stated above, the loss of the schwa was observed but the number

of syllables remained constant due to the formation of the syllabic consonant. Instances

of this process are identified below.

Schwa absorption involving laterals

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It has long been an axiom of English phonology that certain sound can be syllabic under

the right circumstances. In the instances below, it was observed that the „l‟ became

syllabic following the loss of the schwa. However, the loss of the schwa did not affect the

number of syllables in the word/phrase (both within a word and across word boundaries).

It was as if the reduced vowel was simply a syllabic place holder. However, the reduction

and subsequent syllabification of „l‟ led to many instances of lack of intelligibility.

Instances in the speech of the RP speakers are presented below:

people and (FRP1)

unusual (FRP1)

general (FRP2)

awful (MRP3)

the lake (MRP5)

brothel (MRP7)

similar (design) (MRP8)

snorkeling (FRP9)

kilometre (FRP9)

pool and (MRP10)

bubble and (FRP11)

rural and (FRP13)

Schwa absorption involving nasals

and they (FRP1)

243

cows and (MRP3)

fruit and (MRP3)

problem (MRP5)

gilt and (MRP6)

currency (MRP8)

thousand (MRP9)

Schwa absorption involving syllabic „r‟ and „w‟

It was observed that what was produced by the RP speakers as a syllabic„w‟ is similar to

a rounded schwa. Thus the vowel and consonant gestures overlap completely and the

resulting segment sounded like neither a consonant nor a vowel, thereby causing a lot of

confusion for the listeners.

Instances of syllabic „r‟ occurred across word boundaries in the sequences containing []

+ [r]. Examples are produced below:

interrailing (FRP11)

electoral (MRP15)

Schwa absorption involving voiceless vowels

to go FRP11

to get FRP13

again and MRP15

244

Nasal relocation

This term is used to refer to the process of nasality which was observed with the

phonological sequence VNC (vowel + nasal + consonant), especially where the final

consonant is a voiceless stop. The phonetic reflex produced by the RP speakers was a

nasalized vowel + consonant. It is similar to the homorganic nasal process which usually

occurs in final -nt clusters. This process is common among native speakers of English. It

is usually explained as a re-timing of velum lowering and oral closure, thus nasalization

begins earlier than one might expect from the citation shape and articulator contact is

later. The segment deletion which accompanied this process also added to the confusion

experienced by the Nigerians. Instances are provided below:

unless FRP2

when we MRP3

and I think my MRP3

I think MRP4

something MRP4

and a MRP5

percent MRP7

camp near FRP9

and went FRP11

I think my FRP12

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-reduction

This is the process whereby initial [] in words such as the, this, that became assimilated

to a previous alveolar consonant. Several phonetic realizations were observed among the

RP speakers, ranging from moving the dental to alveolar and also including a variety of

voicing characteristics such as voicing assimilation, manner assimilation and complete

assimilation. The phonetic realizations also included a lengthened alveolar or a double

consonant process referred to as „degemination‟. These variations led to a lot of

confusion among the Nigerian listeners.

Instances are produced below:

on that FRP2

from the FRP2

all this s] MRP3

as though MRP3

and they MRP4

down there MRP8

and there MRP8

and then MPR10

when this FRP11

and they‟re MRP12

in this FRP14

and the FRP16

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Final alteration

Final t-alteration is the term used to refer to several phonetic variants of /t/. It was

observed that word final or syllable final /t/ led to many instances of lack of intelligibility

because this consonant seemed very prone to change in the sense that it was usually

realized in a variety of forms or totally elided in the speech of the RP speakers. Although

it was hardly elided in syllable initial position (probably due to the fact that most elisions

occur in the least obvious part of the syllable - the final position). It was observed that

when /t/ occurred in this position, it was quite obscure.

Two main variants of /t/ in the speech of the RP speakers which was found to affect

intelligibility to the Nigerian listeners were the non-glottalized and glottalized phonetic

variants. There are three non-glottalized variants of /t/ and they are: /t/ without audible

release, tapped /t/ and elided /t/. /t/ without audible release is the variant which involves

tongue transition to alveolar position, followed by a hold stage, without an aspirated

release. This variant occurred before stops which made the closure for the following

consonant masked by the release of the preceding alveolar stop. Tapped /t/ occurred pre-

vocalically in word-final environment while elided /t/ occurred mainly across word

boundary. Elided /t/ was also observed when the /t/ was preceded and followed by

consonants especially labials.

Glottalised phonetic variants of /t/ were also observed and will be discussed in the

subsequent section. Instances of the alteration of /t/ are presented below:

247

/t/ without audible release

quite (grumpy) t FRP1

night- life FRP2

got sore MRP3

that side MRP3

white person MRP4

quite steep MRP5

eight percent MRP7

sight-seeing MRP8

boat trips FRP9

sat by MRP10

ate loads MRP10

ate fish FRP11

quite cold FRP14

Tapped /t/

bullet (holes) FRP2

feet were FRP2

can‟t wander MRP3

quite hard MRP7

248

Elided /t/

great (photos) FRP1

that land FRP2

quite rural FRP13

Glottallized /t/ and glottally reinforced /t/.

This term is used to refer to the switching of /t/ from an alveolar to a glottal articulation

This switch was observed to have affected the intelligibility of the RP speakers to

Nigerians. Both glottalling and glottal reinforcement were observed to have occurred in

the following range of syllable-final environments: before obstruents, before l, m and w,

when ,,, are in syllable final position, or are preceded by a vowel, a liquid or a

nasal. Instances are presented below:

right (into) FRP1

country FRP2

cooped MRP3

peeped MRP4

quite steep MRP5

teach MRP6

tattoo FRP9

ate loads d MRP10

beaches MRP13

teach MRP14

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R-liaison

This term is used to refer to linking-r and intrusive-r processes which occurred in the

speech of the RP speakers. Linking-r refers to instances where there is an <r> in the

spelling while intrusive-r or r Sandhi refers to cases in which there was no spelling-

induced <r>. Generally, /r/ was inserted after certain vowels before a following vowel,

optionally across a morpheme or word boundary. The vowel endings to which an /r/ link

was added include /, / and also single/complex vowels containing final such as

, ,,,. R-insertion also occurred word internally (internal intrusive-r) and

this affected intelligibility to the Nigerians. Instances are presented below:

war and FRP1

area and FRP1

were up FRP2

sore elbows MRP3

the east MRP7

shore and MRP8

weather in MRP11

drawing MRP15

Unusual vocabulary items

This refers to lexical items used by the RP speakers which were unfamiliar to the

Nigerian listeners. These are cases of „unilateral idiomaticity‟ where particular lexical

250

items used by the British speakers became problematic because they were not known to

the Nigerians. However, these items were not unusual in themselves but were simply

unfamiliar to the Nigerian listeners due to the different cultural settings

(England/Nigeria) in which the informants live. These items represented salient cultural

references which of course the British used freely in expressing certain cultural ideas but

these items completely defeated the Nigerians. This was signaled by the use of devices

such as omission marks, space and question marks. However, some of the Nigerians did

make orthographic representations which were phonologically sensible, suggesting that

the listeners were not struggling so much with accent as with culture. Cultural factors

appear to be as important as accent as the interviews were close to real life interactional

communication and therefore they were not culturally vacuous. Instances are presented

below:

snowboarding FRP2

swanky FRP2

touristy MRP6

veg MRP6

interrailing MRP10

Large drops in volume and salience at utterance end

This phrase was used to describe a progressive drop in volume which is a feature of the

RP accent used by many male speakers. It has been noticed even among male news

presenters on the BBC (British Broadcasting Service). It appears to be associated with a

presentation of self as unassertive and unthreatening but it causes parts of a message to be

251

almost inaudible. It is also referred to as „creaky voice‟ and it is produced in the glottal

region with the arytenoids firmly pressed together while the front portions of the vocal

chords slowly vibrate. It is therefore a unique characteristic feature of male RP speech

which involves a glottal setting whereby the front vocal folds vibrate slowly while the

back vocal folds vibrate rapidly. Both articulatory settings produce a croak + voice

characteristic which the Nigerian listeners found difficult to understand. Most of the

listeners responded with devices such as space and omission marks.

To conclude this sub-section, the phenomenon of reduction which is the general term for

the vowel and consonant reduction processes discussed above will be now be discussed

in relation to intelligibility.

Reduction

This general term refers to a process in which a form or set of forms undergoes change

with respect to certain phonetic features. Two main types of reduction were observed in

RP speech and both affected intelligibility. They are phonetic and phonological

reduction.

Phonetic reduction

Phonetic reduction refers to changes which are not language specific but cut across all

languages. The effects of this phenomenon were noticed in two major ways in the

connected speech test. Firstly, it was observed that repeated words were extensively

reduced and hence led to many instances of lack of intelligibility. This observation

252

implies that the same word may exhibit different levels of importance in connected

speech. This observation is important because it relates to words that were initially focal

(at the first mention) but subsequently passed into lower information status (at second or

subsequent mention): the first time the word was used its articulation was more precise

and the resulting acoustic signal more distinct than in subsequent tokens of the same

word. This is related to the theory of least effort which is associated with vocal tract

inertia and which essentially says that since the topic is known, it is not necessary to

make the effort to achieve a maximal pronunciation after the first token. The consequence

of this was that repeated words were generally extensively reduced as they were not

stressed. A few examples are presented below (see Appendix 5):

FRP1: war (line 26)

cakes (line 33 & 34)

FRP2: friends (line 2)

camp (line 5)

MRP4: four (line 2)

culture (line 25& 26)

MRP8: prison (9&10)

café (line13&14)

Secondly, how common or otherwise a word is, also influenced speech intelligibility as it

was observed that more common items were reduction-prone and therefore led to many

instances of intelligibility failure while less common items were less prone to reduction

253

and therefore led to fewer instances of intelligibility failure. This is linked to the

explanation that the brain appears to process words of high frequency more quickly than

their infrequent counterparts. In this regard, it was generally observed that nearly all the

grammatical words - conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns etcetera – were affected by

various reduction processes, while lexical words – nouns, main verbs, adjectives and

adverbs – kept their stress and were not generally extensively reduced. The fact that the

stress patterns of these words were maintained probably ensured that they were highly

recognizable to the Nigerian listeners. A few examples from the data are presented

below (see appendices):

MRP5: and then (line 3)

and a (line 10)

MRP7: you can‟t (line 19)

so I (line 11)

MRP 10: are on (line 6)

FRP16: more of (line 16)

in their (line 7)

Phonological Reduction

Phonological reduction may be described as the changes which systematically occur to

certain sounds and in certain parts of words and syllables in a specific language/accent.

Phonological and phonetic reductions are similar but not completely similar as two major

differences exist between them. Firstly, unlike phonetic reductions which are sensitive to

254

previous mention, phonological reductions are not. Therefore, the frequency of a word

does not determine reduction or otherwise. Apart from this, phonological reductions are

considered to be accent/language specific while phonetic reductions are not considered to

be because phonetic reductions usually cut across many accents/languages while

phonological reductions do not. Phonological reductions are said to be accent/language

specific in the sense that specific reduction processes apply to particular languages rather

than to languages in general. In other words, the changes which were observed to

systematically occur to certain sounds and certain parts of words and syllables of the RP

speakers‟ speeches are specific to RP alone. Thus, the fact that words undergo reduction

in connected speech is a universal fact of human language but the nature and range of

reduction varies from one language/accent to another suggesting that accent continua

showing locations of languages/accents may be useful in the differentiation of accents.

Such a continuum will show the range of reduction in various accents varying from low

reduction to high reduction.

In the present study, it was observed that various types of phonological reductions

accounted for about 80% of the instances of intelligibility failure. This implies that there

is a high degree of variation between RP and NEA regarding reduction. This high degree

of variation probably led to the high degree of intelligibility breakdowns since variation

is a determinant of intelligibility. With regards to reduction, RP and NEA vary in two

major ways:

(a) NEA is known to exhibit low reduction rates while RP exhibits high reduction

rates.

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(b) Going by the explanations above on the language/accent specificity of reduction,

NEA and RP most likely have different patterns of reduction.

These major aspects of variation between the NEA and RP may have led to the high

percentile rate of intelligibility caused by reductions. These reductions mainly affected

the vowels ,, (which are commonly known to be the weak vowels of RP) and to a

lesser extent ,. Among the consonant sounds, the alveolars ,,,, the

fricatives h,, and the dental were the most vulnerable to change. Besides

this, it seems that the immediate phonetic/phonological environment of a segment also

influences whether or not it will undergo reduction. This is because it was observed that

segments that were members of a syllable- or word-final cluster and those at the end of a

word/syllable changed in a variety of ways. These reductions probably resulted in the

Nigerian listeners thinking that unstressed segments and syllables had disappeared.

Instances are presented below:

similar

all the holes

quite (grumpy) t

now and then

bare

few of v

balanced

even that

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that land

buy a house

and I think my

mint so

as though

5.8 ANALYSIS OF DATA: II

CAUSES OF INTELLIGIBILITY FAILURE IN RELATIVELY

DECONTEXTUALIZED SPEECH (TESTS 2 – 4)

The discussions in this section are based on the causes of intelligibility failure identified

in Tests II, III, and IV which are scripted tests. The results of these tests correspond to the

results of the connected speech test (Test 1) and therefore enhance our understanding of

the negotiation of intelligibility in the face of accent variation.

Causes of intelligibility failure: Test 2

Vowels and level of intelligibility

Test 2: Minimal pairs

Number of intelligibility

failures

Vowel Contrast

1. 294

2. 256

3. 230

257

4. 224

5. 93

6. 81

The high intelligibility failure rate for this test is probably due to two reasons:

(a) Test II is a phoneme test which consists of minimal pairs. It is without any of the

contextual clues of the connected speech test; and

(b) The test was deliberately constructed to include items drawn from areas of

segmental divergence between RP and NEA.

Bearing in mind these reasons, it was not very surprising that there was a high percentage

of intelligibility breakdowns. Generally, the items that led to the highest instances of

intelligibility failure with the vowels were those involving:

(a) the central vowels

(b) phonologically absent segments and,

(c) vowel length

The causes of intelligibility failure for individual phonemes are considered below.

;

Contrasts involving and were responsible for the highest instances of

intelligibility failure. The RP speakers produced these vowels for the pair of words: fur

and for and many Nigerians responded with devices such as space and omission marks.

Other responses included: for in place of fur and vice versa, from, fun and fall. For both

vowels, the RP speakers produced qualities articulated with the center of the tongue and

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with considerable length. Although there were individual variations, all the realizations

were between close-mid to open-mid; the only difference between the two vowels being

that one is accompanied with lip rounding while the other is not.

The most likely cause for lack of intelligibility for this pair is the absence of these vowels

from the phonology of many Nigerians. They are both central vowels and the RP central

vowels are known to constitute problems for Nigerians. Awonusi described this pair as

„marginal vowels‟ in reference to their rarity in the speech of most Nigerians (221). ,,

may be the closest vowels that most Nigerians use instead of this pair.

These contrasts also led to a high number of instances of intelligibility failure. The RP

speakers produced the lexical set of said and sad but the Nigerian listeners could not

differentiate between the two words as they responded with writing one instead of the

other. Other responses were even farther off the mark as they included responses such as

send and sell. Some of the listeners also responded by writing said twice, probably

because both items sounded alike in terms of perception. This may have occurred because

the realization of produced by the RP speakers was rather more open that the usual RP

pronunciation. Rather than the tongue being raised to a position midway just above open,

the realization was with a more lowered tongue position and a more open lip position,

which was close to Cardinal . This realization sounded similar to RP . The

lowering of into is a recent development in RP but it brings this vowel closer to the

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NEA equivalent of which is . is also a marginal sound in that it is not used by a

majority of Nigerians.

These pair of vowels were responsible for a high number of intelligibility failures. This

may be because is also a central vowel and vowels at this position tend to constitute

problems for Nigerians. It is also a marginal vowel as only a minority of Nigerians have

the vowel in their phonologies. The RP speakers articulated this vowel in the word cut

with the center of the tongue raised just above the fully open position and with the lips

neutrally open. The quality was similar to that of a centralized and slightly raised

Cardinal which is perceptively similar to. Therefore, most of the Nigerian listeners

responded with cat and car. The confusion with car may be because syllable final /t/ is

usually with no audible release in RP. Thus, to the Nigerian listeners who are accustomed

to full release and aspiration of /t/ in this position, it would have sounded as if the

consonant was missing.

The lengthening that accompanied should have assisted the Nigerian listeners to

differentiate between this pair of vowels but Nigerians like most L2 learners of English

are not accustomed to using length as a feature for sound differentiation. Lack of

differentiation in vowel length is one of the most striking features of the NEA. Thus,

where length is often employed by native speakers for vowel differentiation, hardly is this

feature used by L2 speakers. Therefore, the responses written by most of the Nigerian

listeners for cart was cat and a few even responded with can’t.

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The items for this pair were often and orphan. The two are very close in phonetic space

being articulated by the RP speakers with the back of the tongue. The difference was that

while / was articulated with the back of the tongue in the fully open position, / was

articulated with the back of the tongue raised between the open-mid and close-mid

positions. This closeness in vowel space coupled with the phonologically absent /t/ in

often led to a majority of Nigerians responding with often and often or orphan and

orphan. As with the other long vowels discussed above, the length which accompanied

/ did not seem to assist the Nigerians to discriminate between this pair of vowels as

non-differentiation of vowel length is a major characteristic of NEA. Moreover, the most

common realization of / among Nigerians is /. This may have also added to the

confusion.

Apart from this, it is possible that the phonological absence of [t] in the pronunciation of

some of the RP speakers may have further added to the confusion experienced by the

Nigerians. The /t/ in often has variable realization which led to realizations of the item as

either or . However, the realization without „t‟ was more common among

the RP speakers. This was probably responsible for the confusion observed with the two

items.

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This pair of vowels caused a considerable lower number of intelligibility failures than the

others which have been discussed earlier. They were represented by full and fool. The RP

speakers articulated the short vowel sound in full with a part of the tongue nearer to

center than to back raised just above the close-mid position. However, a degree of

fronting and lack of rounding were observed to accompany the realization of this vowel

and this gave the articulation a quality similar to Cardinal . This may be why some

of the Nigerians responded with fill. But others responded correctly. / was articulated

by the RP speakers with varying degrees of centralization, lowering and rounding ranging

from to to . While some Nigerians responded with fill, others responded

correctly. The relatively fewer instances of intelligibility failure that occurred with this

pair may be because these vowels exist in the phonologies of most Nigerians although

there is a blurring of the distinction between RP and .

The articulation of by the RP speakers was with the front of the tongue raised to a

height slightly below and behind the front close position with the lips spread. /is

somewhat similar with a part of the tongue nearer to center than to front raised just above

the close-mid position with the lips also loosely spread. The lexical items for these

vowels were fill and feel and most of the Nigerians responded correctly probably because

these vowels have similar representations in Nigerian indigenous languages. Thus, the

vowels were familiar to the Nigerians. Only a few instances of intelligibility failure were

observed with responses such as feel instead of fill and vice versa. This was probably due

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to the characteristic of lack of discrimination in vowel length which is common with

Nigerians.

Table 2b: Diphthongs and level of intelligibility

Phoneme (Diphthongs) Number

Vowel contrast

1. 289

2. 266

263

3. 228

4. 162

5. 76

Diphthongs are glides containing two vowels within one syllable. They are usually

described as having a first element (the starting-point) and a second element (the point in

the direction of which the glide is made). RP diphthongs have as their first element

sounds in the general region of ,,,, and for their second element ,,. The

following generalizations were also observed with the diphthongs produced by the RP

speakers for the phoneme test:

(1) Most of the length and stress associated with the glide is concentrated on

the first element, the second element being only lightly rounded in some

cases.

(2) The process of monophthongization was observed with most of the RP

diphthongs.

The segment by segment analysis of the RP diphthongs and the responses by the Nigerian

listeners are discussed below.

The glide of the diphthong began with a close-mid and centralized from front and

moved in the direction of the more open variety of /. However, the glide to the position

of / was never completed and this led quality which is similar to. The

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monophthongization of this diphthong led to intelligibility failure due to the peculiar RP

process.

was also observed to begin in the open mid-front position and moved in the

direction of . The lips were neutrally open throughout. However, the glide to the

second element was also not completed. Thus, the realization was that of a long

monophthong which was similar to . The items for these vowels were beer and bear.

The responses included bee, be, bin, bill etcetera for beer and beg, bell, bend, bad

etcetera for bear. Incidentally, both diphthongs have the realization // in NEA which is

quite far in phonetic space from the RP realizations of these two diphthongs.

Besides the reasons which have been discussed above, another reason why these

diphthongs may have led to so many instances of intelligibility failure is that the second

elements for both of them is the schwa sound and this vowel is very uncommon in the

speech of most Nigerians and this makes many Nigerians unfamiliar with it.

The RP speakers produced / by moving from a tongue position similar to that used for

// towards the position for // which forms the endpoint of all the three centring

diphthongs. The lips were weakly rounded. However, a dual process of lowering and

monophthongization of this diphthong was observed and this led to the realization of a

vowel which was close to /. Responses to the item tour included tore and torn. This

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item led to many instances of intelligibility failure despite the fact that this diphthong is

usually monophthongized into // by many Nigerian speakers.

The glide for / was observed to begin at a central position between close-mid and

open-mid and moves in the direction of //, the lips were neutral for the first element but

rounded for the second element. This particular diphthong did not exhibit the

monophthonging process which was observed for the other diphthongs, but fronting of

the second element into was observed. The same characteristic fronting was also

observed with and but with the diphthong , it led to . This fronting

characteristic probably led to instances of intelligibility failure that were recorded for this

diphthong. Responses included shore, shone, show, shaw, and shawl.

The realization for / moved from a point between the back and front open positions,

and moved in the direction of //. The glide for this falling diphthong was observed to be

more extensive than the centring diphthongs that have been observed earlier. The lips

also changed from a neutrally open to a weakly rounded position. The item for this

diphthong was town and there were only a few instances of intelligibility failure with this

particular word. As for /, the glide began at a central position, between close-mid and

open-mid, and moved in the direction of //. The lips were neutral for the first element

but rounded for the second. This particular diphthong did not exhibit the

monophthonging process which was observed for the other diphthongs, but fronting of

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the second element into was observed. The same characteristic fronting was also

observed with and but with the diphthong , it led to . This fronting

characteristic probably led to the various instances of intelligibility failure that were

recorded for this diphthong. The item for was tone and responses given by the

Nigerian listeners include: tune, twin, tow and tone.

The lexical items for these centring diphthongs were toys and ties respectively. / was

observed to begin at a point between the open-mid and open-back positions and moved in

the direction of . The lips were open and rounded for the first element but changed to

neutral for the second. NEA has a diphthong which is very similar in quality to this RP

diphthong, therefore, this diphthong did not present difficulties for the Nigerian listeners.

This is attested to by the high intelligibility score for this item (toys). The same high

intelligibility score was observed for the diphthong / which glided from the front open

position to the direction of . The Nigerian listeners also responded positively to ties.

Table 2c: Triphthongs and intelligibility

Phoneme (Triphthongs) Number

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The triphthongs presented here are viewed as the combination of a diphthong and a

monophthong []. They are all diphthongs followed by [] within the word, either as an

inseparable part of the word, e.g. fire, tower and bower, , , or as a

suffix (morpheme) appended to the root e.g. layer, payer, blower and slower ,

,, . It was observed that there was a tendency to omit the second

elements of these triphthongs in the realization of the items. This implies that [] and []

were omitted in the realizations of these items. This smoothing process led to the

following realizations: ,,,, and . The responses

provided for these items by the Nigerian listeners include far and from for fire, tar and

tad for tire, lay, and lane for layer, pay and pain for payer, blow and plough for blower

and slow, slope for slower.

Table 2d: Consonant contrasts and level of intelligibility

Vowel contrast

1. 289

2. 278

3. 272

4. ; 267

268

Phoneme (consonants) Number

Consonant contrasts

1. Final 125

2. Medial 119

3. Initial ; 79

4. Initial 12

With reference to the intelligibility figures in the table on consonantal above, it was

observed that the sibilants and fricatives led to many instances of intelligibility failure.

The realizations of the consonants are examined below:

For , the items were lose and loose. The responses involved the confusion of the

two consonants. What may have caused this confusion is the fact that the two consonants

/s/ and /z/ have the same place of articulation. In other words, they are both realized at

exactly the same point in the mouth, using the same mobile and immobile articulators i.e.

the tongue and the alveolar region of the mouth. The only difference is that for [z] , the

vocal folds in the larynx are drawn together, thereby closing off the glottis and leading to

an accompanying vibration which is known as a voiced quality. Whereas, for [s], the

vocal folds are pulled back and drawn apart, leaving a free space through which air can

flow without any vibration which is known as a voiceless quality. It is these two

phonation settings that differentiate between these two sounds.

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However, the absence of [z] in the phonology of most Nigerians may be responsible for

this. It may be said that while RP has a phonological /z/ representation in the word lose,

NEA has a phonological representation of /s/.

The items for these consonants are leisure and ledger. These two consonants also have

close areas of articulation points in the mouth. Both being articulated using the alveolar

ridge/hard palate and the tongue. The distinguishing feature of the two is that while the

former is a fricative sound, the latter is an affricate sound. This is in reference to the

manner in which both are articulated. These consonants are frequently substituted for one

another and this may have led to the confusion of these sounds. The responses were

mainly substitutions of / for / and vice versa.

;

The items for these in the test are hill and ill. The responses were majorly the substitution

of ill for hill and vice versa. Dropping of h is very common among Nigerians as h is a

sound which has complexities of realizations among Nigerians. These realizations

include h-dropping (non-articulation of h) and h-insertion (use of h in a h-less word).

This phenomenon may have been responsible for the confusion observed with these

items.

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The items for these consonants are fail and veil. The few instances of lack of

intelligibility involved the substitution of veil for fail. It is possible that the neutralization

of opposition between / and / which characterizes the speech of many Nigerians. The

two consonants are labio-dental fricatives which are distinguished by voicing. However,

while the two consonants are phonologically significant for Nigerians, the voicing

opposition is occasionally neutralized and this may have led to the few number of errors

observed for these items.

The results presented below are the listener scores for Test 3 (Sentence stress test).The

scores were averaged over ten (10) listeners for each speaker and then converted to

percentages.

Causes of intelligibility failure for contrastive/emphatic stress (Test 3)

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Table III: Mean intelligibility scores for contrastive/emphatic stress

Speaker ID Scores in (%)

FRP1 98.0

FRP2 98.0

MRP3 96.0

MRP4 98.0

MRP5 96.0

MRP6 98.0

MRP7 96.0

MRP8 100

FRP9 98.0

MRP10 96.0

FRP11 98.0

FRP12 94.0

FRP13 96.0

FRP14 96.0

MRP15 94.0

FRP16 96.0

Average 96.7

The average score for this test is 96.7%. The high score indicates that the Nigerian

listeners were able to correctly identify almost all the emphatic stress positions in the

speech of the RP speakers.

In this test, the British speakers indicated contrast on five utterances. Each consisted of a

single high falling nuclear tone on the first, second and third stressed syllable. This high

falling tone was used by the RP speakers on the significant units of information in order

272

to focus on the most important element that was to be highlighted in the sentence. Thus,

the focusing was achieved through the tonicity/pitch change which the RP speakers gave

to the significant words in the following utterances:

Utterance 1: Tom, fried and dinner in the utterance: “No, Tom had fried chicken for

dinner”.

Utterance 2: English, crazy and language in the utterance: “No, English is a crazy

language”.

Utterance 3: green, book and table in the utterance: “No, the green book is on the table”.

Utterance 4: jealous, woman and slapped in the utterance: “No, the jealous woman

slapped her husband‟s lover”.

Utterance 5: president, flew and night in the utterance: “No, the president flew into the

airport at night”.

The RP speakers were consistent in their use of the high falling nuclear tone to indicate

contrast in the five sentences presented to them and the Nigerian listeners seemed quite

proficient in the ability to identify the contrast being made in the sentences. This was no

doubt responsible for the high intelligibility score obtained in this test.

Causes of intelligibility failure for intonation (Test 4)

This test was designed to test the understanding of various attitudes expressed by the RP

speakers through the use of various intonation patterns. The intelligibility level for this

test was calculated to be 53.2%. The percentage value for each speaker is presented

below in a table.

(The scores are averaged over the ten listeners involved for each particular speaker.)

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Speaker ID Scores in %

FRP1 53.2

FRP2 61.9

MRP3 58.7

MRP4 55.2

MRP5 55.6

MRP6 58.5

MRP7 68.0

MRP8 46.1

FRP9 48.0

MRP10 47.6

FRP11 54.0

FRP12 46.1

FRP13 67.1

FRP14 43.1

MRP15 47.2

FRP16 42.0

Average 53.2

The individual items in the test are discussed below:

Item 1: Where are you going? Attitude: Questioning.

All the RP speakers produced this item using a rising nucleus and the Nigerian speakers

all successfully interpreted it as a question. The rising tone is a simple unidirectional tone

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which the Nigerian listeners are highly familiar with. This was perhaps responsible for

the success of the Nigerian listeners in correctly interpreting this item.

Item 2: I‟m starting exams today.

Attitude: Declarative; a statement.

A simple unidirectional falling tone was expected with this item which may be

structurally classified as a declarative sentence. However, instead of the falling tone

which is usually used for RP declarative sentences, some of the RP speakers used a rising

tone (HRT- high rising terminal contour) in the final tone unit of the item where a falling

tone would usually be used.

This particular intonation feature of British English is sometimes referred to as „upspeak‟

and its increasing use has been ascribed to the influence of Australian soap operas which

have a large viewing influence in England. The high rising terminal contour is common

in Australian English.

The effect which was produced by the use of the rising tone for the declarative sentence

in item 2 instead of a falling tone is that it gave the statement “I‟m starting my exams

today” a questioning attitude. The Nigerian speakers who are used to associating a rising

tone with a question misinterpreted the declarative statement as a question and responded

thus.

The high rising terminal contour used by the RP speakers is indicated below in item 2.

I‟m starting my exams today

275

The other items which many of the Nigerian listeners again misinterpreted were items 3

and 4 which involved the use of two main types of listing intonation tones. The two types

of intonation tones used by the RP speakers for these items were the high level and the

half-completed rise. The items are as follows:

Item 3: Would you like a Coke or Fanta or Sprite? Attitude: Complete list of choices

Item 4: Would you like a Coke or Fanta or Sprite?

Attitude: Incomplete list of choices

The RP speakers produced item 3 using either a high-level contour or a half completed

rise and fall contour. However, many of the Nigerians chose the wrong option as they

could not identify whether the list of items presented to them was complete or not. This

was probably because of the use of a bidirectional tone which is a complex intonation

contour rarely used by Nigerians.

For item 4 which was an incomplete list of choices, the RP speakers produced the

incomplete list of items using a half completed rise or low rising final tone. Again, many

of the Nigerians misinterpreted the item and they could not correctly identify that it was

the list was incomplete.

Items 5, 6 and 7 were to convey the attitudes of sincerity, mere formality and boredom

respectively with the statement “thank you”. The options presented to the Nigerian

listeners for these items were as follows:

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(a) With genuine sincerity

(b) On a boring matter

(c) Mere social pleasantry

The items which were read out by the RP speakers and the various attitudes which the

statements were meant to express are presented below:

Item 5: Thank you

Attitude: Sincerity

Item 6: Thank you Attitude: Mere formulaic pleasantry

Item 7: Thank you Attitude: Boredom

The RP speakers produced item 5 using a high falling tone to show sincerity. “Thank

you” may be said with this contour when a favour has been done and one genuinely

wishes to show appreciation. However, many of the Nigerians could not correctly

identify the attitude expressed with this intonation tone. The Nigerian listeners chose the

wrong options and this contributed to the average scores obtained for this item.

Item 6 was produced by the RP speakers using a high rising tone which indicates the

“thank you” is merely the expression of a formulaic/social response and not that a

genuine favour has been done. The Nigerian listeners also could not correctly identify the

appropriate attitude being conveyed by the RP speakers. They responded with the other

options such as “boredom” and “with sincerity”.

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Item 7 was produced by the RP speakers using a low falling tone. This tone was used to

imply that the matter at hand was boring. Again, the Nigerians could not correctly

identify the attitude which was being conveyed by this tone. Many of them chose

incorrect options.

Accent Familiarity and Intelligibility

Sixteen (16) out of the one hundred and sixty (160) Nigerian listeners involved in this

study were Nigerian undergraduates in the UK. These 16 are representative of Nigerian

diasporic dwellers (UK). The scores indicate that they correctly identified a higher

number of units than the other one hundred and forty four (144) Nigerians who are

resident here in Nigeria.

Table V: The effect of listener’s degree of familiarity on intelligibility

Listener ID Test 1

Connected Speech

Test 2

Minimal Pairs

Test 3

Sentence Stress

Test 4

Intonation

278

L10 77 50 100 75

L20 85 55 100 75

L30 67 54 100 73

L40 71 51 100 70

L50 77 57 80 82

L60 74 63 100 83

L70 73 57 100 79

L80 81 58 100 69

L90 82 50 100 74

L100 64 52 100 59

L110 83 57 100 58

L120 93 67 100 73

L130 83 59 100 79

L140 82 52 100 64

L150 75 54 100 43

L160 80 54 100 48

Average 77.9% 55.6% 98.7% 69.0%

The table above shows that the Nigerian listeners that had high familiarity with the

Standard British English accent (Nigerian Diasporic dwellers) obtained higher

intelligibility scores in all the tests than other Nigerians who have relatively less

familiarity with the Standard British English accent. This implies that the degree of

familiarity of the listener influences/determines the level of intelligibility in interaction

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involving Nigerians and Britons. With a range of 93% and 64%, almost all of the

Nigerians in this group (Nigerians living in the U.K) scored higher than the general

intelligibility average of 62% in the connected speech test (Test 1), implying that high

familiarity with an accent correlates with high intelligibility.

The Nigerian listener (Listener L120) with the highest score is a female student at the

University of Leeds who has worked part-time for about three years as a telephone

operator. The job is similar to a public relations job which involves a lot of interaction

with the members of the public. This particular listener seems to have developed the

requisite skills for highly efficient listening. This efficiency was particularly on display in

certain areas of the listening test such as the areas of ability to correctly interpret some of

the intonation contours and ability to correctly identify the unfamiliar vocabulary items

such as interailing, veg, and swanky which occurred frequently in the discourse of the

British speakers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the examination of the intelligibility scores obtained in the tests and the

subsequent analysis has corroborated the fact that accent variation is a determinant of

intelligibility. The phonetic and phonological analysis of the data showed that the areas of

divergence between RP and NEA were also the areas which led to instances of lack of

intelligibility. The identification of the features of RP which were responsible for lack of

intelligibility and the subsequent arrangement of these features into a hierarchy of

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intelligibility has demonstrated the impact of phonological divergence on intelligibility

which in one of the major aims of the study.

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSIONS

281

This final chapter presents the conclusions of the study under the following sub-sections:

summary of main findings, contributions to knowledge, recommendations and directions

for further research.

6.0 SUMMARY OF MAIN FINDINGS

This phonetic/phonological study involving speakers of RP and Nigerians has focused on

accent variation and how it impinges on intelligibility in interactional communication

between educated native speakers and non-native speakers of English. Our corpus of data

comprising both contextualized and relatively decontextualized data has provided

insights into the dynamics of intelligibility negotiation between educated Britons and

Nigerians. The exploration of the quantitative and qualitative procedures to the analysis

of the British speakers‟ utterances and the Nigerian speakers‟ responses has equally

provided evidence of the phenomenon of accent variation as it occurs between speakers

of the Standard British English accent and Nigerians. Presented below are the main

findings of this research against the background of native and non-native English settings

on which the study is based.

1a. The average intelligibility level of the Standard British English accent (RP) to

Nigerians is calculated to be 62.2%. This percentage value is based on the

calculation of the number of items correctly received by the Nigerian assessors in

the continuous speech test (Test 1). This implies that the Nigerian listeners

involved in the study were able to correctly receive about 62% of the British

speakers‟ utterances in spontaneous unscripted speech which is considered to be

highly similar to real life communication. This average is comparable to Tiffen‟s

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test of 1974 where British listeners obtained an average score of 64% with

speakers of Nigerian English.

1b. The features of RP which were observed to determine intelligibility are arranged

in a hierarchy of influence as follows: smoothing, schwa suppression, schwa

absorption, -reduction, nasal relocation, large drops in volume and salience at

utterance end, t-alteration, t-glottalling and glottal reinforcement, unilateral

idiomaticity and r-liaison.

2. The segmental features of the Standard British English accent (RP) determine

intelligibility as the percentage values of intelligibility were: 39%, 36%, 14%, and

74% respectively for the realizations of vowels, diphthongs, tripthongs and

consonants in the phoneme test. Causes of lack of intelligibility include peculiar

RP features such as monophthongization, smoothing, realizations involving the

central vowels, certain sibilants and fricatives, phonologically absent segments

and vowel length.

3. The nuclear stress patterns of the Standard British English accent (RP) affect the

degree of intelligibility of the speakers of this accent as the average degree of

intelligibility was calculated to be 96.7%, implying that the Nigerian listeners were

able to correctly identify the contrasts made in almost all the utterances.

4. Certain types of intonation contours employed by the RP speakers affected

intelligibility as an average intelligibility rate of 53.2% was observed for the

intelligibility level of RP intonation contours. This implies that the Nigerians were

able to correctly identify just about half of the various attitudes conveyed by the

various intonation contours used by the RP speakers. Generally, the Nigerians were

283

able to identify the intonation patterns conveying a positive statement and a simple

question in which the British speakers used falling nuclei. These utterances

involved relatively simple, unidirectional intonation patterns. However, utterances

involving more complex bidirectional tones left many of the Nigerians at a loss with

only about a tenth making the correct responses.

5. The degree of familiarity of the Nigerian listener with the Standard British English

accent influences the level of intelligibility. It was observed that Nigerian listeners

who had high familiarity with the Standard British English accent (Nigerian

diasporic dwellers) obtained higher intelligibility scores in all the tests than other

Nigerians who have relatively less familiarity with the Standard British English

accent. With a range of 93% and 64%, almost all of the Nigerians in this group

(Nigerians living in the UK) scored higher than the general intelligibility average of

62% in the connected speech test (Test 1), implying that high familiarity with an

accent correlates with high intelligibility.

This corroborates previous evidence that accent familiarity correlates highly with

intelligibility. Our juxtaposition of the performances of the Nigerians resident at home

with that of the Diasporic dwellers showed the relevance of degree of familiarity to

intelligibility. The Nigerian listener who obtained the highest score is a female student at

the University of Leeds who has worked part-time for about three years as a telephone

operator. The job is similar to a public relations job which involves a lot of interaction

with the members of the public. This particular listener seems to have developed the

requisite skills for highly efficient listening demonstrating that calibration of an accent

sufficiently assists the listener to achieve greater listening proficiency.

284

6.2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE

Although various studies into the intelligibility of speech have been conducted,

limitations can be observed in terms of perspective as they have basically focused on the

measurement of the intelligibility of non-native varieties to native speakers based on the

premise that native speaker speech is inherently intelligible. In contrast, we have

attempted to examine the intelligibility of a native speaker accent (RP) from a non-native

(Nigerian English) perspective. This approach tends to provide a better framework for

identifying features of the Standard British English accent which present difficulties to

Nigerians, and thus was able to establish a hierarchy of intelligibility based on the

features of the Standard British English accent (RP). In line with our approach, the major

contributions are outlined below:

1. The examination of the spontaneous unscripted speech recordings (connected

speech) provided fresh insights into the nature of RP conversational speech

processes and their impact on intelligibility to Nigerians. The investigation of

these processes enabled us to establish that the intelligibility level of the RP

accent to Nigerians is 62.2% and even more importantly, it provided a detailed

characterization of the features of RP which constitute intelligibility problems to

Nigerians.

2. The exploration of the relatively decontextualized speech of the phoneme test

provided evidence that there is no necessary correspondence between the

285

intelligibility indicators in contextualized speech and relatively decontextualised

speech. Also, phonemic contrasts involving vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs

which tend to create problems of intelligibility were identified on the segmental

level of the Standard British English accent.

3. A significant contribution of the study is in the area of phonetic/phonological

investigation of RP consonant contrasts. The study revealed certain recurrent

patterns of RP speech were found to affect the intelligibility level of the RP

speakers to Nigerians. By establishing a hierarchy of the intelligibility of RP

consonant phonemes, a significant contribution has been made to the

accumulation of data on problematic areas of RP speech especially as it concerns

communicative interaction with Nigerian non-native speakers of English.

4. The examination of the use of nuclear tones and intonation contours by speakers of

the Standard British English accent and the Nigerian listeners‟ responses

demonstrated how intelligibility is negotiated in the face of accent variation. This

provides the basis for us to distinguish between RP nuclear tones and intonation

contours that are easily identifiable and those that are not and thus lead to

problems of intelligibility. Besides providing supporting evidence on the gradable

nature of intelligibility, these conclusions also provide data on the reactions of

Nigerians to native speaker RP nuclear tones and intonation contours.

5. The role of familiarity in the process of intelligibility negotiation was established in

this study and insights were provided on its crucial position. The dynamics

286

introduced into intelligibility through the manipulation of the variable of

familiarity were observed on both the RP speakers and their Nigerian listeners,

enabling us to establish that familiarity is a viable variable in native and non-

native speaker communication.

The findings of the research will provide data in three major ways:

a. As a contribution to the Lingua Franca Core (LFC), an ongoing

compilation of essential pronunciation features for a global English

language teaching syllabus aimed at international intelligibility.

b. To enhance the performance of Nigerian candidates in the listening

comprehension component of the International English Language Testing

Scheme (IELTS). The IELTS is a compulsory examination conducted by

the British Council for Nigerians who wish to undertake

undergraduate/postgraduate study or wish to work in the UK.

c. To provide data for the L2 pronunciation and listening comprehension

syllabus.

6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS

Our recommendations are for three major groups: Variationists, Curriculum Planners and

Teachers/Learners.

Recommendations for Variationists:

This study has demonstrated that the study of native speaker accents to non-native

speakers is a productive area of intelligibility research. Therefore, a departure from the

previous view of intelligibility as a phenomenon which may be studied only from a native

287

speaker perspective is recommended. A broader view that perceives speech intelligibility

as a two-way process that is without prejudice to the supremacy of native speaker accents

over non-native speaker accents is therefore encouraged.

Recommendations for Curriculum Planners:

Scholars have often commented that a remarkable feature of spoken English in Nigeria is

that it often falls short of the user‟s ability in written English. This has been ascribed to

the fact that English is learned by most Nigerians in school and the educational system

has emphasized the skills of literacy more than those of oracy. The result is that the

system has produced in many cases individuals with an impeccable ability to

communicate in written English without a commensurate ability in spoken English. This

study has demonstrated the necessity of incorporating spoken English and to a greater

extent, listening comprehension into the syllabi at both primary and secondary levels.

This is in view of the fact the fact that native speaker speech allegro and particularly

reduction phenomena are hardly ever taught. What suffices for this in the syllabus is

„listening comprehension‟ which is limited to the level of semantics and pragmatics. A

broader curriculum which gives due cognizance to casual speech phonology is therefore

necessary.

Recommendations for Teachers/Learners:

While it is not recommended that learners should be encouraged to ape the native speaker

through the use of casual speech reduction forms, it is necessary that these forms be

288

learnt given that reduction is likely to continue and be even be more ubiquitous in future.

This is because it is a recurrent theme in phonology that changes move in the direction of

simplicity, naturalness, or unmarkedness, echoing the pervasiveness of the theory of least

effort. Therefore, the teaching should be started in Nigeria if higher levels of lack of

intelligibility are to be avoided in future. The limitations of exposing students to only

citation forms of speech as contained in regular dictionaries has been demonstrated as

many Nigerian students find native speaker speech rather problematic. Rather, it is

recommended that natural forms such as the data generated in this research should be

exposed to students to facilitate greater listening proficiency.

6.4 Directions for Further Research

This study is an intensive exploration of normal native speaker pronunciation which some

may see as trivial or deleterious, but our argument remains that a knowledge of normal

pronunciation as it is used daily by native speakers is important.

Our area of study is relatively new because of the previous focus on the intelligibility of

L2 phonology to native speakers. An attempt has been made in this study to demonstrate

the usefulness of examining the intelligibility of RP from a Nigerian non-native speaker

perspective. However, more work needs to be done in terms of segmentation of

Nigerians into ethnic/language groups. This will reveal the level and nature of

intelligibility of RP vis-à-vis the Nigerian listeners‟ mother tongue.

289

Another potential area of study is the pragmatic intelligibility of native speaker speech to

non-native speakers. Given the role of cultural and situational context in the

determination of intelligibility, this seems to be a viable area of research which has not

been previously explored.

6.5 Conclusion

This research has attempted a thorough examination of the intelligibility of the speakers

of the standard British English accent to educated Nigerians. In the course of the

research, we have attempted to determine the level of intelligibility of the RP accent to

Nigerians as well as to identify features of the accent which lead to intelligibility

problems with Nigerian listeners. Our over-riding objective has been to assist Nigerian

listeners improve their level of understanding of RP speech and thereby enhance their

effectiveness in interactional communication with the British. It is hoped that the results

presented have made some contributions in this regard.

Finally, given the international linguistic imperialism of the English language in global

relations and coupled with its attendant expansive linguistic roles in Nigeria and other

nations, there is a need to achieve mutual intelligibility between all the speakers of the

language. This is even more so as the existing imbalance in terms of economic power and

influence is undeniably in favour of the native speaker of English. The implication of this

is that in interaction involving Nigerians and Britons greater “accommodation” may be

required of the Nigerian listener due to the inequality of the speaker/listener

communication hierarchy. Presently, the features of the emerging international English

290

called the Lingua Franca Core (LFC) – a variety which is supposedly a potpourri of all

Englishes – is distinctly identical to native speaker varieties of English. While this

imbalance exists, the necessity of learning native speaker phonology cannot be

overemphasized. It is the fulfillment of this need which research hopes to achieve. It is

hoped that a modest contribution towards the achievement of mutual intelligibility in

communication involving Britons and Nigerians has been made.

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