230003 The Phonology of African Englishes (BS) (SoSe 2014)

The course gives students both practical and theoretical insights into the phonology of Black African Englishes. The significance of the course stems, inter alia, from the numerical weight of the area chosen (Anglophone African countries number over 300 million inhabitants) as well as from the global mobility of its population. It will further be noted that some of the issues discussed, beyond their immediate relevance to Africa, contribute to a better understanding of the innerworks of the phonology of other varieties of English, including RP and other non-native Englishes. The topics to be discussed include the historical inputs to the formation of African English pronunciation, interference and non-interference factors, a descriptive pole which comprises a survey of regional, national and subnational features and a theoretical pole which addresses issues such as predictability and phonological rules, from a number of perspectives: structural, generative, TLP (Trilateral Process), OT (Optimality Theory), CCA (Competing Constraints Approach), and so on.
At the end of the course, students should be able to produce given regional or national features from given cues, and identify the regional or national origin of the speaker from a given spoken text. They should further be able to use some of the theoretical tools discussed above to analyse African pronunciation features found in given data.

Requirements for participation, required level

GM1.1 als linguistischer Austausch für literaturwissenschaftliche bzw. kulturwissenschaftliche Teilmodule (GM1.2 oder GM1.3)