Open AccessAcquisition of the Closing Diphthongs /əʊ/ and /eɪ/ in English L2 and Jamaican Creole
Author(s) -
Ahmed Mousa
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
sage open
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.357
H-Index - 32
ISSN - 2158-2440
DOI - 10.1177/2158244015577416
Subject(s) - diphthong , creole language , pidgin , linguistics , pronunciation , psychology , closing (real estate) , set (abstract data type) , computer science , vowel , political science , philosophy , law , programming language
This study investigates the claim that the strategies used bysecond/foreign language learners are, more or less, the same as those used by speakersof pidgin/creole languages. To this end, the speech of two speakers of the well-knownBroad Jamaican Creole is compared with the performance of Saudi learners of English,with respect to the pronunciation of the closing diphthongs /əʊ/ and /eɪ/. The resultsshow that the above claim is valid. Also, the behavior of the two groups corroboratesthat of child language, which will be taken as external evidence that adds to theexistent literature of the logical problem of language learning. The behavior of thespeakers in the three domains (i.e., L1, L2, and pidgin/creole languages) goes hand inhand with norms of historical change. That is, the two diphthongs have historicallydeveloped from the monophthongs used as substitutes. In addition, the centralitycomponent in these diphthongs is a marked parameter, which is yet to be set before theycould be mastered. The substitutes made by the speakers of Jamaican Creole and by Arablearners are the same chosen by the child