A Spectrographic Analysis of Articulatory Variations in the Vocalisations of Selected Nigerian Newscasters
Keywords:
hypo-articulation, hyper-articulation, VariationAbstract
Since the 20th century, with the launch of natural language processing software, such as the Praat software in 1995, speech analysis has transcended subjective interpretations to scientific evaluations. This study aimed to carry out a spectrographic analysis of articulatory variations in the vocalizations of selected Nigerian Newscasters using the application of the Praat software. More importantly, the articulatory variations traceable in the vocalizations of the newscasters that are indicative of hyperarticulations and hyper-articulations are examined. Ten (10) words were selected from a corpus of spoken texts collected through the survey method— the interview of selected Nigerian newscasters. From the data analysis, it was found that hyperarticulations are marked by phonemic substitution, /r/ intrusion, and vowel length elongation while a lack of pitch variation, phonemic reduction, and syllabic reduction indicates hypoarticulations. Also, it has been found that both hyperarticulations and hyper-articulations are reflections of the attitudes of the studied newscasters as second-language speakers of English towards the attainment of proficiency in the standard variety. Not only attitude but also variations impact other cognitive and social factors that are manifestations of the sociolinguistic realities of the studied context.
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