An Interlanguage Phonological Approach to the Analysis of Selected Ghanaian Newscasters’ Renditions

Abstract:

In recent years, specially marked varieties of the English language have been the thrust of many researches, and the Ghanaian English is one of them. This study examined selected Ghanaian newscasters’ renditions using the tenets of Selinker’s Interlanguage Phonology Theory: simplification, overgeneralisation of the L2 and transfer. The study also incorporated the use of Praat application for the analysis of the data. Apart from this, the interview method was used to collect the data for the study. The data collected consist of interviews recorded across twelve radio stations in Cape-Coast, Ghana. The data analysis revealed that some phonemes of the British English (BrE) are unavailable in the Ghanaian English; hence, the newscasters introduce or transfer some of the phonemic features that are characteristics of the individual's variety into the British English (BrE), especially those with similar phonemic properties. Also, phonological simplification processes were introduced by the respondents to enable them to produce words easily and as a result, the words and syllables end up reduced, restructured or re-syllabified. In conclusion, the findings from the study have reflected that there are modifications by the studied speakers and these modifications are what make the English language spoken by the newscasters distinct from what is obtainable on the job, due to the exigencies of the second language situation and specific cognitive oriented problems.