Empowering Nigerian Pidgin: a challenge for status planning?

Abstract

In spite of the fact that Nigerian Pidgin (NP) is probably the language with the highest population of users in Nigeria, it does not enjoy official recognition and is excluded from the education system. It lacks prestige because it is seen by many Nigerians as a "bad" form of English and associated with a socially deprived set of people. This paper explores the possibility of empowering NP (and its speakers) by raising the value of the language through status planning, especially in the education system. On the way to realising this goal, it analyses the attitudes of 200 educated Nigerians towards its use as well as towards steps aimed at empowering it. The results show that, although there is no consensus as to whether NP should be granted official status, a large majority of respondents did not favour its use in education. The study highlights three major problems associated with the promotion of NP: (1) lack of economic value, (2) perceived effects on the local languages, and (3) the effect of the use of NP on English language proficiency. The study discovers that empowering 1 NP is a challenge, which will be very difficult to overcome in the near future, and it suggests the way forward.

Racialized Identities in Second Language Learning

“…However, while going about the business of everyday life in a land with vast differences in access to education and learning in English, far more gets done in the national and regional pidgins and the hybridized local varieties of communities in close contact than in any formal or standardized code (Faraclas, 2004;Igboanusi, 2008). My mother was from the small Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and my father was a Nigerian of Igbo ethnicity.…”

Wuz Up Wit Dat?: Exploring the Colonizing Properties of the Standard English Language and its Implications for the Denudation and Denigration of Black Survivalist and Stylistic Language, Syntax and Phonology

“…in America-AAVE in the context of school and educational outcomes, Black English language in popular culture, Black English language in American Business, resistance to English language form of colonialism, President Obama's use of Black Vernacular and Standard English. (Esizimetor and Egbokhare, n.d.;Igboanusi, 2008;Ihemere, 2006;Crozier, 2005;Faraclas, 1996;Shnukel and Marchese, 1983) from its locals trade and other intercourse, first with the Portuguese circa 1469, followed by the Dutch and French around 1650 and finally the British around the 1800s. All these European linguistic groups, during their Nigerian Odyssey left vestiges of their language, all of which influenced the current ways Nigerians speak English.…”

The Blackness of “Broken English”

“…On the other hand, Nigerians of all class backgrounds often express great appreciation for what they perceive to be Pidgin's capacity to convey genuine emotions and trenchant social truths. Much as Paul Garrett (2007) describes with respect to Saint Lucian Kwéyòl, the positive aesthetic and social values associated with NP have led artists and intellectuals to “reappropriate” it in a variety of literary and popular media venues, including poetry, fiction, drama, film, comic strips, radio talk‐shows, stand‐up comedy and song (Deuber 2005; Ezenwa‐Ohaeto 1998; Igboanusi 2008).…”

“…The standard educational curriculum entails mother-tongue instruction in the lower-primary years shifting to English at the upper levels. Students are supposed to learn one of the three majority languages in addition to their mother tongue, though this mandate is unevenly implemented (Igboanusi 2008).…”