PHONOLOGICAL DEVIATION AMONG SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE IN THE FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC NASARAWA, NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

In Nigeria today, most speakers of English are second users of the language because they acquire their different mother tongues before they come to learn English. This article studied the phonological deviation among speakers of English at the Federal Polytechnic. Nasarawa. Adopting the survey research design, the oral production test (OPT) was used whereby thirty (30) students were randomly selected to speak on some topical issues and issues; related to academics such as Examination Malpractice in Nigeria’s Higher Institutions, Campus Gangsterism, High Rate of Unemployment in Nigeria, The 2019 General Election and hate speeches among politicians during the 2019 electioneering campaign. The student’s speeches were recorded and transcribed in their raw forms and compared with the Received Pronunciation (RP) for the purpose of analysis. The results showed that there were deviations in the production of some sounds that are not present in the phonetic inventory of most Nigerian languages as well as wrong placement of stress on English words. The results also showed that the mother tongue plays a significant role in the wrong pronunciation of English words by most Nigerian English bilinguals.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0208/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>