INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND

Dialect is the real apparatus of correspondence in human culture and discourse possesses a noteworthy position in many dialogs of dialect as an open medium. One of the real attributes of man, as indicated by Mgbodile (1999), is his capacity to utilize dialect to send messages about items, occasions and circumstances around him. Discourse is the thing that recognizes man from different creatures. Discourse is central to any dialect and learning of the English Language can't be considerably great without viable control of the discourse sounds, for semantics skill, as indicated by Chukwuma,H and Otagburuagu,E(1997), is construct principally in light of oracy. In this way, the authority of English is exceptionally associated with the dominance of the talked type of it. From the early age, a typical tyke reacts to the sounds which his older folks use to speak with him. In his offer to impart and get his needs recognized and fulfilled, the kid starts to emulate the sounds which he has gotten notification from his senior citizens. His critical need to speak with the grown-up group and his steady hearing and impersonation of the dialect make it feasible for him to gain his native language or his first dialect. Ogbuehi (2003) declares that each ordinary tyke secures the sound framework and the discourse examples of his primary language regularly through impersonation of sounds from grown-up gathering. Then again, figuring out how to talk a moment dialect or remote dialect as a rule includes a few rigors and difficulties in light of the fact that the student needs to take in the sound frameworks and the prosodic highlights of the second dialect against the as of now immovably merged first dialect in the brain of the student. The issue is halfway that a few dialects are tonal and syllable-coordinated and others are push planned and different discourse sounds have unmistakable acoustic properties. The change in accordance with these distinctions may prompt a bungle and in this manner the student may create sounds that can't be comprehended by different clients of a similar dialect. Onuyouruba (1990) affirms that figuring out how to talk a moment dialect is mentally requesting in light of the fact that the student as of now feels good towards the oral english frameworks of his local dialect. Mackey (1965) concurs that a man who has been utilizing just a single dialect since early youth has propensities and contemplations which are firmly attached to his propensities for dialect, and that dialect is a piece of his experience. He presumes that in taking in a moment dialect, the student needs to modify his discourse propensities to oblige those of the objective dialect. This as indicated by Otagburuagu and Okorji (2002) is on the grounds that dialects have their individual unconventional oral english and phonemic highlights which must be aced and utilized by the student for common coherence with the local speakers and different clients of the dialect. Numerous students of a moment dialect can't make this modification effectively. They rough the oral english highlights of the second or target dialect with those of their primary language. Put in another way, they permit the discourse propensities for their primary language or their first dialect to meddle with the discourse propensities for the objective dialect. This wonder, as indicated by Akindele and Adegbite (1999), is referred to in the dialect enroll as oral english obstruction. Oral english obstruction is a term which alludes to a semantic event in which two distinct dialects over lap and the phonetic arrangement of one of the dialects is moved into the other in a procedure of delivering the last which is the second or target dialect. Impedance, as per Baldeh (1990) is the significant deterrent in the educating of the English dialect and it constitutes an awesome issue to the learning of a moment dialect for it can block common comprehension and comprehensibility and subsequently influences execution in target dialect. This has brought about the assortment of English dialect in Nigeria called "Nigerian English". Mgbodile (1999) is of the view that primary language obstruction is an incredible issue to second dialect students of English. The Nigerian youngster ought to be instructed to see and deliver 4 revise articulation, stress and inflection in the objective dialect, which in Nigeria is English. Instructing right articulation, stress, and sound to Nigerian youngsters might be troublesome as Nigeria is a multilingual nation. William (1990) watches that instructing English to understudies that have distinctive first languages other than English is confused and troublesome, more awful still when the learning condition is multilingual. This issue is aggravated when one considers the way that for some understudies, English isn't generally their second dialect yet third or even the fourth dialect. Educating right elocution, stress and pitch turns out to be more perplexing when in a class, Student „A‟ may have an issue of recognizing the/l/from/r/sounds, however this may not be the issue of Student „B‟ whose discourse trouble is with the articulation of words like „live‟ and „leave‟ so they sound in an unexpected way. Understudy „C‟s claim trouble might be that he can't resist embeddings a vowel sound in a consonant group. From the communicated in English of numerous Nigerians, one can recognize from which zone they originate from. This is on account of various discourse groups have diverse oral english and impedance issues. Ogbuehi (2003) brings up: "Today, there are numerous "Shibboleths (discourse signs) for distinguishing individuals from various ranges of Nigeria"

In a contrastive study of English and Nigerian languages, Chukwuma and Otagburuagu (2002), discovered that the Yorubas realize /v/ as /f/, e.g. ‟very‟ becomes „fery‟, / z / does not exist in Yoruba so it is substituted with /s/ e.g. „zeal‟ is pronounced, „seal‟, issue is pronounced „izzue‟. Akindele and Adegbite (1999), also found out that the absence of English sounds such as the voiceless bilabial plosive /p/, voiceless and voiced labio-dental fricative / ѳ/ and /ð/ and the long vowels /I:/, /U:/ and /a:/ in Yoruba, for instance, make it difficult for Yoruba English bilingual to acquire such sounds. Hence, Yoruba English bilingual will produce „pat‟ as /kpæt/, „fever‟ as /fifa/, and „think‟ as „tink‟. The obligatory /h/ are also dropped hence,

„house‟

Is

Wrongly

pronounced as

„ouse‟

„his‟

Is

Wrongly

pronounced as

„is‟

„hair‟

Is

Wrongly

pronounced as

„air‟

„honey‟

Is

Wrongly

pronounced as

„oney‟

In addition, the Hausa learners of English substitute /v/ for /b/, „very good‟ is pronounced „bery good‟, /kw/ is substituted for /k/. So, „go‟ is pronounced „kwo‟, „come‟ is pronounced „kwom‟, whereas „problem‟ is pronounced as „ “froblem‟. Sometimes /v/ is dropped in words like ‟government‟ which they pronounce as „gworment‟

Onuyouruba (1990), observed that a second language learner of English that has Youruba as his first language can produce „pit‟ with relative ease, but the same learner may experience some difficulties in producing „split‟ or „spit‟ because  these words have consonant clusters, but the Youruba language has no consonant cluster. Because of this, the Youruba learners of English insert vowel in the midst of the consonants. Onuyouruba generalizes that Nigerian languages have no consonant clusters . In the English language, there is a regular occurrence of consonant clusters unlike the Youruba language that has no cluster but has virtually regular and unchanging pattern of (consonant vowel, consonant vowel (CVCV). Folorine (1975) has the same view with Onuyouruba that problematic consonant clusters are the major problem which Youruba students encounter in the pronunciation of words. In his article, “The Problems of Students‟ English‟, he states that learners‟ problems may be that the learner either leaves out one element of the problematic cluster or inserts a vowel within the consonant cluster as in „penalty‟ which they put an additional syllable in the word as shown below

A                                                 B                                                              C

penalty                                  /pen∂lti                                /pena:liti/

grateful                                  /gretful/                                 /gretiful/

Group „B‟ is the correct English pronunciation of the word in column „A‟wheas group „C‟ is the wrongly pronounced Youruba form of group „A‟.Ogbuehi, C.U (2001) points out that the vowel harmony in Youruba words are transferred to the pronunciation of English words, thereby realizing a final vowel pronounced in words with consonant ending as in these groups:

A

B

C

Ball

/bכ:l/

/Bכ:lu/

Table

/teibl/

/tebulu/

Head

/hed/

/hedi/

Leg

/leg/

/legi/

Group „B‟ is the correct English pronunciation of the words in column A whereas group „C‟ is the Youruba version of group „A‟.

Another outstanding oral english problem according to Ugorji (2007) is that some English consonant sounds are not present in the Youruba language e.g. /θ/, /ð/ and /3/. Because of this, the Youruba learners of English substitute /t/ for / θ/, /d/ for /∫/ and /s/. Consequently, Yourubas wrongly pronounce these words thus:

A

b

C

Thief

/θif/

/tif/

Theory

/θiori/

/tiori/

Them

/ðem/

You either get what you want or your money back. T&C Apply

Talk to us right now: (+234)906-451-7926 (Call/WhatsApp)

---