Analysis of Grammatical and Discourse Intonation in Selected Radio Broadcasters in Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract

Intonation and the functions it performs/fills are well established in language use, especially in the interpretation of meaning and speaker intention. This study investigates the performance of radio broadcasters in selected radio stations in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, with the aim of determining the broadcasters’ ability to deploy appropriate aspects of the English intonation system during news presentation. Five news broadcast sessions were sampled, and ten newscasts were recorded and transcribed. Analysis of the data was anchored on Firth’s prosodic theory and Halliday’s systemic grammar, while Pratt’s acoustic analysis was employed for phonetic measurement. Results of the analyses show variation in the deployment of discourse intonation markers both in stress placement and pitch as well as in marking grammatical issues like appropriate demarcation of clauses/syntactic units like WH-questions, polar questions, etc. in discourse. These variations have implications for audience comprehension and mutual intelligibility, especially for non-Nigerian listeners.