Analysis of Users’ Acceptability and Understanding of Three Nigerian English Accents for Teaching and Communication

Abstract

This study investigated the point of agreement by Nigerian English (NE) users about which of the 3 NE accents, based on regional parameters, is generally understood and accepted as the variety to use with a view to arriving at a possible norm of usage for teaching and communication purposes. The subjects were one hundred and eighty Nigerians of varied socio-economic, educational and ethno-linguistic backgrounds drawn from various offices, institutions in Kaduna, Enugu, Ibadan. This is made up of 60 respondents per region, 20 per accent per region making up a total of 180. Respondents’ ages range between 20 and above 60 years. Two researcher-designed instruments were used. First is the Oral Reading Test for Accent identification made up of phonological difficulties usually exhibited by NE language users. Next is a questionnaire in the form of an intelligibility and acceptability rating scale. Based on the findings, the educated NE accent was the most intelligible and acceptable, followed by the mother-tongue based NE accent and the Regional NE accent, it was recommended among others that language policy makers confront the problem of the NE corpus to be used in teaching and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council be commissioned to produce texts on the phonology and phonetics of the Educated NE accent.This study investigated the point of agreement by Nigerian English (NE) users about which of the 3 NE accents, based on regional parameters, is generally understood and accepted as the variety to use with a view to arriving at a possible norm of usage for teaching and communication purposes. The subjects were one hundred and eighty Nigerians of varied socio-economic, educational and ethno-linguistic backgrounds drawn from various offices, institutions in Kaduna, Enugu, Ibadan. This is made up of 60 respondents per region, 20 per accent per region making up a total of 180. Respondents’ ages range between 20 and above 60 years. Two researcher-designed instruments were used. First is the Oral Reading Test for Accent identification made up of phonological difficulties usually exhibited by NE language users. Next is a questionnaire in the form of an intelligibility and acceptability rating scale. Based on the findings, the educated NE accent was the most intelligible and acceptable, followed by the mother-tongue based NE accent and the Regional NE accent, it was recommended among others that language policy makers confront the problem of the NE corpus to be used in teaching and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council be commissioned to produce texts on the phonology and phonetics of the Educated NE accent.