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Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 46:1 (2025) ► pp.28–51

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Primary-stress placement in Nigerian L1 English

An empirical investigation

ORCiD logo with link | Redeemer’s University
 | Redeemer’s University
Published online: 14 March 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.23035.ola
Abstract
This study investigates primary-stress placement in Nigerian L1 English (NL1E), an emerging accent of young Nigerians who acquire English as a first language, in order to account for the speakers’ stress patterns and the factors influencing them. In total, 194 lexical items were analysed, comprising 82 disyllabic words, 52 trisyllabic words and 60 morphologically complex words extracted from a passage read by 100 participants. The results reveal a blend of two stress systems — inner circle and distinctive NigE — with a slight preference for the inner-circle stress norms. Syllable weight and affix type were found to significantly influence stress placement. The findings portray NL1E stress as a hybrid system drifting towards the exonormative standard, possibly driven by the speakers’ continuous exposure to inner-circle accents through diction instruction and non-enculturation sources of learning.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.English as a First Language in Nigeria
  • 3.Word stress in English
  • 4.Data and method
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Primary stress in morphologically simple (disyllabic) words
    • 5.2Primary stress in morphologically simple (trisyllabic) words
    • 5.3Primary stress in morphologically complex words
    • 5.4Influences on the NL1ES’ stress patterns
  • 6.Discussion of findings
  • 7.Conclusion and further studies
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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