Effects of Socio-Indices on Intonational Patterns in English Discourses

Abstract

For over many decades, formal education, a social status indicator had been a major parameter commanding what  could be accepted as standard norm of the Nigerian English. At the extreme, poor spoken English has been synonymous  with inadequate education. However, recent linguistic inquiries such as Acheoah (2018) have proved that  educational status only contributes limitedly to adequacy in English phonology. This stems out of the fact that it is the  personal effort especially, as is required in the mass media and movie industry that helps language users approximate towards the British English. On this basis, using two Nollywood movies, this paper examines intonation considering how  education and gender affect the intonational patterns in various discourses. Two films: Fifty and Lionheart were  subjected to content analysis. Audio extract of purposively selected intonational cues were subjected to acoustic  analysis. This was done using the Praat software (version 5.4. 12) developed by Paul Boersma and David Weenink of the  University of Amsterdam. Intonational tracks from different speech discourses were subjected to data analysis using the  discourse Intonation framework of Brazil (1975, 1978) and Chun (2002). Intonational cues of statement,  interrogative, imperative and exclamatory forces of sentence functions; further discourse relations in interactions;  assent/consent, dissent, regret, interruption, polite and impolite utterances were all extracted. High attainment in  education was found a reflective index among characters that approximate towards the British intonational patterns.  The findings suggested the need to start envisaging spoken English usage in Nigerian movies as a standard form to  facilitate economic transformation, as language plays a vital role in achieving the sustainable agenda for the  development of Nigeria, towards achieving the Africa we want (Agenda 2063).