Aspects of francophone African English phonology

This sociophonological research endeavour systematically describes the essential phonological features of Francophone English, a variety of English spoken by French-speakers in Francophone Africa. The work was particularly motivated by the fact that in the domain of New Englishes and related issues, the characteristic features of the English of French-speakers have received very little scholarly attention. Over the years, some pioneering works on New Englishes have focused on the traditional historical and sociolinguistic bases of English. Others have probed into the segmental and prosodic features of English, as well as the role it plays in ESL settings where it is the principal medium through which official, social, economic and educational activities are carried out. Very little, as trends reveal, has been done on the variety of English that is spoken in the Francophone world where the language plays no historical or governmental role but is nevertheless widely used as a medium of international communication. This work therefore intends to fill this existing gap. The work captures the different speech traits that stand out as hallmarks of Francophone English.