Browsing by Author "Abass, Abiola Sakariyau"

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    A phonological description of the anglicized Yoruba name transcriptions in the Collins online English dictionary and Yoruba native speakers’ perception
    (Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University., 2024) Abass, Abiola Sakariyau
    This study identified the orthographical representation of selected anglicized Yoruba names in the Collins Online English Dictionary. It described the Yoruba native speakers’ perception of the selected transcribed names and discussed the socio-cultural implications of the transcribed names in language contact situations. This was done with a view to investiging the semantic effects of the phonological transcriptions of the selected Yoruba words in the dictionary. The study employed both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary source comprised 20 names of Yoruba origin extracted from the 13th edition of Collins Online English Dictionary. Twenty-five Yoruba native speakers were purposively selected to undertake verification task and a read-aloud exercise of the selected Yoruba names to assess the accuracy of Yoruba name transcriptions in the dictionary. For the verification task, participants were given an audio recording, along with a partially completed written transcript of the recording and tasked with completing the written transcript by filling in the missing words based on their perception of the audio recording. The goal was to assess their perception of the transcriptions as presented by the dictionary. Similarly, a prepared word list comprising the 20 extracted Yoruba names was presented to each respondent to pronounce while being audio-recorded for the read-aloud exercise, with the aim to capture the actual native-like pronunciation through their audio recordings. Using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the audio-recorded utterances were phonemically transcribed and compared with the Collins Online English Dictionary version to ascertain the faithfulness of the dictionary to Yoruba name transcriptions. The secondary source included books, journal articles n and the Internet. Theoretical insights were drawn from Keshavarz’s (2011) approach to Contrastive Analysis and the concept of faithfulness in the Optimality Theory of McCarthy (2002) to analyse the data. Findings revealed that the process of anglicization of the selected Yoruba names in the Collins Online English Dictionary involves various phonological adjustments ranging from vowel substitutions and consonant replacements to the adaptation of tone structures within Yoruba names. The study found that Yoruba native speakers exhibited diverse perceptions of the transcribed names. It discovered that while some names are uniformly perceived, others show variations, indicating potential transcription-related influences. The study further showed that the omission of tone markers in the anglicized version not only simplifies the representation but also risks misinterpretation, affecting the accurate conveyance of cultural meanings associated with these words. The study concluded that English dictionaries need to offer more precise and culturally aware transcriptions of Yoruba names, taking into account their phonological features, thus mitigating potential misrepresentations in identity and cross-cultural communication.