A Contrastive Analysis of Reporting Verb Usage in English and Okpameri

Abstract

Reporting verbs are used to report the expression of a language user. Usage of reporting verbs in utterances varies in languages. These variations sometimes pose problem to ESL learners. Predicating this study on Contrastive Analysis, the study generated Okpameri data from text instrument administered to SS 3 students in Okpameri linguistic environment. Participatory observation is also adopted for data collection. English data were got from the English grammar texts. From the findings, the two languages are grammatically marked for reporting verbs. However, the usage of these reporting verbs differs. While reporting verbs in English have unlimited vocabulary choices, reporting verbs in Okpameri have limited vocabulary choices. Also, English reporting verbs are morphologically realized for tense and number, but this is not so in Okpameri as Okpameri reporting verbs are not morphologically inflected. The use of English reporting verbs are context-based. This is not so in Okpameribecausethereportingverb‘ai’inOkpameriforinstance,is used to suggest that the speaker has given information, whereas in the real sense of it, the speaker intends to give an order or issue a query. This study, therefore, suggests that English language experts, should adopt systematic approach to the teaching of reporting verbs as this will broaden the knowledge of Okpameri ESL learners.