ABSTRACT
This research work is divided
into five sections. Section 1- 5 and are referred to as Chapters wheel the last
part deal with bibliography. The first chapter is background of the study,
statement of the problem, statement of hypothesis, purpose of the study,
significance of the study and lastly scope and limitation of the topic. The
third chapter is concern with Data presentation and the methodology used in
carrying out the research findings, population of the study, sampling
techniques, source of data collection, tools of data collection, method of data
analysis, All procedures followed in data collection are described. The fourth
chapter deals with the data analysis. Some of these have been shown clearly in
table form while the rest appear in sentences in the form of analysis. The
fifth chapter being the last chapter of the research report is composed of the
summary, conclusion and recommendation of the research report. The last part of
the research work is the bibliography.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.0
INTRODUCTION
This chapter concentrates on
introduction of the research, background to the study, aim and objectives of
the study, statement of the problem, significance of the study, scope and
limitations of the study, research question, definition of terms and
conclusion.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The most basic purpose of language is
communication, and communication can be transactional or interactional.
However, different languages have different forms and structures. It is in view
of this that the research intends to look at the sentence structures of English and Igarra languages. The studies
that have been carried out on the two languages vary a great deal. English
language has a lot of materials on studying the sentence structure unlike the
Igarra language which was not touched until the twentieth century. Therefore
there are few works done on it and most of the materials are in form of seminar
papers that have not yet been published.
Nigeria is without question, a
multi-lingual society due to the existence of many languages. The number of
languages present in Nigeria has been estimated to lie between 360 and 400.
Olaofe, I.A. (1982) put the number at 394. Among them are Hausa, Igbo, and
Yoruba, which are recognized as the three major languages, while Tiv, Ebira,
Idoma, Nupe, Igala, Fulfulde, Ijaw, Efik, Ibibio, Itsekiri are minor languages
in Nigeria.
In this study, attention is focused
specifically on the contrastive analysis of the sentence structures of English
and Igarra languages. Adeyanju, T.K. (1978) Contrastive analysis is concerned
with the similarities and differences which result from the comparison between
the two different languages. This is done by looking at the structures of the
sentences of the studied languages.
Before going into the main
body of the work it is of paramount importance to look at historical profiles
of Igarra speakers. Apart from being the name of the language, Igarra, is the
headquarters of Akoko Edo Local Government Area which is today the oldest in
Nigerian Federation. Igarra which is otherwise known as Etuno has a very
congenial and serene atmosphere as it is nestled among large boulders and
exotic greens which explain why the chief occupation of the people was and
remains farming though it is fast becoming unfashionable as Igarra has had its
own brush with urban drift. It is estimated that more than 75% of its sons and
daughters live and work outside the town.
Igarra is a unique town in Edo state as it
shares and has little in common with any other in the state. Its history,
language and cultural heritage has nothing to do with those of neighbours as
close as Enwan, Somorika or even the
Uneme people. It has been established that Igarra people have a common ancestry
with the Igalas and the Igbiras of Kogi state, even as there are no other
theories as to the origin of the Igarra people but the former remains more
plausible and has become widely accepted. The others are largely myths and
legends unsubstantiated with little or no shred of evidence.
Below is a list of some basic greetings in igarra
language:
HELLO – CHAO
GOOD MORNING – YENNE
GOOD AFTERNOON – YANRODU
GOOD NIGHT – ADUFUO
GOOD BYE – NAVE
WELCOME – KANE
WELL DONE – KORO
Furthermore, Igarra speakers
or Etuno are mainly Christians. They pre-dorminate in Akoko-Edo local
government of Edo state, Nigeria.
Knowing and understanding
the sentences of any languages is of primary importance and a foundation to
anyone who wants to get to the task of the structural analysis or study of any
portion of the sentences.
1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.
One of the objectives of this study is to identify the
links or similarities in English and Igarra language sentence structures.
2.
It is also the aim of this project to look at how the
verb of each of the languages operates.
3.
It would also make a syntactic analysis of the two
languages.
4.
It follows therefore that this piece of work would be
important for language teaching and as such create better Igarra speakers of
English language.
1.3 STATEMENT OF TE PROBLEM
The statement of the
problems is to make a contrastive analysis of the sentence structure of English
and Igarra language by looking at the aspect of both of them.
The study also attempt to
analyses how the two languages are structured.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research will benefit
the students of language, especially those who are concerned with grammar and
the field of structural analysis of language. This is because it will provide
them with an example of how different findings of the field can be exploited to
examine a form of language in use. Also the research will serve as a source of
further study of this nature. This research will look among other things at the
form and sentence structure of both English and Igarra languages, by analyzing
the structure of phrases, clauses, and sentences of languages.
1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
This research is limited to
only the contrastive analysis of the sentence structure of English and Igarra
languages. The data collected for this research are from grammar books and
native Igarra speakers.
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
To guide
our research into the problem highlighted earlier, research questions are
formulated as follows:
i)
Is there any syntactic difference between Igarra and
English language as far as sentence structures are concerned.
ii)
Is there any difference between the sentence
structures of English and Igarra languages? iii)What are the similarities /
dissimilarities between the two languages (English and Igarra)?
iv) Is use of tenses
in English and Igarra languages the same?
1.7
DEFINITION OF TERMS
The following
are the definitions of some key words in the context in which they are used in
this work.
i.
SENTENCE:- The traditional, or common sense of
definition states that a sentence is a group of words that expresses a thought.
The problem comes in defining what a thought is. The phrase an egg expresses a
thought but is it a sentence? A sentence like I closed the
door ‘because it was cold’ expresses two thoughts and
yet it is one sentence.
ii.
CONTRASTIVEANALYSIS:- Contrastive analysis is concerned with the similarities and
differences which result from the comparison between two different things.
Banjo, A. (1969)
iii.
STRUCTURE:– These refer also to the way in which the parts of
something are connected together, arranged or organized. In other words it is
how things are organized according to some kind of principle or pattern.
iv.
GRAMMAR:– This refers to the rules in a language for changing
the form of words and joining them into sentences. In other words, grammar is
the rule governing the use of language.
v.
ENGLISH:–
Is the language of Britain, Ireland,
American, Australia, and some other
countries.
vi.
IGARRA:– Igarra is the language of Etuno and Igarra
people in Edo State.
1.8 CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have seen
the background to the study, significance of the research and the research
question. Importantly in this chapter also scope and limitation, statement of
the problems and definition of terms were also discussed.
However, in the next chapter the
research will dwell on the review of the related literature.