Browsing by Author "Muhammad, Mustapha"

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    AMBIGUITY IN CONVERSATION: THE SITUATION OF SPEAKER-HEARER MEANING MISCONCEPTION IN ASASUL ISLAM SECONDARY SCHOOL OF J.I.B.W.I.S, TUDUN WADA, KEFFI
    (Department of English Language, Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2017-01-11) Muhammad, Mustapha
    Often time people interact with one another, and the chief vehicle of their interaction is language being the medium of communication. Central to their interaction is meaning embedded in the coded form. Semantics, which is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning and formal relations that exist in meaning interpretation of the linguistic forms, has therefore been in daily use among persons, groups, communities and nations. However, people’s attitude towards language use and meaning deduction as conceived in daily interaction is multifaceted. The teacher-student conversation as well as student-student conversation, which this study set out to investigate, has been faced with enormous problems. The situation is rather intensified in the cases of foreign learners of English like the Nigeria. Here the concern is on those features of language, which either consciously or subconsciously mar the formal standards of the language in use, as the glaring effect is that which creates ambiguity situations (an aspect of rule violation). The study hence set out to investigate the ambiguous statements inherent in both teacher-student and student-student conversations of the Asasul Islam Secondary School, Keffi. Through observation, personal discussion and eavesdropping, the study gathered its data which were analysed using the contextual model otherwise known as the operational explication of meaning. The results of the analysis showed that ambiguity is a semantic problem which impedes understanding, and hence recommendations were offered on how to avoid unnecessary use of ambiguous expressions
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    AMBIGUITY RESULTING FROM MISPRONOUNCED ENGLISH MINIMAL PAIRS AMONG GWANDARA SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
    (Department of English language Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2019-01-01) Muhammad, Mustapha
    This research work explored the features of Gwandara pronunciation of the English minimal pairs, thereby analyzing the influence that a first language may have on the learning or use of a second language at the phonological level, particularly in the area of minimal pair. The work, having compared the minimal pairs in English and in Gwandara in order to identify areas of similarity and dissimilarity, displayed the mispronounced English minimal pairs by the Gwandara speakers of English as a second language and the resultant effect of ambiguity inherent in the mispronunciation by the speakers (especially of words, in isolation of sentimental stretches). For instance, a Gwandara speaker of English who said “I have pen” to mean “I have pain” posed the semantic implication of ambiguity which only the context can disambiguate. Using the recorded field data (as transcribed), the study followed a theoretical model of the weak version of contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH) to present, analyse the sourced data and explain in the research findings as to why the following and many more of the English minimal pairs receive similar pronunciations by the Gwandara speakers of English, which is obviously not appropriate with the original or native pronunciations of the pairs: get and gate; met and mate; sell and sale; let and late; cope, cop and cup, fame and firm; boat, bought and but; advice and advise; fell and fail; heard and had; pot and port; mother and murder; fun and phone; hell and hail; foam and form etc. The major part of the research findings revealed that apart from the consonants /s/ and /z/; /d/ and /ð/ (often misused for one another), most, if not all the problems the Gwandara speakers of English seem to have with English minimal pairs pronunciation are vowel related, and that too is as a result of differences in the two phonemic systems. Furthermore, it revealed that mispronounced English minimal pairs by the Gwandara speakers of English as a second language pose the problem of ambiguity which affects effective communication. It is therefore recommended that the Gwandara natives should endeavor to be aware of their English minimal pair problems as explored here, so as to improve on them and also to avoid making ambiguity explicit in the course of their communicative efforts
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    Comparative Study of English and Gwandara Orthographies
    (DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH FACULTY OF ARTS NASARAWA STATE UNIVERSITY, KEFFI, 2020-08-19) Adewole, A. Alagbe; Salisu, Muhammad Raj; Muhammad, Mustapha
    African indigenous languages have suffered setbacks for inability of the language users to develop their orthographies. Some African languages, specifically Nigerian indigenous language that have been termed the ‘minority languages’ are either extinct already or on the verge of extinction. This is because many of them have not been developed orthographically and codified phonemically. The need to arrest this drift is what has led to the emergence of this study. Given the fact that English is a major global language, comparing its orthography with that of the Gwandara language enables the researchers to appreciate some striking similarities and, or differences capable of elevating the Gwandara language to a higher level. It is hoped that the reader will find this descriptive research worthwhile for its contribution to the development of one of the Nigeria’s indigenous languages to a standard level.
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    Distinguishing Language, Dialect and Variety
    (Department of English language Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2018-01-26) Muhammad, Mustapha
    This paper is a descriptive exploration of the various dialects and varieties of a language. It takes the reader briefly back to the concept of language through some various definitions and conceptual explications of language, and draws the reader down to the main issues raised in the paper. The paper thus attempts to offer some clarifications on the terms language, dialect and variety as integral parts of interrelated concepts in communicative situation. It therefore tries to make distinctions on how language differs from dialect and how dialect differs from variety. The paper again, through a number of typologies drawn, attempts to provide and discuss some factors believed to be responsible for the spread of varieties across languages, and tries to justify how new languages spring up or emerge from varieties of languages.
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    HAUSA AND ITS LINGUISTIC OFFSPRING: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HAUSA AND GWANDARA ORTHOGRAPHIES
    (Department of English language Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2019-01-28) Muhammad, Mustapha
    Hausa and Gwandara languages are related in more than one way. This is because history has it that the people referred to as Gwandara were originally Hausa people. However, a couple of historical and linguistic events occurred that forever changed their history. It is these sociolinguistic and historical developments that this paper explores to explain the circumstances that led to the development of what started as an artificial language but has fully evolved as Gwandara with its own orthography recently developed. Gwandara is a debased form of Hausa language which started as zaurance, an artificially carved language from the ancient Hausa language. Using the weak version of the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) as a theoretical model, the study takes a descriptive comparison between the two orthographies to arrive at the findings that Hausa and Gwandara languages are indeed related in both linguistic and historical lineages, more so that Hausa gave birth to Gwandara language which is one of the major languages in the North-Central region of Nigeria.
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    STRUCTURAL AND POST-STRUCTURAL MODELS IN STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
    (Department of English language Nasarawa State University Keffi, 2017-01-11) Muhammad, Mustapha
    This paper is an attempt on a practical exploration of structural-cum-post structural stylistics. The study traces the origin and development of structuralism and its extension, post structuralism as theories in linguistic studies, exploring their theoretical bases, and finally establishing their relationships with stylistics as a discipline in the linguistic domain. Because the paper is stylistics domain, it extensively treats, in its first part, stylistics as a distinct discipline within linguistics, tracing its historical development and theoretical conception. Then, it takes a tour into the structural and post structural linguistics bringing into bare the link between the two while describing their effects on stylistic studies.