1.1 Introduction
The English Language is a very important tool for socialization and bureaucratic activities in Nigeria, since the days of colonialism. It was only natural that emphasis was laid on spoken English only and either on written English or both of them. However, with the emergence of a new class of people, with time, the civil servants, and their new roles in the colonial administration, the teaching and learning of the language took another form. It is used as either a primary or secondary language in many countries. It is the language of education, administration, law, world trade, international diplomacy as well as that of cultural.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Constructively, a sentence is an anthology of words that convey meaning and meaning and are formed according to the common sense of grammar. Short and unambiguous sentences are mostly considered and more effective for long and complex sentences. Apparently, sentence is a linguistic unit of one or more words that communicate an autonomous articulation, a question, a request, a summons, a cry, etc., and which usually has a subject and a predicate. However, a sentence typically begins with a capital letter and ends with an appropriate punctuation; in speech, it displays decipherable, unrestrained intonation patterns and is again and again marked by the preceding and following pauses. In general, the statements and questions about the irresistible preponderance of sentences force a subject and a verb, formatted autonomously, followed by what is called an independent clause: for example, he took the phone is a sentence . After hitting the phone, it’s not a sentence; as a replacement, it is a dependent clause. Even if he has a subject and a verb, he must be connected to something to complete the statement: after picking up the phone, he answered a call; or He answered a call after picking up the phone (Amayo, 2013).
Basically, the grammatical level focuses on how several aspects of the English language are given a Nigeria flavour. For example, a statement as the following is common in Nigerian English users:
- "He is guilty, isn't it?" (Wrong)
- "He is guilty, isn't he?" (Correct)
It is important to note that the sentences provide us with the structure necessary for an understandable written sentence. However, good writing skills are intrinsically vital to academic and professional success. The ability to write unequivocally and competently can transform complex and challenging writing into a more creative, exciting and fulfilling writing experience. In a more lucid sense, phrase learning is one of the most important ways to improve your English writing skills. On the other hand, writing is constructed by placing the sentences one after the other, in a coherent way. If a single sentence is read aloud, it must be explainable and devoting time to the mechanics of sentence structure can make a huge difference in your writing (Kachru, 2014).). Typically, sentences are comprised of clauses: gatherings of words that express a solitary thought. Given to that, there are two types of clauses:
- Independent clauses
- Dependent clauses.
Actually, independent clauses can situate unaccompanied as complete sentences whereas dependent clause needs an independent clause to complete its meaning by so doing different types of sentences are made up of different combinations of these two types of clauses.
Simple sentences consist of just one independent clause; it needs only one punctuation mark at the end (a full stop, exclamation or question mark). Compound sentences are made by fusion simple sentences. Meaning that sentences joined which are intimately allied in content to make the writing more fluid.
Complex sentences are made once there is combination of an independent clause with a dependent clause whereby the dependent clause in the following example is in italics.
However, sentence stress come to play if one need to emphasize a specific fact or point in a text, there are more than a few ways to focus the reader’s or listener’s attention on it. Imperatively, arrangement of words: by placing an introductory word at the commencement of a sentence, for that reason, the writer makes the reader pay attention to that word; the reader is then alert for the rest of the sentence. Undoubtedly, the English language has a towering frequency of homographic vocabulary and however, this linguistic observable fact habitually results in phonological and lexical ambiguities as well as delays in lexical and pronunciation decisions by L2 readers, more than ever those that are not capable of exploring contextual clues in pronouncing the words and ‘Improper’ or ‘incorrect’ pronunciation of some English words, primarily the homographic ones, during reading or speech making has often come with its attendant challenges and complexities for speakers of English globally. Uncertainty is a phenomenon of human language including English and wherever it occurs, it demands more than one denotation in that it manifests at the phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic levels of language in which at all of these levels, the outcome is communication failure or miscommunication and in other words, meaning is obscured and when this happens, defective communication comes about. It turns out to be exceptionally fundamental at this point to build up the relationship in the middle of orthography and phonology from one perspective and phonology and importance on the other. Frost et al (2012:569) express the perspective that vagueness can exist in the connection between the orthographic and phonological types of a word or between the phonological structure and its semantic representation. The purpose of union in the middle of phonology and semantics is that both help in representing meaning. A word is a phonological structure; its phonological representation is its lexical passage. Passing by this, each homographic word is given two unique passages with a specific end goal to separate it semantically.
Therefore, in Gwagwalada Area Council, F.C.T. Abuja where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Impact of Phrases and Clauses on the Communicative Competence of Student.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Moreover, Simpson (2015) identifies some of he effects of semantic uncertainty on visual word acknowledgment. Since words in this class have twofold passages, the likelihood of experiencing one of them is more noteworthy than the shot of identifying single section. At the point when bivalent words are perused as two distinct elements, they prompt postponement choice in right articulation as per-users set aside time to match elocution with importance. Undesirably, this is not a sweeping standard, and there are bounties of English words which sound the same both as verbs and as nouns: ‘travel’ (He works in a Travel Agency and he hopes to travel by air to Abuja), ‘picture’ (He remembered taking the picture at a studio but could not picture precisely which studio.) are a few examples. These arrangements of words are both phonologically and semantically unambiguous. The setting of utilization as a rule decides the real open ramifications of such lexical things.
In an L2 context, when a speaker pronounces ‘REcord’ instead of ‘reCORD’, it prompts miscommunication which, in another speech, can be called clamor. In any correspondence experience, there is the requirement for input. The adequacy of the input is subject to the capacity of the listener/reader to appropriately decipher the real messages conceived by the speaker/writer at both the intra and interpersonal levels of communication. The sending of the message in verbal communication bases upon the correct elocution of words in the language in question. Once words are not correctly pronounced, particularly homographic words, they amount to noise. Noise, for this situation, is introduced as anything that meddles with, slows down, or reduces the clearness or correctness of communication. One effortlessly saw impact of error is vagueness with its specialist duality of implications in the psyche of the listeners/readers. Challenges postured by these English homographic to L2 learners and how they respond to such a word. Words that are phonologically unclear are not challenging to skilled readers but are so to preschooler and unskilled readers who translate a string into more than one conceivable phonological acknowledgment that maps into more than single word in their vocabulary.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to scrutinize the Impact of Phrases and Clauses on the Communicative Competence of Student under Gwagwalada Area Council. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To examine the Phrases and Clauses on the Communicative Competence between some undergraduate students
- To determine homographic words challenges between some undergraduate students
- To establish the alternative used by the students in avoiding homographic words
- To assess undergraduate student’s Phrases and Clauses reading capability
- To find out the challenges of Phrases and Clauses Communication used by student in Gwagwalada Area Council
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Is there Phrases and Clauses Communicative Competence between some undergraduate students in Gwagwalada Area Council?
- What are homographic words challenges between some undergraduate students?
- Does the alternative used by the students avoids homographic words?
- To what extent do undergraduate student’s Phrases and Clauses affect their reading capability?
- What are the challenges of Phrases and Clauses Communication used by student in Gwagwalada Area Council?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
- H01: There is no significant Phrases and Clauses Communicative Competence relationship between some undergraduate students in Gwagwalada Area Council
- H02: There is no significant challenge of Phrases and Clauses Communication used by student in Gwagwalada Area Council
1.7 Significance of Study
This study will help teachers of the English language to determine areas they should improve on a regards teaching and modifications that can be made to already existent teaching skills. It will improve the quality of writing in students at the SSS level and help parents and the society at large to acknowledge the importance of writing as one of the components of the four language skills necessary for academic excellence and societal growth.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Impact of Phrases and Clauses on the Communicative Competence of Student under Gwagwalada Area Council, F.C.T. Abuja.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
The definition of some difficult terms or words in relation to this research is given below:
- Nigerian English: English as it is spoken and used by Nigerians in a way that is unique to them. It is also influenced by Nigerian.
- Lexical: The words of a language
- Negative Transfer: Thinking or meaning in one's mother tongue and translating directly into the target language, for example, English.
- Phonetically: representing Vocal/Oral Sounds
- Dialect: Regional form of speech or variety of a given language.
- Phonetically: Representing Vocal/Oral sounds
- Dialect: Regional form of speech or a variety of a given language
