Aspects of Subordination in English Syntax and its Use Among Bette and English Bilinguals in the Federal College of Education, Obudu, Nigeria

Abstract

Bette is a language widely spoken in the north-eastern part of Cross River State, Nigeria. The need for this study arises from an observation of serious interference of Bette system of subordination in Bette bilinguals with that of English. I examined subordination in the two systems through a contrastive linguistic analysis to identify the difficulties of the learners of the second language. Subordination is a significant aspect of the English grammar as can be found in both oral and written discourse in the communicative use of language and the texts that result from such usages. The objectives of the research were to: (a) identify specific errors of syntactic subordination found in the English of Bette learners of English as second language and (b) account for the deviant forms and draw the teacher’s attention to their potential effects. I found some similarities and dissimilarities between the Bette and the English systems of syntactic subordination. The similarities exist because some English syntactic subordinators are also found in the Bette system of subordinations. A few English subordinators were found to have their Bette equivalent  interpretations. Different varieties of defective subordinators were observed. Defects such as overt omission of appropriate subordinator and wrong insertions in the place of target subordination markers were discovered in the speakers, usage. Also discovered were superfluous insertions of subordination markers in addition to the relevant subordination markers involved and structural misplacement of   subordination marker in the subordinate clause. Cases of defective subordinations owing to overt omission of the target subordination markers involved were frequently used followed by defects resulting from the superfluous insertions with or without the target subordination markers concerned. The frequency of defective simple subordination displayed the highest preponderance followed by that of defective complex subordination. I suggest that the English system of syntactic subordination both in simple and complex sentences should be taught to all Bette bilingual students by clearly identifying all the different types of subordination markers together with different subordinate clauses introduced by the markers. Effective and efficient teaching of English as an ELS course to ELS users will succeed greatly in reducing the errors of mother tongue interference.