Article published in:
English World-Wide
Vol. 42:3 (2021) ► pp. 299–323

The ideological debate on Naijá and its use in education

| University of Groningen
Naijá (also known as Nigerian Pidgin) is an extended pidgin with millions of speakers in Nigeria, and it is also a creole since some communities use it as a first language (Faraclas 2013; Mazzoli 2017). It is a common lingua franca in former English colonies in West Africa and has potential for transnational use. Notwithstanding its importance at multiple levels, Naijá is not mentioned in language-related policies in Nigeria, and its use in education is limited and stigmatized. This is due to aggressive ideologies that identify Naijá as an inferior language, especially with respect to English in Nigeria. In this paper, based on fieldwork data collected in southern Nigeria, I outline positive and negative ideologies related to Naijá, and argue that innovative ideologies have emerged among Naijá native speakers, which constitute a base for elaborating endoglossic policies and introducing Naijá into the classroom.
Keywords: language ideology, Nigerian Pidgin, Naijá, English-lexifier creole, nativization, creoles in education, West Africa
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language ideologies, language policies and the classroom
  • 3.Background on Naijá and language policies in Nigeria
  • 4.Data collection
  • 5.Language ideologies about Naijá
    • 5.1Ideologies that determine positive attitudes: “Intimacy” – “general language” – “easiness” – “postcolonial collective identity”
    • 5.2Ideologies that determine negative attitudes: “Poor language” – “levity” – “lack of economic value” – “interference”
  • 6.Implications for language-related policies on Naijá
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.00074.maz
References
Achebe, Chinua
1966 A Man of the People. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Adegbija, Efurosibina
2004 “Language Policy and Planning in Nigeria”. Current Issues in Language Planning 51: 181–246. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Agheyisi, Rebecca Nogieru
1988 “The Standardization of Nigerian Pidgin English”. English World-Wide 91: 227–241. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Akinnaso, F. Niyi
1990 “The Politics of Language Planning in Education in Nigeria”. Word 411: 235–253. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Aldana, Carlos Alberto
2006 “Making Languages Visible: Exploiting Contrastive Analysis in the Sanandrean Creole-Speaking Environment”. Revista Cuadernos del Caribe 1911: 97–103.Google Scholar
Amao, Temitayo
2012 “The Use of Pidgin English as a Medium of Social Discourse among Osun State University Students”. African Nebula 51: 42–52.Google Scholar
Anchimbe, Eric A.
2013 Language Policy and Identity Construction: The Dynamics of Cameroon’s Multilingualism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Apostolou, Fotini
2012 “Interpreting Services for Immigrants: A New Reality in Greece”. The Interpreters’ Newsletter 171: 213–222.Google Scholar
Asker, Adel, and Marilyn Martin-Jones
2013 “ ‘A Classroom is Not a Classroom if Students are Talking to Me in Berber’: Language Ideologies and Multilingual Resources in Secondary School English Classes in Libya”. Language and Education 271: 343–355. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Aziza, Rose
2003 “Pidgin and the Indigenous Languages of the Warri of Delta State”. In Ozo-Mekuri Ndimele, ed. Four Decades in the Study of Languages and Linguistics in Nigeria. A Festschrift for Kay Williamson. Aba: National Institute for Nigerian Languages, 131–139.Google Scholar
Balogun, Temitope Abiodun
2013 “In Defense of Nigerian Pidgin”. Journal of Languages and Culture 41: 90–98.Google Scholar
Bamgbose, Ayọ
1996 “Post-Imperial English in Nigeria 1940–1990”. In Joshua A. Fishman, Andrew W. Conrad, and Alma Rubal-Lopez, eds. Post-Imperial English: Status Change in Former British and American Colonies, 1940–1990. Berlin: De Gruyter, 357–372. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bamgbose, Ayo
2000 Language and Exclusion: The Consequences of Language Policies in Africa. Vol. 121. Hamburg: LIT Verlag Münster.Google Scholar
BBC Pidgin News
2021 <https://​www​.bbc​.com​/pidgin (accessed July 05, 2021).
Bernstein, Basil
1975 Class, Codes, and Control. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre
1991 Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron
1990 Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Carpenter, Karen, and Hubert Devonish
2010 “Swimming Against the Tide: Jamaican Creole in Education”. In Bettina Migge, Isabelle Léglise, and Angela Bartens, eds. Creoles in Education: An Appraisal of Current Programs and Projects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 167–181. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Collins, James
1999 “The Ebonics Controversy in Context: Literacies, Subjectivities, and Language Ideologies in the United States”. In Jan Blommaert, ed. Language Ideological Debates. Berlin: De Gruyter, 201–234. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
“Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
” 1999 [1989] International Centre for Nigerian Law http://​www​.nigeria​-law​.org​/ConstitutionOfTheFederalRepublicOfNigeria​.htm (accessed July 05, 2021).
Deuber, Dagmar
2005 Nigerian Pidgin in Lagos. Language Contact, Variation and Change in an African Urban Setting. London: Battlebridge.Google Scholar
Deuber, Dagmar, and Lars Hinrichs
2007 “Dynamics of Orthographic Standardization in Jamaican Creole and Nigerian Pidgin”. World Englishes 261: 22–47. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Djité, Paulin G.
2008 The Sociolinguistics of Development in Africa. Toronto: Multilingual Matters. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Endong, Floribert Patrick
2015 “The Use of Nigerian Pidgin English in Print Advertising: Deviation from Standard Orthography and Effectiveness”. International Journal of Art, Culture, Design and Language Works 11: 1–7.Google Scholar
Elega, Adeola A.
2016 “Investigating the Use and Perception of West African Pidgin English among West African University Students in Northern Cyprus”. Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication 41: 23–38.Google Scholar
Elugbe, Ben O., and Augusta P. Omamor
1991 Nigerian Pidgin: Background and Prospects. Ibadan: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
1989 Language and Power. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Faraclas, Nicholas
1996 Nigerian Pidgin. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2004 “Nigerian Pidgin English: Morphology and Syntax”. In Bernd Kortmann, and Edgar W. Schneider, eds. A Handbook of Varieties of English. Vol. 21. Amsterdam: De Gruyter, 828–853.Google Scholar
2013 “Nigerian Pidgin”. In Susanne M. Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath, and Magnus Huber, eds. The Survey of Pidgin and Creole Languages. Vol. 1: English-Based and Dutch-Based Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 176–184.Google Scholar
Gani-Ikilama, Taiwo O.
1990 “Use of Nigerian Pidgin in Education? Why Not?”. In Nolue E. Emenanjo, ed. Multilingualism, Minority Languages, and Language Policy in Nigeria. Agbor: Central Books, 219–227.Google Scholar
Gaudio, P. Rudolf
2011 “The Blackness of ‘Broken English’”. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 211: 230–246. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gogolin, Ingrid
1997 “The ‘Monolingual Habitus’ as the Common Feature in Teaching in the Language of the Majority in Different Countries”. Per Linguam 131: 38–49.Google Scholar
Görlach, Manfred
1984 “English in Africa – African English?” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 81: 33–56. [Reprinted in Görlach, Manfred 1991 Englishes. Studies in Varieties of English 1984–1988. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 36–68.]Google Scholar
Haig, Yvonne, Patricia Konigsberg, and Glenys Collard
2005 “Teaching Students who Speak Aboriginal English”. Journal of the Primary English Teaching Association (PEN) 1501: 1–12.Google Scholar
Higgins, Christina
2010 “Raising Critical Language Awareness in Hawai’i at Da Pidgin Coup”. In Bettina Migge, Isabelle Léglise, and Angela Bartens, eds. Creoles in Education: An Appraisal of Current Programs and Projects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 31–54. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Huber, Magnus
1999 Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context: A Sociohistorical and Structural Analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hundt, Marianne, Lena Zipp, and André Huber
2015 “Attitudes in Fiji Towards Varieties of English”. World Englishes 341: 688–707. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Igboanusi, Herbert
2008 “Empowering Nigerian Pidgin: A Challenge for Status Planning?”. World Englishes 271: 68–82. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ihemere, Kelechukwu Uchechukwu
2006 “A Basic Description and Analytic Treatment of Noun Clauses in Nigerian Pidgin”. Nordic Journal of African Studies 151: 296–313.Google Scholar
Jowitt, David
1995 “Nigerian’s National Language Problem: Choices and Constraints”. In Ayo Bamgbose, Ayo Banjo, and Andrew Thomas, eds. New Englishes. A West African Perspective. Ibadan: Mosuro, 34–56.Google Scholar
Kiramba, Lydiah Kananu
2018 “Language Ideologies and Epistemic Exclusion”. Language and Education 321: 291–312. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Koliopoulou, Maria and Torsten Leuschner
2014 “Einleitung: Perspektiven der kontrastiven Linguistik“. Germanistische Mitteilungen 41: 5–14. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lasagabaster, David
2004 “Attitude/Einstellung”. In Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, and Peter Trudgill, eds. Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Berlin: De Gruyter, 399–405. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lareau, Annette
2003 Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life. Berkeley: University California Press.Google Scholar
Lin, Amy
1996 “Bilingualism or Linguistic Segregation? Symbolic Domination, Resistance and Code Switching in Hong Kong Schools”. Linguistics and Education 81: 49–84. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Makihara, Miki
2004 “Linguistic Syncretism and Language Ideologies: Transforming Sociolinguistic Hierarchy on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)”. American Anthropologist 1061: 529–540. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Charles C.
1996 “Anglo-Nigerian Pidgin in Nigerian Education: A Survey of Policy, Practice and Attitudes”. In Tina Hickey, and Jenny Williams, eds. Language, Education and Society in a Changing World. Dublin: IRAAL/Multilingual Matters, 93–106.Google Scholar
Mazzoli, Maria
2013 “Copulas in Nigerian Pidgin”. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Padova.
2015 “Complexity in Gradience. The Serial Verb take in Nigerian Pidgin”. In Andrew D. M. Smith, Graeme Trousdale, and Richard Waltereit, eds. New Directions in Grammaticalization Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 231–260.Google Scholar
2017 “Language Nativisation and Ideologies in Ajégúnlè (Lagos)”. In Eeva Sippola, Britta Schneider, and Carsten Levisen, eds. Language and Communication 521: 88–101. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
f.c. “Tone in Naijá: An Elicitation Experiment on the Prosodic Realization of Copular and Imperfective /de/ and its Consequences for Spelling”. In Aloysius Ngefac ed. World Englishes and Creole Languages Today Vol. 11 Berlin De Gruyter
Mair, Christian
2014 “Globalisation and the Transnational Impact of Non-Standard Varieties”. In Eugene Green, and Charles F. Meyer, eds. The Variability of Current World Englishes. Berlin: De Gruyter, 65–96. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mair, Christian, and Theresa Heyd
2014 “From Vernacular to Digital Ethnolinguistic Repertoire: The Case of Nigerian Pidgin”. In Véronique Lacoste, Jakob Leimgruber, and Thiemo Breyer, eds. Indexing Authenticity: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter, 244–268.Google Scholar
Migge, Bettina, Isabelle Léglise, and Angela Bartens
2010 Creoles in Education. A Discussion of Pertinent Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McKinney, Carolyn
2016 Language and Power in Post-Colonial Schooling: Ideologies in Practice. New York: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
“
National Policy on Education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria” 2014 [1981] Federal Ministry of Education https://​education​.gov​.ng​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2020​/06​/NATIONAL​-POLICY​-ON​-EDUCATION​.pdf (accessed July 05, 2021).
Ofulue, Christine I.
2009 “Developing a Standard Orthography: A Case Study of Nigerian Pidgin”. Paper presented at the 40th African Conference on African Languages (ACAL), University of Illinois.
Omoniyi, Tope
2009 “ ‘So I Choose to Do am Naija Style’: Hip Hop, Language, and Postcolonial Identities”. In H. Samy Alim, Awad Ibrahim, and Alastair Pennycook, eds. Global Linguistic Flows: Hip-Hop Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language. New York: Routledge, 113–135.Google Scholar
Rampton Ben, Roxy Harris, James Collins, and Jan Blommaert
2008 “Language, Class and Education”. In Nancy Hornberger, ed. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. New York: Springer, 71–81. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Reh, Mechthild, and Bernd Heine
1982 Sprachpolitik in Afrika. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.Google Scholar
Ricento, Thomas
2005 “Problems with the ‘Language-as-Resource’ Discourse in the Promotion of Heritage Languages in the U.S.A.”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 91: 348–368. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 “Language Policy, Ideology, and Attitudes in English-Dominant Countries”. In Robert Bayley, Richard Cameron, and Ceil Lucas, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 525–544.Google Scholar
Ruíz, Richard
1984 “Orientations in Language Planning”. Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education 81: 15–34. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi B., and Rachelle C. Doucet
1994 “The ‘Real’ Haitian Creole: Ideology, Metalinguistics, and Orthographic Choice”. American Ethnologist 211: 176–200. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schiffman, Harold F.
2006 “Language Policy and Linguistic Culture”. In Thomas Ricento, ed. An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method. Malden: Blackwell, 111–125.Google Scholar
Sebba, Mark
2000 “Writing Switching in British Creole”. In Marilyn Martin-Jones, and Kathryn Jones, eds. Multilingual Literacies: Reading and Writing Different Worlds. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 171–187.Google Scholar
Siegel, Jeff
1999 “Creoles and Minority Dialects in Education: An Overview”. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 201: 508–531. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Wayne, and Virginia Collier
1997 School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students. Washington: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence.Google Scholar
Wigglesworth, Gillian, Rosey Billington, and Deborah Loakes
2013 “Creole Speakers and Standard Language Education”. Language and Linguistics Compass 71: 388–397. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yakpo, Kofi
2016 “ ‘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”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2391: 211–233. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zabus, Chantal
1996 “Water Don Pass Gari: EnPi as the New Voice of Ethnicity”. In Claudine Raynaud, ed. Ethnic Voices. Vol. 21. Tours: GRAAT, 17–25.Google Scholar