A Proposal on Phonological Analysis of the Sound System of the Jaba Language
Chapter One
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to describe the sound system of Jaba with a view to describing the phonological features of the language, and adding to the existing written records of the language.
Chapter Two
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Phonology: An Overview
Linguistic analysis involves three broad levels of related studies; the speech sound level, the structure level and the meaning level. The study of speech sounds is undertaken in phonetics and phonology.
Yule (1997:54) defines phonetics as “the general study of the characteristics of speech sounds while phonology is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language. It is, in effect, based on the theory of what every speakers of a language unconsciously knows about the sound patterns of that language.”
The study of structures in languages is undertaken in morphology and syntax whereas meaning goes into semantics where an attempt is made to convey and classify experience (s) through language as man gives verbal expressions to his thoughts. This shows that language is a highly well-structured and patterned system which is composed of structures, and its component structures can be studied or analyzed at different levels of language or linguistic analyses. The concern of this research is to study the Jaba language at the phonological level of language study. It is noteworthy that though phonetics and phonology dwell or operate on the same terrain in terms of linguistic analysis and object of study, remarkable differences still exist between the two in spite of the overt similarities or relatedness. They are two sides to the same coin as their object of study is the human speech sound.
Phonetics as defined by Robins (1996: 6) is “the scientific study of speech sound”. In a related development, Lyons (2002) describes the study of phonetics “as giving the phonetic description or instrumental analysis of substances where sounds are to be regarded as physical entities, which can be described or analyzed without reference to any specific language.” Agreeing with the above definitions, they place sounds as the focus of phonetic study; however, phonetics does not study any kind of sound but the human speech sounds.
In the same vein, Wells and Colson (1993) view phonetics as “the study and description of pronunciation. That is, it is concerned with studying the principles and processes that determine pronunciation; what we pronounce and how we pronounce it.”
Similarly, in an attempt to give a concise and precise definition to phonetics and with a view to showing its object(s) of study, Lyons, Todd, Yusuf, and Roach unanimously describe phonetics in terms of production (ariculatory), transmission (acoustic) and perception (auditory) of speech sounds. It is in similar line of thought that Ikekeonwu (1996) clearly defines phonetics “as being concerned with the study of speech sounds from the parameters of its production, physical properties and perception”.
According to Omachonu (2011), the study of phonetics using the three points of views or dimensions; production, transmission and reception or perception consequently and correspondingly, yields to the three branches of phonetics traditionally identified as articulatroy, acoustic and auditory phonetics.
Articulatory phonetics is defined by Yule (1997) as the study of how speech sounds are made, or articulated. On the other hand, he views acoustic phonetics as dealing with the physical properties of speech as sound waves ‘in the air’, while auditory (or perceptual) phonetics, deals with the perception, via the ear, of speech sounds. Yule identifies forensic phonetics, as another branch of phonetics, which deals with the applications in legal cases involving speaker identification and the analysis of recorded utterances.
Chapter Three
Research Methodology
This study is a descriptive analysis of the sound system of Jaba. The data will be elicited from live utterances of interviewed Kwei Jaba speakers living within the researcher’s environment, coupled with introspective evidences from the researcher as a native speaker. To elicit the data, a questionnaire of English words will be given to the Jaba speakers and they will be required to translate it to Jaba. This elicited data for the analysis of the tone, consonant and vowel, and other elements of prosody.
Research Design and Technique
This study adopts the data elicitation method of data gathering because it provides the researcher with the opportunity to sample a wide audience using a research instrumentation that meets the limited time frame within which the study is conducted. Also, this method enabled the researcher to interact with Jaba speakers and also apply introspection to elicit the required information from data gathered.
Instrumentation and Sources of Data
This study adopts Primary data from Jaba speakers residing in the FCT within Kwali and Gwagwala Area Councils. The instruments for data collection are the questionnaire, tape recorder, interview and introspective evidence.
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