Synopsis "The English of Francophone Speakers in Cameroon"
Scientific Study from the year 2019 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, University of Yaoundé 1 (Faculty of Arts), language: English, abstract: This work, which describes the English of these francophone users, comprises an introduction, seven chapters grouped into two parts, and a conclusion. The introduction overviews the historical background of the country and its geographic and linguistic situations. Part One deals with the didactics of English in Cameroon; it comprises three chapters which take up in turn the languages in the education system of the country, the teaching of English in primary and secondary schools as well as tertiary level institutions. Part Two, which tackles the description of the English speech of francophone users, first outlines the research design. Then it takes up the sound system of francophone English, focusing on the realisations of consonants and vowels, and stress placement. Next it examines the vocabulary of this variety of English and finds that it is characterised by an excessive use of direct loan, calque, and false friends. This is followed by a description of the morpho-syntactic features of the variety. The frequent features identified can be grouped under 12 major categories of items, i.e., verb tenses, articles, the plural form in noun phrases, pronouns, word order, subject-verb agreement, adverbs, prepositions, question formation, negation, verbs in embedded clauses, and serial verbs. Lastly, drawing from the findings outlined in these linguistic analyses, the researcher makes an appraisal of Cameroon's French-English official bilingualism policy. The various measures taken over the years by Government to promote official bilingualism are evaluated first. Then the consequences of the failure of this policy are considered. Finally a way forward is proposed: there is a need to adopt a new syllabus purposely designed to enhance bilingual competence among francophones in the country. Francop
