PERCEPTION OF AND ATTITUDES TO EMERGING FEATURES OF NIGERIAN ENGLISH: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC SURVEY OF STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS

Abstract

In this paper, we present the result of a survey of the perceptions of, and attitudes to, some marked features of Nigerian English syntax and lexis by a sampled cross-section of students at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.  Our Objectives in the survey were first, to test out the students’ ability to recognize the range of variation between features of Nigeria English (NigE) on the one hand and those of native-speaker varieties such as British or American English (BrF/AmE) on the other.  Secondly, we explore the attitudes of the respondents to the identified features of NigE and the value judgements that they pass on these features.  Also, to facilitate a comparison, the sample of respondents was drawn from students of English (who had supposedly acquired) formal knowledge of the tuition of variation in language through their studies) and others outside the discipline (who apparently lacked such formal knowledge, although presumably they were aware of the existence of Nigerian English or “English as spoken and written by Nigerian”)  The data collection procedure consisted of the administration of a questionnaire to 40 randomly polled students – 20 English majors and 20 from other disciplines.  The survey gives useful insights into the perception of and attitudes to NigE as a global variety of the English Language by the generality of educated Nigerian speaker, rather than by the minority linguists formally studying and characterizing this variety.