Cameroonian ESL Teachers’ Linguistic Perceptions and Some Phonological Aspects of Their English

Abstract

Despite the popular credence that the nature of English in Cameroon shifts significantly from Standard British English, ESL teachers seem to think differently about their competencies in the English language. Consequently, I set out to investigate the correlation between ESL teachers’ linguistic perceptions and some phonological aspects of their speech. Three theoretical paradigms guided this study – Labov’s (1966) correlation model, Kachru’s (1985) World Englishes Paradigm and Corder’s (1967) Error Analysis. A total of 75 ESL teachers in the country, constituted the sampled population of the study. A questionnaire, with close and open-ended questions, was constructed to gain an understanding of their linguistic perceptions. A test of 10 sentences, with targeted phonological variables (dʒ, tʃ, ð, θ, ə, з, əu, əʊə, and aʊə), was conceived and the informants were asked to read them aloud while the investigators tap-recorded their phonological renditions. The data was then transcribed and compared to their linguistic perceptual claims. Essentially, the results revealed a significant gap between the respondents’ linguistic perceptions and their phonological renditions

Keywords: Cameroonian, Linguistic perception, Phonological aspects, English

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/57-02

Publication date:June 30^th 2019