A linguistic analysis of vowel lengthening in the language of military parades

• Authors: Bolanle Tajudeen Opoola
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

We focus on vowel lengthening in language use by the Nigerian Armed Forces on parade ground. Existing studies on vowel lengthening show vowel lengthening not only as a phonological phenomenon whereby a single vowel is doubled subject to certain phonological conditions but also as a sociolinguistic process that expresses affirmative, directive, summon, emphasis, question, denial, disappointment and discontentment. We continue the discussion on vowel lengthening with reference to sociolinguistics and argue that preparedness, readiness, accuracy and precision that contribute to the beauty of military parades are enhanced or made possible through vowel lengthening in language use. The import of the paper is that the role of sociolinguistics in language use and language interpretation cannot be undermined in parades of any armed forces in any country of the world.

Keywords

EN

grammar; interpretation; language use; sociolinguistics; vowel lengthening

• Publisher: Scientific Publishing House „DARWIN”
• Journal: World Scientific News
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 99
• Pages: 244-248

Contributors

author

Bolanle Tajudeen Opoola

• Department of Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Federal University Oye Ekiti. Nigeria

References

• [1] Ikotun, R.O. (2010). The Social Use of Yorùbá Personal Names. Names, 58, 169-186.
• [2] Ikotun, R.O. (2010). A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Vowel Lengthening in Yorùbá. Journal of West African Languages 37 (2), pp. 1-9
• [3] Owolabi, K. (1993). The Semantics of Reduplication and Vowel Lengthening in Yorùbá. Journal of Nigerian Languages 1-17.
• [4] Oyebade, F. O. (2006). Prosodic Structure Preservation and English Loanwords in Yoruba: A Constraint-based Account. Paper Presented at the 25th LAN, NERDERC, Abuja.
• [5] Utulu, D. C. (2009). Syllable Weight and Vowel Lengthening in Ewulu Loanword Phonology. Papers in English and Linguistics Vol. 10, pp. 70-78
• [6] Turnbull, J. (2010). Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Document Type: article