INTRODUCTION
Users of English are located all over the world, each using the language to reflect his geographical area. This gives rise to such geographical varieties of English as British English, American English, Nigerian English etc. This unit is concerned with the study of the structure and use of English in the Nigerian social and cultural environment. The aim is to show the general pattern of Standard English, and English as a Second Language with a view to revealing the systematic nature of the differences between the former and the latter variety. The Unit describes the peculiar features of ESL at the levels of Pronunciation, Grammar and Lexis.
3.1 The Meaning of Standard and Deviation
By standard in this study, is meant the Mother Tongue variety of a language, or the educated variety. Deviation, on the other hand, refers to the variety or varieties characterised by local-features modification, of non-native speakers of a language.
In other words, the educated native speaker variety or form of a language is its standard form whereas, the deviant is that which is coloured by local features of those for whom the language is not first language or Mother-Tongue.
3.2 Second Language
A second language according to Adegbite W and Akindele F [1992: 40] is a language which is sequentially the second language of a bilingual person. According to them, it is the variety in which a bilingual person conducts his everyday activities but shares this role with another language in which the speaker has the greater linguistic facility or knowledge. This is the speaker’s S (L1), or Mother Tongue.
Kachru (1983) quoted in Adegbite and Akindele (1992) refer to English as a Second Language (ESL) as an institutionalized variety which has the following features:
It undergoes process of nativization of the registers; its styles have taken place in both formal and in contextual terms. it is marked by localised features.
3.3 Influence of Mother Tongue on second Language
Simply put, the mother tongue or the L1 is the language in which a bilingual or multi lingual person conducts his everyday activities and in which he or she has the greatest linguistic facility or intuitive knowledge (Adegbite and Akindele 1992). This implies that a speaker’s L 1 does not necessarily mean the language of his mother. It maybe sequentially first language of a person, the one he uses in expressing his worldview, culture and tradition.
In Nigeria, there are over 250 ethnic groups with over 450 indigenous tongues. To most people in these ethnic groups, English is the L2. The interaction of English and these various indigenous languages gives birth to such ethnic varieties as Yoruba English, Hausa English, Igbo English etc. The question now is how do these languages influence the learning of English?
Igboanusi (2000), in his article “Contrastive Analysis: some problem Areas for the Igbo learners of English” points out that when speakers who have acquired the habit of one language want to learn a second language, there is the tendency for the speech habits of their first language to interfere in their effort at learning and using the second language. He defines interference as the influence exerted by the linguistic systems of the first language on that of the secondary language. In this article, Igboanusi points out Smith’s (1979:345) classification taxonomy of interference as “negative interference” and ‘positive transfer’. The latter pertains to difficulties in using the target language which are mainly attributed to mother tongue and the former implies the ease or facilitation in learning the L2 resulting from similarities between L1 and L2.
Since we are concerned with deviation in this study, we shall be interested in that phenomenon known as negative interference. In the section that follows, you shall read about this but before then, the following conclusions, as contained in Odini’s (1989:152) paper and reported by Igboanusi (Ibid) need to be drawn:
Transfer occurs in both informal and formal contexts;
Transfer occurs in all linguistic subsystems;
Transfer occurs among children as well as among adults; Typological factors can affect the likelihood of transfer;
Transfer can sometimes involve usual structure; and
Non-structural factor can affect the likelihood of transfer.
3.4 Levels of Deviation in ESL
In this section, you shall read about the various instances of deviation in Nigerian (L2) English. Language generally is learnt at four levels: Writing, Reading, Listening and speaking. These constitute the basic communication skills in language. Deviation is mostly perceived in the productive aspects of language learning: that is, speaking and writing. In these aspects, deviation is noticed at the following levels:
(a) Phonology (b) Lexis
(c) Grammar
Phonological deviation.
Lexical deviation.
Grammatical deviation.
Having identified the levels and types of deviation, let us now discuss them in detail:
3.4.1 Phonological Deviation
This refers to the transfer of the rules guiding the production of speech sounds of a dominant language in a speech community to the sound system of a subordinate or target language. This can be realised at the following levels:
Phonemic
stress
intonation.
Deviation is dominant at the phonemic level. This is because of the differences between the sound patterns of the mother tongue of Nigerian learners of English and the sound patterns of the English language. Some English sounds are not present at all, in indigenous languages. Examples of such sounds are the voiceless and voiced dental fricative, / Ɵ/, /a/; voiced and voiceless palatal fricative //, /Э/; and long English vowel sounds /l:/, /a:/, /u:/ etc.
Because of this, it becomes very difficult for most Nigerian bilinguals to acquire these sounds. A Yoruba speaker of English for instance tends to produce ‘think’ as /tink/ ‘dhat’ as /dat/ while ‘she’ as /si/,measure as
/mesɔ/ while some Hausa speakers will produce ‘fever’ as /fifæ/, ‘people’ as /fifu/ etc.
There are also noticeable deviations at the prosodic levels:
Syllable
Stress
Intonation
At the syllabic level, most L2 speakers of English tend to transfer the syllabic rules in indigenous languages on the target language English. The fact is that the two are entirely different models. The morphological structure of the words of these indigenous languages follow cvcv or vcvc [constant vowel; vowel- constant patterns whereas the English language has consonant clusters. As a result of this, the Nigerian speakers of English often insert, immediately after the production of a consonant sound, a vowel sound. Consider the differences in the following pronunciations.
1. Words
Native English pronunciation
L2 speakers ’ pronunciation.
2. Little
/litl/
/litu/
3. Bottle
/batl/
/batu/
4. Table
/teibl/
/tebu/
Stress: stress is the most important supra-segmental unit which poses problems for non-native speakers. Stress, according to Daniel Jones (1956) is the degree of force with which a syllable is uttered. This differs from one language to another. Nigerian languages are tonal and intonational while English is stress-timed and intonational. This creates some problems for Nigerian English bilinguals in learning English sounds. A Yoruba- English bilingual for instance, stresses every syllable in the utterance he produces in English or places stress wrongly on some words.
Compare the following for instance,
Words
Native English pronunciation
L2 speakers ’ pronunciation.
1.Character
‘character
Character
2.Education
Edu’cation
education
3.Advice
‘advice
ad’vice
4.Madam
‘madam
Ma’dam
Intonation: At the level of intonation, there is also deviation. Because all the syllables are stressed, a carry-over effect from the indigenous to understand what part of utterances a Nigerian English bilingual is trying to emphasize. Consider the sentence “I am coming home” for instance. In a normal English utterance, ‘home’ is stressed or emphasized. It is also difficult for a Nigerian English bilingual to understand how different intonational patterns on a single utterance can give different meanings to the sentence. For example
You have some money (Tone 1 statement)
You have some money?) (Tone 2
question) You have some money?) (Tone 3
Doubt)
The sentences above are the same in form but the tonal rendition brings the differences in meaning.
3.4.2 Grammatical Deviation
Osisanwo(1994:3) defines grammar as a body of descriptive statements about the morphological and syntactic structure of a language. Alo M.A (1998:55) provides a careful description of those two components of grammar when he explains that syntax is the division of grammar which deals with the way words are combined into phrases and phrases into sentences and the rules governing them; and morphology as the component of grammar which deals with the internal structure of words and how new words can be formed.
In Nigeria, most bilinguals in the English language produce utterance both in speaking and writing that conform to the grammar of their indigenous languages. We find among primary school and secondary school students such as:
‘They are calling you’ where they refers to a singular subject;
“The book fell down from the table” instead of the book fell off the table etc. For further readings on this, Adegbite and Akindele (1992:33) –Sociology of Language.
3.4.3 Lexical Deviation
Lexis deals with vocabulary and word organisation in a language. Lexical deviation in Nigerian use of English takes two forms. The first form is traceable to linguistic factors while the second is traced to cultural factors. From the former perspective, we have issues relating to direct translation language into English. Culturally, there are certain lexical items that are not present in English but have been introduced into Nigerian English because the notions they express are found in Nigerian culture e.g. ‘bride price’ Lexical deviation is also noticeable in the use of kinship terms such as ‘father’ ‘mother’ ‘son’ etc.
These kinship terms have been given semantic extension in the Nigeria speech community.
Self-Assessment Exercises
1. Identify three features of ESL
2. Define phonological deviation, grammatical deviation and lexical
deviation.
3.5 Extent \Degree of Deviation
The following factors determine the degree of phonological, lexical and grammatical deviation in non-native English.
level of education
level of exposure
first language
Can you explain each of the factors as it relates to deviation?
4.0 CONCLUSION
It is not possible for us to exhaust our discussion on this issue of standard and deviation in ESL in this small unit. However, we have been able to show that deviation in ESL in Nigeria is conditioned by two basic factors: the first one is linguistic and the second is cultural. It can be said therefore that phonological, lexical and grammatical deviation in ESL cannot be seen absolutely as errors, but also as inevitable linguistic features of a language contact situation.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we have discussed the following:
• The concepts of standard and deviation from socio linguistic perspectives;
• The meaning of Second Language;
• Mother Tongue influence on Second Language acquisition;
• Levels\types of deviation in ESL; and
• Extent of deviation in Nigerian ESL.
6.0 TUTOR - MARKED ASSIGNMENTS
1. What do you understand by standard and deviation?
2. Describe the following forms of deviations with adequate illustrations from Nigerian English:
Phonological deviation
Grammatical deviation
Lexical deviation
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Adegbite, W. and Akindele F (1992)-Sociology of language.
Alo, M.A. 1998-Style in Language and Communication. A eddy link. Port Harcourt
Igboanusi, H.S. (200) ”Contrastive Analysis: some problem Areas for the Igbo learners of English in Babajide A.O ed. (2000)- Studies in English Language. Ibadan: Enicrownfit publishers
Osisanwo W (1994) Aspects of English structure: Nigeria Fetor
Publishers.
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