Nigerian English (NigE) is a second language (L2) variety of English that has been domesticated, acculturated and indigenised within the Nigerian socio-cultural and linguistic contexts (Adegbija, 2004). Based on Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of the Development of New Englishes, scholars have shown that NigE is currently at the late stage of nativisation (stage 3) and is on the verge of entering the stage of endornormative stabilisation (stage 4) (see Gut, 2012; Collins, 2020). Nativisation, which typically begins with the declaration of independence, is a very active and important stage in which there are large-scale linguistic changes, especially during a time when English is usually the only official language (see Schneider, 2007). Although previous studies have investigated the historical development of English in Nigeria (see Taiwo, 2009), there are limited studies on the particular linguistic features that have changed over time, especially from the time Nigeria gained independence. It is very likely that the rapid increase in the number of universities and other educational institutions managed by Nigerians from independence, as opposed to previous management by Britons, would have affected the variety of English spoken in Nigeria and culminated in the development of NigE today.
This sociolinguistic study explores lexical innovations and variation in the lexemes of Nigerian English formed during the COVID-19Pandemic. The emergence and spread of the virus have significantly altered the societal norm to becoming what is called the new normal. The Nigerian linguistic landscape is not spared from the impact caused by the virus. Some new words peculiar to Covid-19 have been introduced into the day to day use of Nigerian English (NE) in some sectors of the society, such as education, social media, health, religion, and markets. There have also been lexical innovations as well as variations in the use of these vocabularies. Using the variationist model, this research investigates these COVID-19 vocabularies and how factors such as region, class, and situational contexts bring about linguistic variations in daily use. In doing this, it identifies and compiles the lexemes as being used and also describes their contextual usages in Nigerian English. This study adopts a descriptive survey design and collects data using questionnaires from two hundred Nigerian English speakers in SouthwestNigeria. The research shows that NE speakers use diverse morphological processes to create new lexemes based on the COVID-19 context. It also produces a COVID-19 vocabulary corpus that reveals Nigerian speakers' linguistic and innovative ability of the English
This article adopts Benoit’s functional theory of campaign discourse and Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive theory (context models) in discussing two gubernatorial debate sessions in Nigeria. The selected debate sessions (Ondo Governorship Debate and Lagos Governorship Debate) are recovered from YouTube files and transcribed. However, only utterances from candidates in the two major political parties in Nigeria, namely, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) (now renamed All Progressives Congress (APC)) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), are subjected to content analysis. Context models in the aspects of discourse meaning and argumentation are also considered. Findings reveal that first, candidates’ utterances range from acclaims to attacks and defenses. Second, topics help to derive candidates’ ideologies which are further exemplified within the ambience of shared background knowledge (presupposition). Finally, candidates adopt legal/illegal jargons, explanations, statements of evidence, examples and illustrations to explicitly exemplify their mental dispositions and beliefs. We conclude by stating that candidates’ utterances were found to be relevant within the context of the debates and, by extension, the prevalent socio-political problems in Nigeria.
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