COURSE OUTLINE 2024-2025 A. Y.

Course Name FUNCTIONAL ENGLISH I

Course Code
Course Credit Value 1 (15 hours of L, T, P, SPW)
Level One / first semester
Course Objective:
Upon completion of the course, the students should efficiently communicate with his/her colleagues and the
patient in English. Grammar, Conjugation, curriculum Vitae, Letter writing, reading Comprehension, Listening
comprehension. Tenses. Also, besides grammar, a special emphasis should be placed on common vocabulary in
the medical work.
Course outline
 History and socio-cultural background of English in Cameroon
 Brief introduction to the structure of English
 Phonetics, MorPWme, word formation, Phrase, Sentences
 Discourse
 Basic grammatical functions: Subject and Object
 Grammatical categories: verbs, adjectives, pronouns and nouns
 Spelling and punctuation: Word formation, Collocations, Prepositions
 Some confusable words: Synonyms, autonyms
 Figure of speech and Idiomatic expressions
 Reported speech
 Difference between British and American English (pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary)
 Sound of English: in isolation and in connected speech
 Sentence stress and intonation
 Types of discourse: expository, descriptive, narrative
 Note taking (in lectures, in meetings)
 Turn taking conversational English
 Basic techniques of reading
 Basic techniques of writing
 Formal and informal letters, Administrative letters
 Application for a job
 Invitations
 Writing CV
 Writing minutes of meetings
 General characteristics of the language in accordance with the area of specialization
 Technical writing
 Writing technical report
 Writing technical instructions
 Summarizing documents
 Techniques in public speaking
  Techniques of negotiation
At the end students show, be able to use English to communicate with all patients.

History and socio-cultural background of English in Cameroon

The official languages are French and English. They are given equal importance in the constitution, but French is more
commonly spoken. Pidgin English is widely spoken, particularly in coastal areas and more than 200 different African
languages are also spoken in the country.
In multilingual Cameroon, 247 indigenous languages live side by side with English and French (the two official languages)
and Cameroon pidgin English (the main lingua franca) while the two official languages of colonial heritage dominate public
life in the areas of education, administration, politics, mass media, publicity and literature, both the indigenous languages and
Cameroon pidgin English are related to the background.
French and English are official languages, a heritage of Cameroon’s colonial past, as a colony of both France and the United
Kingdom from 1916-1960.
Eight out of ten regions of Cameroon are primarily Francophone, representing 83% of the country's population and two are
anglophone representing 17%.
The nation strives towards bilingualism but in reality, very few Cameroonians are literate in both French and English and
about 28.8% are literate in neither.
Most people in the English-speaking North west and South west regions speak Cameroonian pidgin English as a lingua
Franca. Fulfulde serves the same functions in the North and ewondo in much of the center, South and East regions.
Camfranglais or frananglais is a relatively new pidgin communication form emerging in urban areas and other locations
where Anglophone and francophone cameroonians meet and interact.
Cameroon English is an English dialete spoken predominantly in cameroon mostly learned as a second language.
It shares some similarities with English varieties in neighbouring west Africa, as Cameroon lies at the West of central Africa.
It is primarily spoken in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon.
It is a post colonial variety of English, long in use in the territory over the years, it has developed characteristic features,
particular in lexis but also in phonology and grammar. Those characteristics were once regarded as errors but are now
increasingly accepted as distinctive cameroonian contributions to the English language.

Brief introduction to the structure of English language.

We can study the structure of English in a variety of ways. Usually, we start with classes of words (parts of speech) meanings
of words and longer structures(semantics).
How words are organized in a relation to each other semantics. How words are formed(morphology) the sounds of the words
and how written forms represent these(lexicography) modern English, as popularized by contemporary English books
authors, may provide an improvised nomenclature like pragmatics. No matter how modern an English version structure still
go back to the basics of clauses, markers and/or missing elements.
III. The structure of English language.
In grammar, the sentence is regarded as the largest unit of language. It consist of
Clauses
Phrases
Words
Morphemes
Phonemes
We shall however study the structure of English starting with the smallest units and working towards the larger units. Thus,
we move from
Phonology.
Morphology. Semantics
Syntax.
Pragmatics.
Phonology is the study of distinctive sounds in a language. A phoneme however is a distinctive or constructive sound in a
language. "Distinctive" means that the sound makes a difference in meaning and has a communicative value.
A) The sounds of English and their classifications
a) English consonants and vowels
We will in this section establish an inventory of sounds constituting the sound system of English, in consonants and vowels.
I) the consonant sound:
It is a speech sound which is articulated with some kind of closure of thr air stream. English uses the following consonants
out of a multitude of consonants which occur in human languages.
II) vowel sounds:
These are sounds articulated with no obstruction of the air stream, that is with open articulation. There's lack of the central
closure of the air stream. English vowels are sub divided into monophthongs, diphthongs, and triphthongs.
* Monophthongs. It is a vowel sound that does not change.
* Diphthong. It's a sequence of two sounds which occupy only one syllable.
* triphthong. Can be defined as a sequence of three sounds; it is a sound with three successive qualities:
NB: letters are written, and sounds are spoken. It is important that these functions are not confused. When we write normal
spelling, we are using letters to convey sounds.
B. Morphemes:
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. A morpheme is a unit below the word even though in some cases
is equivalent to a word. A morpheme is internally indivisible and cannot be further analyzed into smaller meaningful units.
Combine the morphemes to form words
Define + ion >>>>>>
Attention + ive >>>>>>
Success + un + ful >>>>>
As such we distinguish two types of morphemes, free morphemes and bound morphemes (un, ed, able, anti, ism etc.)
C) Words:
Leonard Bloomfield defines a word as a minimal free form. To define a word however many parameters, need to be checked
like orthography, semantic, phonology, morphology and syntax. The words of a language are listed alphabetically in a
dictionary and constitute the vocabulary of that language. The sum total of words in a language constitutes it's lexicology.
Word Formation Processes
English has a number of means by which words combine or are altered to form new words. There are many processes
through which words come into existence in the English vocabulary. These processes are:
1) Borrowing:
This is the most prolific source of increasing the vocabulary stock of English as a result of contacts between different
cultures, armed conquest, colonial expansion, international trade and cultural influences all made possible the absorption of
words from other languages. Example around government and administration, Governor state, empire, royal, tax, subsidy,
minister etc.
Medical practice, medicine, physician, surgeon, jaundice, plague contagion, anatomy, stomach, pulse, remedy, ointment,
balm
From other languages: amour propre, cout d'état, coup De grace, tête-à-tête, savoir faire, vis-a-vis.
Latin: bona fide (good faith, sincerity) etcetera(etc.) and the rest
exempli gratia (e.g.) nota bene (NB) post mortem, idem est (i.e.) that is, via, versus
German: zinc, paraffin, semester, beer, milk, cheese, poker, ringworm, kindergarten
Italian: lottery, stanza, pizza, infantry, traffic, soprano, gala, piano, mafia
Celtic: penguin, whisky, Greenwich
Australian: kangaroo, boomerang, Crook, footpath, singlet weekender
African via Dutch or Portuguese: voodoo, camp, commando, gorilla, guinea, apartheid, boar, palaver, sketch, freight.
Arabic: alkali, alcohol, algebra, lemon, cotton, mattress, tariff, alchemy, safari, sultan, sheik
Chinese: yen, silk, tea, typhoon,
Russian: intelligentsia, tsar, vodka, sable, Soviet, ruble
Spanish and Portuguese: negro, maize, mosquito, tobacco, chocolate, siesta, albino, rumba, barbecue
Czech: robot
Malayan: taboo, tattoo, bamboo
Turkish: yoghurt, kiosk, coffee
Persian: sofa, caravan, shrawl, spinach, jackal, khaki
Indian languages: curry, jungle, bungalow, guru, punch, scandal, verandah, rupee, bangle, shampoo.
Malagasy: raffia
2) Compounding:
To compound means to bring two or more items together.
Compounding is a word formation process through which two or more roots are brought together to form a new word. Such
combinations can involve the following.
I) forming compound nouns
N + N > N airplane, lipstick, figurehead
V + N > N cut-throat, spoil-sport, cry baby
A + N > N madman, fast-food, software
Prt + N > background, in-crowd, afternoon
Prt + V > outcast, downpour, outbreak,
V + Prt > put down, drop-out, sit-in
N + 's + N >> bachelor’s degree, housemaid's knee, bull's eye.
V + ing + N >> spending money, closing time, freezing point.
N + V + ing >> handwriting, housekeeping, foxhunting
N + V >> bloodshed, nosebleed, handshake
N + V + er >> nutcracker, peacemaker, landowner
II) Compound verbs:
N + V >> babysit, head-hund, house keep
A + V >> free associate, fine tune
Prt + V >> outdo, overcook, underrate
A + N >> blacklist, mainstream, strong-arm
iii) Compound Adjectives
N + A >> headstrong, lifelong, childproof
A + A >> bittersweet, red-hot, ice-cold
N + N >> Backstreet, coffee-table, seaside
A + N >> redneck, solid-state, blue-collar
V + Prt >> wrap-around, see through, tow-away
N + V + ing >> seed bearing, heart-breaking, life-giving
A + V + ing >> easy going, good-looking, quick-cooking
N + V + en >> crest fallen, housebroken
A + V + en >> widespread, far-fetched, new-found
A + N + ed >> cold-blooded, thick-skinned, double-barreled.
IV) Derivation:
While the combining process in compounding is essentially made up of free morphemes(forms). Derivation constitutes the
addition of derivational affixes to roots to produce new words with one of the following changes.

 A phonological change >> reduce/reduction

 An orthographic to the root >> pity (pitiful) deny/denial
 Semantic change >> husband/husbandry
 A change in word class

Derivational affixes are either prefixes or suffixes

a - prefixes, could be a sound or words(bound) added to the beginning of an existing word(root) to add or change
meaning. For example, Re + wind >> rewind (meaning wind again or repeat). The typical prefixes in English are

Prefixes Meaning Example

a, an Without not Apolitical, amoral, anonymous

Airo Air Aerobics, aeroplane

Agro, agri Field Agrochemicals, agroindustrial

Ambi Two, both, mixed Ambidextrous, ambivalent

Ante Before Antenatal, anteroon

Anti Against Anti-gang, anti-party

Arch Chief, typical Archbishop, archenemy

Astro Star Astrology, astronaut

Audio Hearing Audio-visual, audiotape

Auto Of or byself Autocratic, automatic

Bi, bis Two Bisect, bilingual

Biblio Book Bibliography, bibliophite

By Subordinate, secondary By-product

Cardi Heart Cardiology, cardiac

Cent, centi Hundred Centimetre, centigrade

Chrono Time Chronicle, chronology

Circum Around Circum-navigate

Co, con, com Together, with Connect, compound, convene

Contra Opposite, against Contrary, contraception

Deca Ten Decade

Deci A tenth Decimetre, decimal

Demi, semi Half Demi-god, semi-circular

Di Two or double Dioxide, diphthong

Dia Through, apart, across Dialysis, diameter

Dis Not Disapprove, distinct

Eco Of the environment Ecospicis, ecosystem

Electro Electric, electrical Electromagnetic

En Cause to be Enclose, enlarge, enrich

Equi Equal Equivalent, equity

Ex Out of, former Extract, ex-wife, ex student

Extra Beyond, outside Extramarital, extracurricular

For To indicate negativity,absence Forbid, forbear, forgo

Geo Earth Geology, geography

Gynaec Female, woman Gynaecology

Haem, haemo Blood Haemorrhage, hematology

Intra Within Intratextual, intravenous

Inter Between Intercity

Uni Alone, one Unicycle, unilateral

Non Not Nonsense

Bene Well Benefactor

In Not Inject, impossible

Male Badly Malnutrition

Post After Post-mortem, postpone

Trans Across Transplant, transport

Ultra Beyond Ultramarine

Multi, poly Many Multi-coloured, polytechnic

Hyper Over, too Hypercritical

Homo Same Homogeneous

Phil Loving Philanthropy

Syn With Synchronise

b) suffixes: these are additions at the end to roots of words.