Educated Nollywood artistes’ accent as a Normative Standard of English pronunciation in Nigeria

Abstract

The English language, although a second language, plays a prominent role in Nigeria. As the official language in the media, governmental administration, education, law courts, commerce, entertainment and politics, it has assumed a hegemonic position over indigenous Nigerian languages (Oladipupo, 2021). In view of its long years of interaction with these languages, the absence of native models, and the influence of Nigerian teachers who lack Standard English pronunciation competence (Awonusi, 2015; Akinjobi, 2020), it has been nativised and acculturated (Adegbija, 2004). This has, therefore, resulted in a Nigerian English (NigE) variety that is markedly different from Standard British English, its precursor and target model, at the syntactic (e.g., Akinlotan, 2021), pragmatic (e.g., Fuchs, Gut & Soneye, 2013) and phonological (e.g., Awonusi, 2015; Akinola & Oladipupo, 2021) levels.

Nollywood: Let’s Go to the Movies!

“…Acrimony is rated 'R' by the USA administration; therefore, it can be expected to have somewhat more toxic language. Additionally, other factors like diversity in the USA 12 that mark differences between the two countries could be considered as important factors. However, it is out of the scope of this paper and saved for future work.…”

“…An article Oladipupo and Akinfenwa [12] examines the phonemic realisation of educated Nollywood artistes in Nigeria and their accent as a normative standard of English pronunciation. It analyzes the pronunciation of various phonemes, comparing them to Received Pronunciation (RP) forms.…”