Mada Phonemes and Areas of Interference in the Learning of English as a Second Language

Abstract

Language interference is a universal phenomena and Nigeria or (Mada
students in particular) learning and speaking English as a second
language are no exception. There are varieties of English spoken around
the world. These two languages (Mada and English) belong to two
different linguistic groups with distinct phonemic possibilities in their
use of monophthongs, diphthongs (vowels), consonants and consonants
clusters or the segmental. While English language belongs to the IndoEuropean languages, Mada language however, falls within the BenueCongo linguistic sub-group or a branch of the larger Niger-Congo group
of African language family. This presupposes that Mada Students learning
and speaking English as a second language are likely to face some
challenges which are impediments for fluency and articulation in English
as a second language. This gives the impetus for this study on Mada
phonemes and area of interference in the learning of English as a second
language. The study has reveal that some monophthongs are problematic
to many Mada students learning English as a second language. Also,
consonant clusters have been found to be problematic for Mada students
learning English as second language. The difficulties in the respective
phonemes stemmed from errors of phoneme alteration, subtraction,
separation, substitution and transposition. Consequently, language
committees in various indigenous languages should liaise with state
governments to improve the orthography of indigenous languages.