Serges Moïse Essossomo

Some Phonological Aspects of Francophone World English: Analysis and Description Serges Moïse Essossomo

This work systematically describes the essential phonological features of Francophone World English, a variety of English spoken by French-speakers in Africa, Europe, the Pacific and South America. This sociophonological research endeavour was motivated by the fact that in the domain of New Englishes and related issues, the characteristic features of the English of French-speakers has received very little scholarly attention at both theoretical and applied linguistics. 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 role English 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 author will identify the different speech traits that stand out as hallmarks of FrancoE.