Acoustic, perceptual and social analyses of speech convergence of black and white people in Nigeria

Abstract

This study assesses speech convergence between white American English (AE) speakers and black Nigerian English (NE) speakers. Most studies base convergence on speech shadowing, but this study investigates convergence in real-life conversations. Eighty utterances were analysed with PRAAT. The utterances were selected from interactions between two AE speakers and two NE speakers, and from separate interactions between the two Americans and between the two Nigerians respectively. Their fundamental frequency (F0) and duration values were subjected to a t-test. Results showed that the F0 of utterances made by the two blacks while they interacted with the whites were significantly different (p < 0.05) from the F0 of their speech with each other. Conversely, there was no significant difference between the F0 of the speech the whites made during their interaction with the blacks and the F0 of their speech with each other. Furthermore, fifteen NE speakers were used to assess the extent of convergence in whites; more of them understood the utterances of the white person that has socialised longer with Nigerians; the F0 of his speech also had higher probability. The study concludes that socialisation aids speech convergence, while F0 is a cue for predicting interlocutors’ degree of socialisation.