Regional variation of continuous speech processes in Nigerian English

Abstract

Spoken Nigerian English (NigE) is said to be as divergent as the number of ethno-linguistic groups in the country. This claim is, however, confined to the segmental and suprasegmental levels, without consideration for the contextual features of speech. This study, therefore, examines the incidence of connected speech processes (CSPs) in NigE, focusing on boundary assimilations, boundary consonant deletions and r-liaison. This is with a view to establishing the convergence and divergence of NigE regional accents at the level of connected speech. Two hundred and forty educated Nigerian speakers of English from three regions in Nigeria (80 each from North, West and East) voiced 31 utterances and a short passage into digital recording devices. Instances of assimilation, elision and r-liaison processes produced at different boundary contexts were analysed statistically, using percentages and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results showed that, at α = .05 level, there was a significant effect of r-liaison on region (F(2, 237) = 6.81, p = .001); whereas, no regional differences existed in assimilation and elision. These findings have shown that only very little regional variation exists in NigE accents in terms of assimilation, elision and r-liaison processes of connected speech, which implies that there is more convergence than divergence in the regional accents of NigE in these aspects of CSPs.