Phonological Analysis of the English Spoken by Hausa Newscasters in Broadcasting Media in Nigeria

Abstract

The study examines the English pronunciation patterns of Hausa broadcasters. The research was carried out based on the presupposition that the English spoken by Hausa broadcasters is different from RP English and is likely to mislead or distort the communication process. The study was guided by three objectives which centred on an examination and analysis of the way Hausa broadcasters articulate RP English consonants, vowels and consonant clusters. The research used Optimality Theory and adopted the descriptive research design. The study was carried out in Bauchi State Northeast Nigeria and data were obtained through production test and recording of news broadcasts from four public broadcasting stations in Bauchi. These include two radio stations and two television stations. Moreover, twenty-two Hausa broadcasters from the four media outlets were selected as respondents. The findings revealed that the speech by the majority of the respondents does not conform to RP English because it is characterized by semantic alteration which changes the meaning of words where words like pull are rendered full, heal as hill, upper as offer, raid as red and exact as exert. The speech is also marked by the Hausa English accent but this does not interfere with meaning. These problems were caused by phonological processes such as: substitution, frication, stopping, affrication, long vowel reduction, monophthongization of diphthongs, epenthesis and deletion. The majority of the respondents English language Markedness constraints outranked Faithfulness constraints.