Nigerian Pidgin English Research Articles

Pragmatics of musical rhetoric in the post-2015 elections in Nigeria

In linguistics, most studies on rhetoric are approached from the perspective of persuasive ideologies of social actors such as community, religious, and political leaders with a concentration on their speeches and the impacts of the speeches on their followers and society at large. As a result, music as a form of persuasion and political strategy has been under-researched. This paper investigates the rhetoric embedded in politically-motivated musical renditions in the post-2015 elections in Nigeria and identifies ideologies of persuasion, pragmatic choice(s), and implications of the narratives on the Nigerian political landscape. Mey’s pragmatic acts serve as the theoretical base. Two popular and viral musical renditions in (Nigerian pidgin) English from social media were selected for the study. Analysis of the selected songs which critiqued the leadership style of President Muhammadu Buhari from two opposing angles was carried out. Both songs exhibited the Pragmemic activity of (in)direct speech acts as well as conversational and psychological acts through their rhythm and lyrics adapted from Harry Song’s popular ‘Reggae Blues’ and re-titled as ‘The (Change/Truth) Blues’. Musical political rhetoric relies on co-texts conveyed through verifiable information, (satiric) visuals, history, antecedents, and socio-political realities and sentiments as strategies of persuasion. The pragmatic acts employed include narrating, condemning, accusing and counter-accusing, blaming, justifying, (partial) veiling, threatening, hoping, and praying. The study reveals the political consciousness and conflicting perceptions of some Nigeria citizens in governance and makes a case for ‘truth awareness’ among the governed. Citizens’ active participation and better access to information about the political leadership of the day is, therefore, advocated. All these are invaluable for the reposing of trust in the government and also engender citizens’ active participation.

PIDGIN ENGLISH FUNCTIONING IN NIGERIA

Цель. В статье выявляются особенности функционирования пиджина английского языка, распространенного на территории Нигерии. Автор анализирует ключевые исторические факторы, оказавшие влияние на процесс формирования и развития Нигерийского пиджина. Согласно исследованию, исторически сложившаяся этническая, культурная близость с соседними народами, схожесть экономических и социальных систем основных этнических групп, Хауса, Йоруба, Игбо, оказали влияние на образование уникальной гибридной языковой системы – Нигерийского пиджина (НП), сочетающего в себе лингвистические особенности и черты европейских языков и фонетику, лексику, грамматику основных языков коренных народов Нигерии.Метод или методология проведения работы. В ходе работы автор использует эмпирические методы, где происходит анализ внешних взаимоотношений одних объектов с другими и выявляются общие и различные свойства, и теоретические методы, при которых происходит процесс обработки информации.Результаты. Результаты работы отражены в теоретических и практических исследованиях автора по изучению исторических, лингвистических и культурных особенностей функционирования НП в Нигерии и выявлению его основных характеристик.Область применения результатов. Результаты исследования могут быть применимы в разделах контактной лингвистике, языковой вариативности, исследованиях, посвященных теоретическим вопросам языков Западной Африки.

Audience Perception of Pidgin English Advertisements in Nigerian Broadcast Media (A Study of Benin-City).

In a world of fierce competition and emergence of internet as a powerful, border-less media, gaining and retaining the attention of consumers and customers and persuading them to buy products and services through the broadcast media is becoming more challenging and important. Although advertising has been proved to be effective in providing market information about products and service, yet its understanding and comprehension to the masses has been questioned consistently. Thus, it is important for the advertisers, advertising agencies and the media to understand the role that languages played in reaching the target market audience with simple market information about products. This research examined audience perception of Pidgin English advertisements in Nigerian broadcast media using Benin-City as a reference point. The inhabitants of Benin-City municipal are mainly business men and women of various ethnic backgrounds mostly Hausas, Igbos and Yorubas; hence the use of Pidgin English is regarded as the best medium of public interaction and communication in carrying out their daily activities. These people mostly understand the ‘surface structure’ of communicated messages in Standard English language and several others cannot even comprehend at all. Hence, this study examined if Pidgin English holds the interest of audience when used as a vehicle for conveying advertising messages by the advertisers via the broadcast media and also find out if Pidgin English can help decrease misconception and misunderstanding as regards advertised products. It also intends to explore the potentials of the Nigerian Pidgin English as a language of public and mass communication in Nigeria. Survey research method was adopted in the study and 200 well-structured questionnaires were administered on the purposely selected respondents at random. Data gathered were analysed by the use of table constructs, frequency count and simple percentages. The findings of the research showed that Pidgin English usage in advertisements helps to reduce misconception and misunderstanding of advert information and also holds the interest of the audience when used as a medium of communication. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended that the use of Pidgin English in advertisements should be encouraged. Since the study covers only Benin-City municipal, the researcher recommended for further study to find out whether the general public would embrace the culture of using Pidgin English language more often for broadcast programmes and perhaps adopts it as one of the country’s lingua franca.

Wázóbìá: A Comparative Study of the Linguistic Structure of Nigeria’s National Languages

ABSTRACTThis article describes the structures of the three Nigerian national languages at the morphophonological level with a view to showing the aspects of convergence and divergence in them. This will help determine the possibility of evolving a pocket of pronounceable words, as a stepping stone towards a national language formed from the three languages to foster national unity like wá , zó and bìá, meaning ‘come’ in Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo respectively as widely suggested. Using descriptive analysis of data collected from Hausa and Igbo students at the National Institute for Nigerian Languages, we discovered that coinage is easier between Igbo and Yoruba (Niger-Congo/Kwa) than it is between these two languages and Hausa (Chadic). This article suggests the use of Nigerian Pidgin English (a natural language) which is English-based with widest acceptability.

Errare, sviarsi, vagabondare lungo il sentiero della traduzione letteraria

The essay intends to look at the notion of error with particular reference to literary translation from English into Italian. It specifically focuses on texts uncomfortably poised between spoken and written language, coming from postcolonial literature written in contact languages (Nigerian Pidgin English and rotten English), and American literature written in dialects and vernaculars. It will try to shed light on how the norm/usage dichotomy can be creatively explored and redefined by both the writer and the translator.

ЯЗЫКОВАЯ СИТУАЦИЯ И ЯЗЫКОВАЯ ПОЛИТИКА В НИГЕРИИ

The article deals with the language situation and language policy in Nigeria which is one of the most polyethnic African states. Sociolinguistic situation in the country is very complex because there are more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria which speak 521 languages. English is the official language in the country and serves Nigerian peoples’ way of life. There are discussions about the development of local indigenous languages in a very complicated ethnic and political situation in Nigeria. The English language in Nigeria interacts with numerous indigenous languages and Nigerian Pidgin English. Nigerian Pidgin Eng-lish is a marker of identity and solidarity between the various ethnic groups. There is polarization of com-municative functions of English and Nigerian Pidgin. English has official functions and is on a higher social level and Nigerian Pidgin is on a lower social level and has everyday functions. English plays a major role in introducing Nigerians to modern knowledge, creating new types of thinking and contributing to the development of national self-awareness.

Nigerian Pidgin English: Multi-Prepositional Functionality of “Fo” Among Nigerian Staff of Ces in Manchaster

Nigerian Pidgin English: Multi-Prepositional Functionality of “Fo” Among Nigerian Staff of Ces in Manchaster

Nigerian Pidgin English: Multi-Prepositional Functionality of “Fo” Among Nigerian Staff of Ces in Manchaster

Nigerian Pidgin English: Multi-Prepositional Functionality of “Fo” Among Nigerian Staff of Ces in Manchaster

Use of English in Nigerian Women Literacy and Globalization: A Critical Assessment

The main thrust of this paper is to examine the use of English in women literacy in Nigeria as it relates to globalization with a view to identifying issues of concern. Methods of assessment involve the use of questionnaire to gather women’s opinion of their literacy development, survey of existing infrastructure and techniques of teaching, and the use of English. 1,500 women were randomly selected, using the stratified random sampling technique, across the six geopolitical regions of Nigeria. Findings reveal that more women are becoming literate but literacy among women has gone beyond just learning speaking, reading, and writing English. Women literacy currently involves learning about social networking, business strategies, political and domestic issues. Also, the Nigerian English variety and Nigerian Pidgin English are the media of instruction. Although, many literacy centres are organized privately by NGOs, a few centres are government owned. Hence, there are no structured and standard curricula. The study revealed that only 15.2 per cent of the women population is aware of the existence of any literacy programme. About the same small proportion (15.5 per cent) is aware of the existence of any literacy centres. Comparative analysis among the states shows that states in the North had relatively higher level of awareness of literacy programmes. It is recommended that more attention should be given to women literacy especially in rural areas for total involvement and curriculum standardization. It is hoped that findings from this study will be needful for policy makers, planners and other researchers in other fields of education.

The <i>Naija</i> language amnd the "Naija languej akademi" as an ideological movement

The combat against Western linguistic subjugation in Nigeria has been multifaceted and complex. This complex combat is today visible in the move in favor of the teaching, promotion and elevation of Nigerian languages, as well as in the very ardent struggle to develop the (hitherto) marginalized Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE), henceforth referred to as naija. The strong support given to the idea of (re)habilitating the Nigerian Pidgin English rests on the belief by many endogenous linguists and informed critics that the NPE or naija language could be Nigeria’s lingua franca in the absence of an acceptable indigenous language. Using critical observations and literary sources, this paper attempts to show how the naija language and the “Naija Languej Akademi” principally constitute an ideological movement. Hinging on a number of language and culture theories including ethnocentrism, de-westernization and indigenization, the paper argues that the ideological nature of the naija language could be deducted from two major facts: (i) the revision of the name given the linguistic code (from Nigerian Pidgin English to naija), a revision which is done in a way as to capture the Nigerian identity and the culturalist/conservatist philosophy overriding the conception of its orthography; and (ii) NLA’s adoption of an indigenized (Nigerianized) orthographic system for the language. The paper equally examines the implication(s) of such an ideological movement on Nigeria’s thorny language question.

African Adaptation Processes in English

The multilingual situation in Africa has led to the development of ‘hybrid’ languages in multi-lingual and multi-cultural situations. These hybrid languages are sometimes associated with urban youth born and bred in multicultural environments. In this category we place the Kenyan variety referred to as ‘Engsh’. We compared this hybrid urban language with Nigerian Pidgin English to establish whether there are any sociolinguistic similarities between the two African indigenized varieties of English. This entailed analyzing the grammar of the two varieties then scrutinizing the semantic shift processes to assess whether the languages express any African world view in terms of semantic interpretation. The significance of this study is to demonstrate the extent to which African speakers have adapted the grammar and lexicon of English (a former colonial language) to reflect their unique African speech styles and cultural experiences

“The only language we speak really well”: the English creoles of Equatorial Guinea and West Africa at the intersection of language ideologies and language policies

AbstractThis article explores the nexus between language policies and language ideologies in Equatorial Guinea and West Africa. By analyzing spoken and written discourses in Spanish and Pichi, I identify a set of ideas and beliefs about Pichi and the semiotic processes by which they have emerged. The comparison of Pichi with Krio, Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin and Ghanaian Pidgin English shows that Pichi is the most disadvantaged of the West African English-lexicon creoles with respect to a number of sociolinguistic characteristics. I argue that linguistic ideologies about Pichi have contributed significantly to disregarding language policy options for elevating the status and extending the uses of Pichi in Equatorial Guinea. Pichi is nevertheless expected to expand its social functions by gradually conquering additional domains of use as has been the case with the other English creoles of West Africa.

Multilingual practices in Nigerian army barracks

The aim of this study was to analyse the multilingual practices in Nigerian army barracks with a view to showing the sociolinguistic profile of the Nigerian army barracks, establishing the patterns of language use of the Nigerian army and demonstrating how they make use of language choice in different domains to express multiple identities. Data were collected from 46 military men comprising soldiers and officers in four army barracks through face-to-face interviews, observation and questionnaire. The study revealed that army barracks are profoundly multilingual settings in which soldiers and officers had at least a minimum of three languages in their repertoire. It was also found out that most of the soldiers and officers are receptive multilinguals as the majority of them can speak English, Nigerian Pidgin English, their own native language but also understand the indigenous languages of other soldiers and officers. Furthermore, it was shown that the army engaged in functional differentiation of the languages in their repertoire as each of the languages they had competence in was being used in a specific domain. Finally, the study showed that our participants expressed their occupational, ethnic and religious identities through language choice.

Attitude Regarding Nigerian Pidgin English among Nigerian Students in Malaysia

It is quite interesting to note that Pidgin which essentially began as a demanded language between the white importers, who later turned colonial masters, and their black traders has now become a campus language-spoken of the majority of the population among the Nigerian students in advanced institutions of learning. Nigerian Pidgin English evolved as a result of language contact with the British colonialists. This study seeks to assess the use, and also determine the recognition of Pidgin English among Nigerian postgraduate students in Universiti Putra Malaysia. Questionnaires were administered on selected students in the university in an attempt to elicit the attitude and usage of the informants to Nigerian Pidgin English. The results were calculated in percentages. It was found that the attitude of Nigerian students regarding the Nigerian Pidgin English in UPM is positive. To conclude, in the next few years, Nigerians are expected to use Nigerian Pidgin English in all situations when they communicate.

‘Wetin dey happen?’: Wazobia, popular arts, and nationhood

Emerging mass culture in the popular arts, signposting Nigeria's entry into the postcolonial phase, has helped in creating a site of linguistic identity at variance from the one imposed by British rule. Such a reconstitution of the colonial/indigenous subject/psyche via the ‘vernacular’ medium of popular arts, which Karin Barber views as a hybridized cultural domain, is sometimes an unconscious, often a decanonical and, to follow Victor Turner, liminal phenomenon that displaces English as the language of ‘high’ culture and civilization, providing in the alternative a metissage of languages including English, Nigerian Pidgin English, and the so-called vernaculars whose ultimate outcome could be positive for the overall development of society. Framed within cultural studies and postcolonial theory, this article explores the nexus between nationhood and national identity implicit in the efflorescence of indigenous languages and dialects in contemporary popular music in Nigeria.

Bilingual Verbs in Nigerian Pidgin—English Code Mixing

<p><em>This paper discusses bilingual verbs, which are intermediate forms that cannot be fully identified with neither Nigerian pidgin nor English, in Nigerian pidgin- English code mixed utterances. The process involved in the derivation of bilingual or hybrid verbs is analogous to hybrid forms in biology. The conceptual framework of this study is Myers-Scotton (1993, 2002). Matrix language frame and the types of hybrid verbs discussed in this study include, the insertion of bare verbs from English to Nigerian pidgin; the adjoinment of auxiliary /helping verbs, as well as the negative particle, in Nigerian pidgin to inserted main verbs from English which is the embedded language. Lastly, is the presence of hybrid verbs in Nigerian pidgin’s serial verb constructions. The essay concludes that bilingual/hybrid verbs constitute an integral part of the grammatical approach to code switching.</em><em></em></p>

Code-switching in Nigerian hip-hop lyrics

This paper examines multilingualism in relation to hip-hop lyrics in Nigeria. It focuses on the sociolinguistics of English and its contact with other Nigerian languages in hip-hop music. The paper argues that, because Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) has the highest number of speakers as compared to other indigenous languages in the country (Faraclas 2004), its speakers are found across the country and its usage given prominence in Nigerian hip-hop, it ought to be treated as a super central language. This means that in an extension of de Swaan's framework of World Language Systems, we can say that, in addition to being one hyper central language (English), there are two sets of super central languages in Nigeria; namely, the three national languages (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba) and Nigerian Pidgin English. The paper also reports that Nigerian rappers can be classified into four major categories, based on their language use.

Lexical strategies in verbal linguistic victimisation in Cameroon

The aim of this illustrative paper is to show how words and expressions are coined or changed in Cameroonian speech in English and French in order to insult or stereotype other groups of people. Taken along official language lines, ethnic boundaries and social divides, these lexical elements reproduce some aspect of the addressee's history, social stance, academic achievement, professional background, linguistic and political belonging, and even gender. The expressions are from four major sources: French, English, Pidgin English and various indigenous languages. Some of them capture common social phenomena in the society. For example, Pidgin English supplies a descriptive name for a woman who moves in with a man to whom she is not married, i.e. come-we-stay. This appellation focuses more on the woman and the relationship rather than on the man. Such coinages are also common elsewhere in Africa. For instance, Nigerian Pidgin English supplies the appellation face-me-I-face-you for cramped up residential apartments in which rooms face each other on the corridor. Lexical strategies for naming and derogation are common in these two societies where groups compete with each other for their voices to be heard and respected.

Pidgin English in Ghanaian churches

This paper revisits the sociolinguistic discussions on the domain of use of Pidgin English in Ghana (cf. Huber 1999; 1995; Dako 2002; Ofulue 2011). It advances the claim that pidgin is currently undergoing a process of expanding its domain of use into some respected formal spaces (such as the church) in Ghana, particularly through gospel music. What this means is that the account in the literature that pidgin is absent in formal domains in Ghana can no longer be held to be accurate, for pidgin has now entered Christian religious worship. This has been possible partly through contacts within the West African sub-region. Unsurprisingly, the most popular pidgin songs in Ghanaian Christian communities, as reflected through responses to questionnaires administered, bear features of Nigerian Pidgin English; some of the songs have obviously been imported from Nigeria. Could this development be the watershed for the redemption of the image of Pidgin English in Ghana? For the purpose of this paper, Christians who fellowship in Accra only were surveyed; Accra serves as a haven for church activities due, perhaps, to its highly cosmopolitan background, and numerous churches are headquartered in this city.

Is Nigerian Pidgin English English?

Abstract The major aim of this paper is to demonstrate through the grammar of the verb phrase in Standard English (StdE) and Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) that NPE is a distinct language. The paper draws on data collected from 30 Nigerian University Graduates from three ethnolinguistic regions. Although many scholars have pointed out that NPE is a language (Agheyisi, West African Pidgin: Simplification and Simplicity, University of Stanford, 1971; Elugbe and Omamor, Nigerian Pidgins: Background and Prospects, Heinemann, 1991), not many of them have examined the verb phrase in NPE with a view to showing that its grammar is distinctive. It has been shown in this paper that the NPE verb phrase is sharply different from StdE verb phrase, and because the verb is at the centre of the clause and can determine its argument, it can be argued that NPE whose verbal grammar is radically different from that of English is a separate language. The pattern of clustering of NPE verb phrases with other NPE verb phrases or other crieterial features of NPE is also a demonstration that NPE is a distinct language. Finally, the subjects made sharp switches from StdE to NPE, speaking in blocks of first one code and then the other: this is like the behaviour of bilinguals moving from one language to another.