The pragmatic influence of articulatory gestures on speech perception of ESL hearing impaired people

Hearing plays a vital role in oral communication as it provides them the opportunities of receiving and interpreting sounds, words, phrases and sentences. It is on this basis that this paper examines the Pragmatic Influence of articulatory gestures on speech perception of English as Second Language (ESL) hearing Impaired People considering the pragmatic-phonetic interface. The theoretical framework of this study is Direct Realist Theory (DRT) and the research sample consists of sixty-six (66) participants that comprised male and female who are ESL hearing impaired adults and patients at the unit of Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Kano State. The data were collected using hearing test with the aid of speech audiometry. The test has spondaic words and was presented via headphones which the participants listen to and repeat. The data were analysed qualitatively. The finding of the study revealed that articulatory gestures between first and target languages demonstrate a sensorimotor influence on speech perception in hearing impaired adults as they express their thoughts, ideas and feelings in speech with the aid of pragmatics skills. The study concludes that Hard-of-hearers who are second language learners learn the target language differently from the normal hearers considering their level of hearing perception as they use learning strategies to process oral speeches guided by pragmatic communication from the contexts of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonetics and phonology.