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The Role Of Motivation In The Acquisition Of Phonetic Sounds
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Language is a very important phenomenon
in the life of every individual. On daily basis, we communicate our
ideas, feelings, desires, likes, dislikes, etc to people in community
through language (spoken, written or signed).
O’Grady (2011:1) highlights and affirms the usefulness of language by saying:
Language
is at the heart of all things human. We use it when we are taking,
thinking, reading, writing and listening. It is part of the social
structure of our communities, it forges the emotional bond between
parent and a child; it is the vehicle for literature and poetry.
Language is not just a part of us; language defines us.
From the
foregoing, it is important to state categorically, that language
encompasses all human activities. It is an indispensable tool used by
members of a speech community to communicate their thoughts to one
another. Nnamdi-Eruchalu (2012:1) rightly states that man cannot relate
with the world around him without language.
Accordingly, Edward Sapir
(1921:8) in Lyons (2009:3) stresses “that language is purely human and
non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by
means of voluntarily produced symbolsâ€. This implies that every normal
human being is endowed with the innate ability to acquire language. This
natural (innate) ability according to Noam Chomsky (1975) quoted in
Agbedo (2009:20), and Nnamdi (2012:19) is called the Language
Acquisition Device (LAD). Similarly, Oates (1972:127) cited in Ajisafe
(2009:1) notes the importance of language and avers that “the
acquisition of the ability to use language is one of the most impressive
pieces of learning that an individual achieves in the course of his
lifeâ€.
Issues bothering on language have attracted the attention of
scholars from disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, sociology,
philosophy, rhetoric, literary criticism, etc. Among these disciplines,
we will limit our discussion in this work to linguistics.
Nnamdi-Eruchalu (2012:8) opines that linguistics is interested in the
historical study of written language, and the study of spoken language
and its description as it is at a given point in time. This aspect of
linguistics is referred to as “historical linguisticsâ€. This discipline
(linguistics) covers areas such as phonetics, phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (otherwise known as micro
linguistics), and the macro linguistics which include applied
linguistics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics,
psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, comparative linguistics, etc. Among
these, we shall limit our discussion in this research to an aspect of
the micro linguistics — “phoneticsâ€.
This research work is set to
harness the role of motivation in the acquisition of phonetic sounds — a
case study of the Ebonyi State University Students, Abakaliki. Ebonyi
State, Nigeria.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Ajisafe (2009:2)
opines that “motivation is an important psychological construct that
initiates and affects learning and performance and so is very necessary
in language learning and acquisitionâ€. Subsequently, Ajisafe (2009) sees
motivation as one of the major similarities and differences between how
a First Language (L1) and a Second Language (L2) or additional
languages are learnt in which the difference lies in the level or degree
of motivation. Ajisafe (2009) further notes that it is a condition that
determines how fast or how well a language is learned/acquired. Umaru
(2008:31) draws a distinction between “acquisition†and “learningâ€.
Acquisition according to Umaru (2008) refers to the “non conscious
incorporation of the target language structure resulting from exposure
to and interaction with target language speakers in genuine
communicative contextsâ€. Learning, on the other hand, involves the
“conscious incorporation of target language rules and is facilitated by
explicit presentation of these rules compiled with feedback in the form
of error correctionâ€. Yule (1996:191) in Agbedo (2009:74) also stated
that in acquisition, the process is “sub-conscious and effortlessâ€; in
learning, the process is “conscious and effortfulâ€.
Although the
distinction exist as can be seen above, but we will consider both
(acquisition and learning) to mean the same, hence the use of language
learning/acquisition in this work.
The usefulness of motivation
cannot be left unsaid as Morgan, King, Weisz and Schopler (1993:303)
opine that “motivation refers to the driving and pulling forces which
results in persistent behaviour directed toward particular goalsâ€. From
the foregoing, one can deduce that motivation brings about
recurrent/repeated behaviour. Hockenbury and Hockenbury (2000:306)
concur with the view of Morgan et al (1993) as they posit that
“Motivation refers to the forces acting on or within an organism to
initiate and direct behaviourâ€. Motivation can be either internal or
external in nature. It is internal, if the behaviour emanates from the
inside (within) of an individual, and external if the desire/behaviour
is coming from outside/acting upon the individual.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]Motivation plays a very important role in enhancing the students’ pronunciation learning. Consequently, the researcher’s argument is that motivation is necessary for one to learn and acquire a second or foreign language because most successful learners of a second language are motivated to do so. Hence, this research work highlights the role motivation plays in the acquisition of phonetic sounds among the Ebonyi State University students. The researcher examines the concept of moti ... Continue reading---
