Attitudes towards Nigerian Englishes: Ethnic categorisation and underlying reasons for categorisation

Abstract

There has been a dearth of studies in language attitude research focusing on the association between ethnic categorisation and underlying reasons for the categorisation of accents of Nigerian English. This paper examines the ethnic categorisation of speakers of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba Englishes and the reasons for categorising their accents into ethnic groups by 406 participants from three Nigerian universities. The findings reveal that participants found it challenging to distinguish between speakers of Igbo and Yoruba Englishes, which points to a possibility of language change in progress in the speech of Igbo and Yoruba ethnic groups in Southern Nigeria. The results show a significant association between good educational background (GEB) and de-ethnicised speech, demonstrating that GEB helps to minimise common L1 interference features. This study offers a new perspective for the study of language attitudes: it demonstrates participants’ levels of exposure to Nigerian Englishes; and it reveals the sociopsychological processes that underlie accent recognition and ethnic categorisation of accents.