ANALYSIS OF THE YORÙBÁ-ENGLISH CODESWITCHING ENGENDERED PHONOLOGICAL VARIATIONS

Abstract

This paper surveys the variations in the English-unit codeswitched (CS) utterances of the selected Nollywood Yoruba-English bilingual characters. It examines the identified generated English pronunciation (IGEP) variations and explores the possible effects of the variations on the pronunciation proficiency of the Nigerian L2 users of the English language. The paper extracted codeswitched expressions from five purposively selected Nollywood Yoruba films: Husband and the Cheating Wife (Oko Atiyawo Alagbere), Alakada, Alimi, Teresa and Jenpe Meji. Six selected English words: Hospital, Call, Party, Sister, Uncle and Motor were focused. The study discovers variation in the production of these words in CS expressions of the characters, typifying a Yoruba-English communication environment. The study concludes that these variations result from sociological factors such as educational status, age, socio-cultural background, participants involved, interlocutors’ mood, and phonotactic differences in the CS languages. Also, while these IGEPs add to theNigerian  English lexicon, they may influence the proficiency of the Yoruba-English language users of the English language negatively if not limited to informal contexts. Insights were drawn from Giles’ Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) Myers-Scotten’s Markedness Theory and Eckman’s Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH).