2011 Phd Diss Final
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Supervisor and First Examiner: Prof. Dr. Alexander Bergs Second Examiner: Prof. Dr. Thomas Hoffmann Date of defence: May 25, 2011 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Truth be told: When I left Lagos for Germany in September 2003 the plan was for me to spend just two weeks in Osnabrück attending the Computational Linguistics Fall School but Providence intervened and changed the plan in remarkable ways. I can only connect the dots now looking back. Particularly, Prof. Peter Bosch was God-sent as he encouraged and gave me the moral support to apply for the Master's degree in the International Cognitive Science Programme, Osnabrück which I did and never regretted the choice. It is the same Peter Bosch who introduced me to my “Doktorvater” (my PhD supervisor), Prof. Alexander Bergs, for my eventual doctoral work. Alex Bergs' warm welcome in 2007 was amazing and since then he has ensured that Osnabrück is truly an academic home for me. The Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), the German Academic Exchange Service, supported my doctoral study with grants and scholarship and I am grateful for these. I appreciate the efforts of the following friends and scholars who assisted with the administration and co-ordination of the questionnaire in Nigeria: Prof. Charles Esimone, Dr. Tunde Opeibi, Dr. Peter Elias, Dr. Rotimi Taiwo, Mr. Stephen Folaranmi and Dr. Olufemi Akinola. I am also thankful for the assistance of Dr. Kolawole Ogundari, Mr. Michael Osei and Mr. Emmanuel Balogun with the coding of the completed questionnaire. The Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) family and leadership in Niedersachsen and Bremen provided me with the right social and spiritual atmosphere for a successful completion of my postgraduate studies in Osnabrück and I am ever thankful for the fellowship and kindness of the DCLM family. Most importantly, my indebtedness to God my Creator and Maker knows no bounds because in Him I live, move and have my being. I am proudly blessed with supportive parents (Reverend Emmanuel & Mrs Doris Ifukor) and siblings (Dan, Ezekiel, Nath, Ernest and Eunice) whose prayers, constant phone calls and words of encouragement keep me going. And I found true love in Princess Kemi, my precious Jewel and better half, in the course of the doctoral study when I needed emotional support most. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................... 3 List of Tables ...................................................................... 7 List of Figures ...................................................................... 8 Die Zussammenfassung ....................................................................... 9 Abstract ....................................................................... 12 Chapter 1: Introduction and subject matter 16 1.1 Discursive construction of identity in electronic discourse ...... 16 1.2 Research questions and hypotheses ......................................... 25 1.3 Objectives .................................................................. 26 1.4 The structure of the present study ............................................. 27 1.5 Preliminary theoretical considerations ............................................. 27 1.6.1 Institutional and societal multilingualism in Nigeria ....................... 29 1.6.2 English and indigenous languages …......................................... 36 1.7 Implications of the foregoing for researching ….............................. 38 Nigerian Internet and SMS discourse Chapter 2: Theoretical and methodological frameworks 41 2.1 Review of the literature ......................................................... 41 2.1.1 Computer-mediated discourse analysis .......................................... 45 2.1.2 Herring's faceted classification of computer- mediated discourse ......................................................................................... 48 2.1.3 Koch & Oesterreicher's model in German CMC studies ............... 50 2.1.4 Nigerian CMC studies (1990 - 2010) ................................... 59 2.1.5 Spelling resentment and rebellion in the typographic representations of Nigerianness ............................................. 63 2.2 Data composition methods ............................................... 80 2.2.1 Corpora ...................................................... 80 2.2 Questionnaire ......................................................... 84 4 Chapter 3: Linguistic marketing in informal internet discourse 87 3.1 Background on the Nigerian Village Square .......................... 87 3.2 Language choice, linguistic marketing and intertextuality ............... 93 3.2.1 Vertical interdiscursivity: “top – down” linguistic heterogeneity ......... 98 3.3 The pragmatics of interdiscursive language choice ........................ 103 3.3.1 Attention-getting ........................................................ 103 3.3.2 Allusive textuality ........................................................ 108 3.3.3 Anticipated interactivity ....................................................... 110 3.3.4 Amusing phaticity ....................................................... 112 3.3.5 Affective expressivity ....................................................... 113 3.3.6 Audience affiliation (or alienation) ................................................... 114 3.4 Conclusion ....................................................... 114 Chapter 4: Graphemic representations of phonological crossing: marking and mocking regional accents 117 4.1 Introduction ....................................................... 117 4.2 Language crossing as the discursive representation of ethnicity ....... 118 4.3 Phonological features of regional Nigerian English accents ............ 121 4.4 Politicians as experimental subjects for variation and linguistic parodies …............................................................... 125 4.5 Graphemic stylization of Nigerian casual speech features .................. 127 Chapter 5: Blogging and micro-blogging the 2007 Nigerian general elections 141 5.1 Introduction ......................................................... 141 5.2 Social media technologies ........................................................ 146 5.3 Cross-continental political blogging and social networking ............ 149 5.4 The socio-historical context of the 2007 Nigerian elections and thereafter .......................................................... 150 5.5 The discursive construction of bottom-up power negotiation .......... 158 5.5.1 Blogging and microblogging as mobilization ...................... 159 5 5.5.2 Participatory politics ....................................................... 162 5.5.3 Bloggers and twitterers as watchdogs ............................................ 165 5.6 Conclusion ................................................................... 166 Chapter 6: Twitter and the 2009 re-run elections in Nigeria 173 6.1 Introduction ................................................................... 173 6.2 The politico-pragmatic force of election-oriented tweet acts ............ 176 6.2.1 Assertives ................................................................... 178 6.2.2 Commissives .................................................................... 180 6.2.3 Directives .................................................................... 181 6.2.4 Declarations ................................................................... 183 6.2.5 Expressives .................................................................... 184 6.3 Conclusion ................................................................... 185 Chapter 7: Interpretation of questionnaire survey results 188 7.1 Questionnaire survey results ............................................. 188 7.1.1 Bio-data, internet access and sms texting ................................... 189 7.1.2 Use of the new and social media .................................. 193 7.1.3 Typographic choices and shortenings ................................... 196 7.1.4 Assessments of phonological variations .................................. 197 7.2 Discussions ............................................. 201 Chapter 8: Summary and conclusion 206 8.1 Concluding discussion .............................................. 206 8.2 Some limitations .............................................. 213 8.3 Proposals for further research .............................................. 213 8. 4 Final comments ….......................................... 214 References 215 Appendices 233 6 List of Tables Table 1: Nigerian Ethnic Groups …........................................ 31 Table 2: The medium factors of Herring's classification scheme …......... 48 Table 3: The social factors of Herring's classification scheme …........... 49 Table 4: Occurrences of Naija in written form from 1800 – 2000. …........... 71 Table 5: Data composition …....................................................... 83 Table 6: Intertextuality and Heterogeneity of NVS Articles' Headlines Table 7: Realisations of consonants by Hausa speakers of NigE …........ 124 Table 8: Igbo realisations of some consonants of NigE …......... 125 Table 9: Yoruba realisations of some consonants of NigE …......... 125 Table 10: Ekiti re-run elections Twitter interface and clients ….......... 148 Table 11: Summary of 2007 Elections-related Blog Posts ............. 153 Table 12: Monthly Ekiti re-run elections’ tweets from April 2009 to August 2009 .............................................