THE QUESTION OF INTELLIGIBILITY IN MULTIPLE VARIETIES

Abstract

Cameroon is a setting for wide varieties of English such as British English (BrE), General American English (Gen Am), Nigerian English (NigE), and Cameroon English. (CamE). The last is itself a language that forms a continuum of varieties. These include Cameroon Pidgin English (CamPE), Francophone Cameroon English (CamFE), basilectal, mesolectal, and acrolectal variants of CamE. In this situation of “survival of the fittest”, it becomes really challenging for varieties like CamE as the government continues promoting the Inner Circle varieties coexisting with it. In this context of multiple varieties of English, it is important to find out the one which is perceived as the most intelligible to Cameroonian speakers. Two methods were used in this investigation. They subsumed questionnaire and tape recording, not to mention the participant observation method. The first is the use of the matched-guise technique. The technique in question is made up of two tape-recorded voices played with different guises. The purpose of the technique is to make the respondents believe that the voices come from two distinct individuals. (see Gaies and Beebe, 1991, p. 157). The first voice the respondents listened to, in this study, is called Reading 1 or R1 for short. The second voice is also termed Reading 2, and the short form is R2. After having listened to the two reading forms, the respondents filled out the questionnaire right away. The tape-recording technique was employed using the text read to the informants. In fact, they were called upon to read the text that was read to them in the course of questionnaire data collection. The reading activity revealed a great deal about their pronunciation features. The first major finding is that although the overwhelming majority of the respondents admitted producing the basilectal features of CamE in questionnaire forms, only a few of the L1-induced variants were found in the data. In a setting with multiple varieties of English like Cameroon, the reading activity could significantly reflect the multiplicity of English varieties from the data collected. Unexpectedly, only CamE, educationally acquired, and very few of its basilectal variants were gleaned from the data. It is also revealed that the pronunciation features learnt through formal teaching are very intelligible to the respondents, in particular, and to Cameroonians, in general. In conclusion, it is evident that these results lay bare fundamental implications. First, Cameroonians use L1-influenced forms of CamE in informal situations. In formal contexts, however, they can skilfully shift to educationally acquired features of CamE pronunciation. This is proof of their mastery of the locally developed variety, as they can utilise either variant in its context of use. Second, the only features of pronunciation Cameroonians can produce are the locally developed ones. It is obviously counter-productive to long for exonormative varieties which are far-fetched and miles apart. Finally, educationally learnt features of Cameroon English pronunciation are found to be the only very intelligible variants. This is a call for language planners and other educational stakeholders in English language teaching in Cameroon to take ownership of the issue.