Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of billboards on English second language learning in Buea. Because of the mistakes contained on Buea’s billboards, it is necessary to know whether these mistakes affect English second language learners in Buea.

The objectives of this research are thus to bring out the elements that hinder the message transmission on Buea’s billboards, to state the origins of these mistakes and their impact on ESL learners and to provide suitable solutions to these mistakes in order to protect ESL learners not to be misled by them.

The miscomprehension of Buea billboard’s mistakes is perhaps caused by the mistakes they contain. These mistakes are certainly grammatical and are caused by the coexistence of many languages in the town and by the fact that most of the advertisers do not have a good mastery of English.

These mistakes can have negative impacts on ESL learners of the town. Qualitative and quantitative research approaches have been used in this work to collect data which was analysed according to some aspects of English grammar which are morphology, semantics and syntax.

Krashen’s Input hypothesis and Behaviourism guided this research. Finally, seven types of mistakes were identified in the twenty-five billboards collected and all of them have negative impacts on ESL learners.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

This chapter will provide background information to the study carried out, .identify research questions, clearly state the research’s objectives and hypotheses, explain the methodology that is going to be used in order to achieve the purpose of the study, delimit the study and structure the work in parts.

Background of the Problem

Buea is officially an English- speaking town and for many years, the University of Buea has been the only English- speaking university in Cameroon. For this reason, it is expected that the language used for formal situations such as writing in English.

But in the town, one notices that most of the billboards owned by traders are not always written in Standard English. Moreover, because of the language question (officially an English speaking town), the town of Buea appears to English Second language learners as one of the ideal places in Cameroon to learn English.

This is because knowing that language learning is not restricted to the classroom setting, they are likely to believe that learning English in an English- speaking society such as Buea can foster their learning process.

But paradoxically, in writing as well as in speech, English is not always the language written and spoken in Buea. Billboards for example are not always written in Standard British English. Thus, one wonders if Buea can really foster the learning process of the English language.

Statement of the Problem

Billboards are a means of advertisement. In other words, their goal is to convey messages to the society. From this perspective, many questions arise:

• What are the mistakes present on billboards that hinder the good transmission of the message?
• Do those mistakes violate English grammar rules?
• Do those mistakes constitute obstacles to English Second language learning?
• How can English Second language learners be prevented not to be misled by those mistakes?

Research Objectives

The objectives of this study are to:

-Identify the mistakes present on billboards that hinder the transmission of the message

-Classify the identified mistakes to show how billboards violate English grammar rules

-Describe and analyse the mistakes identified on the billboards in order to show how they constitute obstacles to ESL learning

-And to provide suitable solutions to the identified mistakes in order to prevent ESL learners to be misled by what they read on the streets.

The Impact of Billboards on English Second Language Learning In Buea