http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/327 Scholarly Works 2026-04-07T18:36:51Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9529 Title: PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN SELECTED NIGERIAN CHILDREN’S SPOKEN ENGLISH IN OYO AND LAGOS STATES, NIGERIA Authors: ADESOYE, R. E. Abstract: Phonological processes constitute a veritable means to tracing language development, especially in children. Extant studies on Nigerian children’s phonological processes have examined errors and deviations, with little attention to language as an instrument for measuring children’s linguistic development. Therefore, this study was designed to examine children’s phonological processes and the constraints ranking responsible for them, with a view to tracing their linguistic development. Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky’s Optimality Theory was used as the framework, while the descriptive design was adopted. One hundred and two participants were purposively selected. Seventy-five and twenty-five children from primary schools in Lagos and Oyo states, respectively, were selected because of their age range of four to six years, and they read a prepared text. The choice of the states was motivated by their proximal, cosmopolitan and multicultural features. Also, two children, named child A, aged one year-three months, and child B, aged four years-three months, were observed in their homes in Oyo and Lagos states, respectively, for six months for the purpose of longitudinal observation. All utterances were audio-recorded. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, perceptual and acoustic analyses. The phonological processes identified were substitution (28.8%), vowel strengthening (23.2%), monophthongisation (15.7%), deletion (15.4%), assimilation (6.6%), gliding (4.3%) and yod coalescence (2.7%). Utterances were slow-paced, with an average of 4.8 minutes per participant, and phonemes were often singly produced. Constraints ranking favoured markedness over faithfulness constraints, such as *SCHWA >> αF, NODIPHTHONG >> MAX, *Ct#C >> *COMPLEX >> MAX and AGREE(PLACE) >> IDENT-IO. The participants’ linguistic development was noticeable in the instantiations of their processes, which were similar to the ambient variety of Nigerian English. The instances were very intelligible and significantly manifested beyond word level. They were also functional for achieving juncture prosody, cluster reduction and gemination. However, non-adult instances, like morphophonemic deletions, persisted, showing that the participants had not fully attained the adult level of phonological processes. In the longitudinal data, child A acquired voiced and labial consonants first, and codas suffered deletion more than onsets in monosyllables. By age two, child A had begun to produce polysyllables and closed syllables, and deletion changed from whole syllables to only phonemes. By age five, child B’s processes had begun to resemble adults’ and, more energy-demanding processes like epenthesis, voicing and vowel strengthening emerged. Tonalisation of English words and indigenous interference occurred in their utterances. The spectrogram showed that the outset of acquisition with child A featured weaker energy, like in unaspirated plosives; however, energy increased and stabilised as the participant got older, as indicated in the darker shades. The formant values of the participants’ vowels on the acoustic chart showed similarity to the cardinal vowel chart in terms of height and position of the tongue. Phonological processes in Nigerian children’s spoken English emerged through constraints reranking and increasingly become more like adults’ as the years pass by. Description: A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN 2021-10-01T00:00:00Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9528 Title: REPRESENTATIONS OF TRAUMA IN AFRICAN MIGRANT FICTION Authors: AJIBOLA, O. O. Abstract: African migrant fiction, which recreates characters’ experiences at home and abroad, is increasingly preoccupied with the representation of dystopian realities. Critical appraisals of the fiction have largely focused on the representation of varied mobilities – migration, exile, transnationalism and afropolitanism – without adequate attention to the depiction of migrant characters’ experiences of traumatic stress, despite its ample representation in the fiction. This study was, therefore, designed to examine the recreation of trauma and characters’ responses to traumatic stress in selected African migrant fiction with a view to establishing that traumatic experiences are not limited to characters’ natal homes. Homi Bhabha’s model of the Postcolonial Theory and Cathy Caruth’s and Judith Herman’s models of Trauma Theory, served as the framework. The interpretative design was used. Ali Farah’s Little Mother (LM), Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (HODP), Ben Jelloun’s Leaving Tangier (LT), Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (OBSS), Alain Mabanckou’s Blue White Red (BWR), Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (HN), Fatou Diome’s The Belly of the Atlantic (TBA), and Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (WNNN) were purposively selected for their depiction of loss, trauma and suffering. The novels were subjected to critical analysis. Trauma in the novels is doubled-edged, aligning with the dominant estimation of trauma as a double wound. Traumatogenic contexts and events in the postcolony as well as in the diaspora dominate the novels. Pre-migration stressors such as unemployment, poverty and sexual assault characterise the postcolony in LT, OBSS, HODP and TBA; while displacement, deprivation and violence abound in WNNN, HN, LM and BWR, all leading to characters’ experience of Continuous Traumatic Stress. Characters’ response to pre-migration stressors in all the novels is flight. Repetitively traumatised by oppressive poverty, displacement and the inconsistencies that define life in the postcolony, the characters fled their fatherland for the West through legitimate and illegitimate routes. In the diaspora, post-migration stressors are activated by characters’ experiences of disillusionment, racism, joblessness, physical and mental assaults, unhomeliness, the trauma of a paperless existence and the perpetual fear of police brutality. Characters’ responses to post-migration stressors range from developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to committing suicide. Azel in LT and the nameless protagonist in HN experience dissolution of self and suffer from PTSD. In WNNN and LM, Tshaka Zulu, Uncle Kojo and Axad suffer from mental illnesses, while Moussa in TBA commits suicide. However, characters like Massala-Massala in BWR, Aunt Fostalina and Darling in WNNN, Faten in HODP and Efe, Ama and Joyce in OBSS largely display resilience in the face of trauma. There is recurring adoption of multiple narrative voices, symbolism and journey motif in OBSS, LM, HODP and HN, while irony and traumatic realism are employed in LT, WNNN, TBA and BWR. Migrant characters’ precarious, liminal and subaltern existence, both at home and abroad, bears witness to trauma’s mobility across space and time in African migrant fiction. This destabilises the hegemonic conception of the West as the Promised Land. Description: A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN 2021-12-01T00:00:00Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9527 Title: PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN SELECTED NIGERIAN CHILDREN’S SPOKEN ENGLISH IN OYO AND LAGOS STATES, NIGERIA Authors: ADESOYE, R. E. Abstract: Phonological processes constitute a veritable means to tracing language development, especially in children. Extant studies on Nigerian children’s phonological processes have examined errors and deviations, with little attention to language as an instrument for measuring children’s linguistic development. Therefore, this study was designed to examine children’s phonological processes and the constraints ranking responsible for them, with a view to tracing their linguistic development. Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky’s Optimality Theory was used as the framework, while the descriptive design was adopted. One hundred and two participants were purposively selected. Seventy-five and twenty-five children from primary schools in Lagos and Oyo states, respectively, were selected because of their age range of four to six years, and they read a prepared text. The choice of the states was motivated by their proximal, cosmopolitan and multicultural features. Also, two children, named child A, aged one year-three months, and child B, aged four years-three months, were observed in their homes in Oyo and Lagos states, respectively, for six months for the purpose of longitudinal observation. All utterances were audio-recorded. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, perceptual and acoustic analyses. The phonological processes identified were substitution (28.8%), vowel strengthening (23.2%), monophthongisation (15.7%), deletion (15.4%), assimilation (6.6%), gliding (4.3%) and yod coalescence (2.7%). Utterances were slow-paced, with an average of 4.8 minutes per participant, and phonemes were often singly produced. Constraints ranking favoured markedness over faithfulness constraints, such as *SCHWA >> αF, NODIPHTHONG >> MAX, *Ct#C >> *COMPLEX >> MAX and AGREE(PLACE) >> IDENT-IO. The participants’ linguistic development was noticeable in the instantiations of their processes, which were similar to the ambient variety of Nigerian English. The instances were very intelligible and significantly manifested beyond word level. They were also functional for achieving juncture prosody, cluster reduction and gemination. However, non-adult instances, like morphophonemic deletions, persisted, showing that the participants had not fully attained the adult level of phonological processes. In the longitudinal data, child A acquired voiced and labial consonants first, and codas suffered deletion more than onsets in monosyllables. By age two, child A had begun to produce polysyllables and closed syllables, and deletion changed from whole syllables to only phonemes. By age five, child B’s processes had begun to resemble adults’ and, more energy-demanding processes like epenthesis, voicing and vowel strengthening emerged. Tonalisation of English words and indigenous interference occurred in their utterances. The spectrogram showed that the outset of acquisition with child A featured weaker energy, like in unaspirated plosives; however, energy increased and stabilised as the participant got older, as indicated in the darker shades. The formant values of the participants’ vowels on the acoustic chart showed similarity to the cardinal vowel chart in terms of height and position of the tongue. Phonological processes in Nigerian children’s spoken English emerged through constraints reranking and increasingly become more like adults’ as the years pass by. Description: A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN 2021-10-01T00:00:00Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9509 Title: Postproverbial irony in contemporary African cultural expressions Authors: Akinsete, C. T. Abstract: Irony is one of the most common literary techniques applied to the study of world literature, right from Classical times to the present day. Having reflected on proverbial irony as a literary concept, this research argues for the need to construe and critique the phenomenon of postproverbial irony, being featured in contemporary African cultural expressions but yet to be critically engaged. This paper, therefore, attempts to examine the theoretical perception of postproverbial irony as a literary phenomenon, particularly in some African languages such as Yoruba, Shona, Luganda, Kiswahili, and Luo, with applicable tenets of transgression and subversions as postproverbial theoretical model. The aim is to justify the literary presence of postproverbials as a complex but highly advanced cultural expression in postcolonial African societies. Against the backdrop of a lopsided view of only conditioning postproverbials as sheer blasphemous verbal/speech acts, part of the objectives of this paper is to showcase the irrefutable literary strength and depth of postproverbials as a viable literary concept as well as underscore its potential as part of critical research point in contemporary African cultural space. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z