The politics of code‐switching: English vs. Nigerian languages

Abstract

Abstract: The present study explores the politics of code‐switching with reference to the novels of two prominent Nigerian authors, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. In addition to drawing a theoretical distinction between overt and covert modes of code alternation, the study points out that at the primary degree of delicacy, code‐switching not only reveals the tensions and conflicts in the Nigerian social structure, but this linguistic phenomenon is also used to mark identity, solidarity, exclusion from an in‐group membership, status manipulation, and social and communicative distance. At the secondary degree of delicacy, the politics of code‐switching reveal that in the sociolinguistic balance of power, English dominates the local languages identified in the study. The sociolinguistic situation described in the study is thus symptomatic of the linguistic situation in Nigeria generally where the local languages are in a subtractive polyglossic relationship with English. Subtractive polyglossia, in turn, results in the Nigerian English users’ subtractive bilingualism and linguistic schizophrenia. And unless urgent steps are taken to redress the geolinguistic imbalance between English and Nigeria's minority languages in the hierarchy of code functions, Nigeria's local dialects – except Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba – face continuous decline and degeneration, if not possible death.