ERRORS AMONG YORÙBÁ LEARNERS OF FRENCH YORÙBÁ VOWEL SOUNDS INTERFERENCE

Abstract

In Nigeria, indigenous language known also as a Mother Tongue poses a lot of linguistic challenges to the learners of French language, most especially when it comes to the area of oral production. To Yorùbá learners of French language, one of such challenges is the proper use of French vowel sounds due to the negative impact of some Yorùbá vowels sounds. This paper thus, presents a Contrastive Analysis of French and Yorùbá vowel system with the aim of establishing points of convergence and divergence so as to provide useful information on the error committed by Nigeria Yorùbá learners of French Language in the use of French vowel sound in passing across their thought in French. The research sample therefore, consist of sixty (60) undergraduate’s students, (forty-five females and fifteen males). They are all three hundred level students in Higher Institutions in the South West of Nigeria. Recording of their utterances was done through a Tape Recorder and Note Taking. The result of the investigation shows that majority of the respondents find it difficult to pronounce very well French vowel sounds /Ø/ and /oe/ due to the negative impact of Yorùbá vowel sound /ę/ and /e/. Based on the findings of the paper, it was recommended that Nigeria Yorùbá French learners should be well exposed to French vowel sound and whenever we discover any abnormality in the production of any French vowel sound among our learners, we should try to find out the causes through a Contrastive Analysis.