Language change is continuous and vital for the sociocultural adaptation and status development of language varieties. Perhaps the most important linguistic feature of Nigerian English language change is semantic extension which refers to the process whereby terms already existing in English (standard English) acquire new meanings. This paper investigated the usage of semantic extension in Nigerian English (NIE), the social motivations responsible for such semantic innovations and the relevance of linguistic innovations for the description and teaching of English in Nigeria. Using descriptive qualitative research design, data for the research were collected using naturally occurring language forms while other information sources included print and social media, educational, political and religious institutions. It was found that semantic extension in Nigerian English is rule-governed, based on culture, multilingualism, technological innovations, socio-economic experiences and indigenous conceptual framework. The data further revealed that the semantic extensions are sociolinguistically recognized by educated users of Nigerian English and linguistic norm and not mere linguistic deviation from Standard English. It was observed that semantic extension promotes lexical reduction, language creativity and the institutionalization of Nigerian English as a variety of the World Englishes paradigm. It was recommended that Nigerian English new lexical items should be incorporated into English textbooks and dictionaries, Nigerian English lexical innovations should form the basis for the teaching of English in Nigeria.
Elsie Meelubari Worgor, Florence Nne Agwu· International Journal of Hum...· 0 citations
- This work presented a contrastive syntactic analysis of English and Khana clause structures in order to identify their ground similarities and differences that define the syntactic organization of the two languages. English is the most spoken world language with much attention given to it by linguists. Khana as one of the indigenous languages of Nigeria has not been particularly described at the syntactic level. As its major theoretical framework, Robert Lado’s Contrastive Analysis Theory was used while behavioral theory informed the use made of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program. A qualitative descriptive approach was employed using forty clause structures which consists of simple, copound, complex and complexcampaound sentences selected purposively from both languages and then rendered in the corresponding Khana translation. The study revealed that both English and Khana language have common features as to basic syntactic pattern such as Subject Verb-Object (SVO) sentence and clause structures. There are however, several congurational differences between them in the areas of subject verb agreement, tense/aspect markers, clause linkers, the strategies of relativization and realization of subordinate constructions leading to some of the English syntactic challenges encountered by Nigerian Anglophones and indeed all speakers of Khana as a second language. It was observed therefore that English share common structural universalities with other languages and marked differences under certain structures that make the two languages unique. Based on the findings, the paper recommends, the use of contrastive linguistics in the teaching of English language, curriculum design, translation and further describe and classifying of other indigenous Nigerian languages.
Muele-Gabriel Ewonu, Florence Nne Agwu· Iconic research and engineer...· 0 citations
Prefixation is a morphological process which studies how morphemes are affixed in the beginning of their host words for either grammatical functions or for lexical expansion and derivation. This paper investigates aspects of the grammar of prefixation in English and Igbo Languages. It adopts a comparative theoretical framework, so as to identify the morphological similarities and difference in both languages. It also adopts the qualitative design, which gives the description of the data the way they are. The paper adopts both a primary and secondary methods of data collections. The primary data were basically from the native speaker’s competence, the researcher who is a speaker of the Igbo language supplied the necessary data. The secondary data were sourced from textual materials. The analysis shows grammatical and functional similarities and dissimilarities in both languages, as well derivative similarities and dissimilarities in both languages. Prefixes are used in both languages to derive new words, change word classes, but Igbo in additions realise grammatical functions with prefixes. The study of prefixation in both languages greatly reveals common universal principles of human language and at the same time, parametric variations in the languages, showing their uniqueness. The study concludes that prefixation in both languages are morphologically productive, being inflectional in the Igbo language; derivational flexible in both languages, and can as well perform different linguistic functions in both languages. The study notes the selective nature of the paper on instances of prefixation in both languages because of space, and thus, recommends an expanded investigation of the topic; and comparative investigation of other related morphological concepts, such as infixation, interfixation and suffixation in English and Igbo.
Okolo N Patrick, Florence Nne Agwu· World Journal of Advanced Re...· 0 citations