Vowel reduction and suffixation in Nigeria

THIS STUDY investigates how speakers of Educated Yoruba English (EYE) produce the vowels in typically unstressed syllables of English words whose suffixes require a shift of stress and a consequent reduction of vowels, as in atómic from átom and dramátic from dráma . Twenty suffixed English words were read by one hundred Yoruba subjects, with a Briton who studied at the University of London serving as the control. The focus is on Yoruba English because of both its many speakers and the need for a ‘geo-tribal’ approach to defining the concept Nigerian English . The data was analysed by converting tokens of occurrence to percentages, the higher percentages being taken as the norm. The acoustic analysis was done in a computerized speech laboratory. The study establishes that vowels occurring in typically unstressed syllables in traditional Standard English remain strong and full in educated Yoruba English.