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UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS, IGBO AND OTHER NIGERIAN

MULTILINGUALISM IN NIGERIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTING THE NATIONAL POLICY ON EDUCATION

A Project Report Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree: Masters of Arts (M.A) in Linguistics (Sociolinguistics)

BY

EZE, VICTORIA U. PG/MA/05/40072

SUPERVISOR: DR. C.U. AGBEDO

AUGUST, 2010.

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MULTILINGUALISM IN NIGERIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTING THE NATIONAL POLICY ON EDUCATION

BY

EZE, VICTORIA U. PG/MA/05/40072

SUPERVISOR: DR. C.U. AGBEDO

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS, IGBO AND OTHER NIGERIAN LANGUAGES

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

AUGUST, 2010 ii

APPROVAL PAGE

This is to certify that Eze Victoria U. who is a postgraduate student in the

Department of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria,

Nsukka has satisfactorily completed courses and project work for the Degree of the

Master‟s of Arts (M.A.) in Linguistics.

DR. C.U. Agbedo Prof. C.N Okebalama . Supervisor Head of Department

DATE: DATE: .

Prof. E.E. Okafor Dean External Examiner

DATE: DATE:

A member of Postgraduate Committee

DATE: iii

DEDICATION

Wholly dedicated to the Almighty God.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

For the successful completion of this project, I am sincerely grateful to my thesis supervisor, Dr. C.U. Agbedo, for the co-operation and pains he took in going through the whole manuscript and offering valuable advice to improve it. May God bless you abundantly. Encouragement for this work came from many sources – lecturers, relations and friends, to whom I now give sincere thanks. They include Prof. C.N. Okebalama, the Head of Department, Department of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages. Mrs. Grace Prezi, Lecturer in the same department. May the Almighty God reward them. Finally, I will not forget to acknowledge the man that God has used to bless my life, my beloved husband, Mr. G.O. Omeje a lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Education, Federal College of Education, Eha-Amufu. He is always by side. May the Almighty God preserve him.

Eze Victoria U. Department of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages, UNN.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ...... i APPROVAL PAGE ...... ii DEDICATION ...... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... v ABSTRACT ...... vii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background of Study ...... 1 1.2. Statement of the problem ...... 3 1.3. Purpose of Study ...... 4 1.4. Significance of Study ...... 5 1.5. Scope and Limitation ...... 5 1.6. Research Questions ...... 6

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical Review………………………………...…………….. 7 2.2 Empirical studies ………………………………………………… 12 2.3 Policies in Multilingual Countries……………………. 17

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Design of the Study ...... 46 3.2 Area of Study ...... 46 3.3 Sampling and Sampling Procedures...... 46 3.4 Instrument for Data Collection...... 47 3.5 Method of Data Analysis ...... 48 3.6 Method of data analysis ...... 48 3.7 Validation of Instrument ...... 48

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CHAPTER FOUR: PRESENTATION AND DATA ANALYSIS 4.1 Data Presentation and Analysis ...... 49

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Summary…………………………………………………….. ……. 64 5.2 Conclusion…………………………………………………………. 64 5.3 Recommendations…………………………………………………. 66 REFERENCES APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE vii

ABSTRACT The main aims and objectives of this research were to identify the implications for implementing the national policy on Education in multilingual countries with special reference to the Nigeria situations. Theories of multilingualism and language planning were discussed. Four research questions were formulated to guide the study. The sample for the study consists of 200 respondents from ten purposively sampled schools in the Nsukka Education Zone. The instrument used for the study was the questionnaire. The data generated were analyzed using the mean of the responses of the respondents. The result shows that there is no problem in the implementation of language policy in a multilingual country like Nigeria. The result also shows that multilingualism affects teaching and learning and general performance of students and the educational system in Nigeria. Finally, the study identified that the use of mother tongue/indigenous language should be chosen to enhance academic performances of students and foster unity in Nigeria. viii

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study Multilingualism or bilingualism being a consequence of language contact has been so sensitive that so many scholars have made some theoretical and critical advances on the issues. There have been arguments that there is no such thing as total monolingualism in any country, not even in countries like the U. S. A., France, Germany etc, where there is only one used by the people. Trugil (1985), says that multilingualism involves speaking more than one language indigenously within a frontier. He stresses the fact that multilinguals is a case of the existence of so many indigenous languages in a particular nation or frontier. In their own study of multilingualism, Appel and Muyeken (1987) tried to distinguish two types of multilingual. Individual multilingualism and societal multilingualism. They describe societal multilingualism as that occurring in a given society where two or more languages are spoken. Individual multilingualism, to them is: the capability of using and understanding two or more languages. Bloomfield (1953) adds to this, by looking at individual multilingual as: that person who possesses native- like control of two or more languages. Kloss (1969) came up with a third type of multilingualism known as impersonal multilingualism. This is a sociolinguistic term he coined to refer to the phenomenon of multilingual usage in the mass media. This gives the idea of special use of many languages especially foreign language alongside the national language of a society. This concept came up during Kloss‟s (1969b) study of the communicational pattern and verbal strategies in Japan‟s mass media. Kirsten (1991) holds that what is true of bilingualism holds true also for multilingualism except where the context dictates otherwise. He goes on to describe a multilingual society as one in which two or more languages are used by large groups of the population. On the other hand, bilingualism is seen by Weinreich (1953) as “the alternative use of two languages”. Kristen (1991) still identified two situations of multilingualism in terms of status: what he calls horizontal and diagonal multilingualism. He says that if the languages spoken in a multilingual society have equal status in the official, cultural and 2

family life of the society, the situation is referred to as horizontal multilingualism. , to him is a typical horizontal multilingual country. Diagonal multilingualism obtains only when one of the languages has official status. is an example of a diagonal multilingual country. Pohl (1965) identifies what he calls vertical multilingualism. This is a case of diglossia, but one thing is that this involves dialects of the same language rather than different languages. So far, we have looked at different aspects of multilingualism as defined by various scholars, we shall now look at what the opinions of some of those scholars are on the issue of multilingualism and national development. Pool (1972), accounting for problems associated with language diversity in any nation says: Language diversity, it is claimed aggravates political sectionalism, hinders inter-group co-operation, impedes political enculturation, political support for the authorities, holds down government effectiveness and political stability.

From his view, we can deduce that he has nothing good or rather positive for multilingualism. So, in a nation where linguistic differences are the major defining characteristic for which each group is known. It is most likely that the problems identified by Pool (1972) above will be very glearing. His observation is more on political problems caused by the existence of many languages within a nation. In her study of language diversity and national development in Europe, Jyotrinda (1968) said that the early cases of political modernization and national development in Europe, were by and large, based on fairly homogeneous language communities. She says: Their problem was mostly one of developing a standard language out of a welter of variations among related codes. Her conviction is that the early development in most European countries was never disturbed by a multilingual situation as we have today in most developing countries. This does not mean that European countries were purely homogenous. There 3

are really varieties used by various communities of Europe, but these varieties are not such that should be termed different languages. Jyotrinda (1968) maintained that: a disagreement of language policy may be related to language diversity in the country concerned. She is also of the opinion that when a state faces the problems of competing languages that one responses to this problem may be to suppress this competition by imposing one language on the others. From the study of multilingualism in Indonesia, , and , Jyotrinda (1968) came up with the suggestion that the imposition of one language on others may succeed in a language situation where competition involves minimal political changes. Indonesia has a great diversity of languages, yet, it was possible to impose the language of a small minority as the national language because political competition of the regional languages for national status was low. In the light of the views discussed above, a multilingual nation like Nigeria with glaring language diversity riddled with the problems associated with it as identified by Pool (1972) faces the big task of evolving an effective language policy and its implementation in the National Policy on Education.

1.2 Statement of the problem

According to Wikipedia, it is expected, that subjects to successful implementation a sizeable number of members of the Nigerian community, especially young school leavers, would reflect the national bilingual or multilingual picture in addition to English and possibly French, the former being the codes most used in the country. But with the dearth of specialists in the three major codes, as well as in other subjects, either at the primary or the secondary school level, it is very uncertain if the majority of pupils would be able to learn more than one code. This is borne out by the fact that the Federal Government College are socially privileged while public secondary schools are less privileged. Secondly, schools situated in the urban areas are more patronised than those in the rural communities since the majority of the less privileged pupils are neither in that Federal Government Colleges nor in the private schools. Small wonder that little or no success is likely to be recorded in this domain. Added to the teething problems to be envisaged is the considerable number of codes that pupils from minority linguistic groups would be obliged to learn. This is likely to be burdensome on many pupils as 4

well of their parents. At the pre-school it is expected learn their mother tongue. This would help them grow faster in the area of metalanguage and concept formation, a significant advantage over teaching in a second code. This likelihood is remote. Unfortunately, only the rich can afford to pay for their wards in the pre-primary school. A critical analysis of our immediate environment forces us to admit that more parents these days will even withdraw their children from the primary and secondary schools when excessive expenditure is demanded. Finally, at the primary level pupils are expected to learn initially in their mother tongue or the code of their immediate community. However, judging by the huge number of Nigerian linguists codes, estimated at close to 500, that could be used, it is the opinion of linguistic such as Brann (1978), Elugbe and Omamor (1991), Marchese and Schnukal (1982), Ofuani (1981) and Omamor (1982) that Analophone, extensively spoken in the urban areas in the south could be developed and adopted as a national code and also for the adult literacy programme, especially in multilingual states of the country. In addition to this, some other semi-urban codes of less restricted communication could be given equal status. It should be reiterated that one‟s code is part of one‟s identity. Consequently, it should not be denigrated. To do so invariably means denying one‟s human ability to communicate. Hence the need to adopt a multilingual approach in solving Nigeria‟s linguistic problems in public and social life. Far from being a plague, multilingualism in the country is in fact a source of wealth and strength, which if properly harnessed and managed will act as a source of synergy for a more effective, directed, guided as well as vibrant evolution of a modern, economically viable and technologically developed nation.

1.3 Purpose of Study The aims and objectives of this research was to identify the implications for implementing the national policy on Education in multilingual countries. In a more simplified and clarified note, it is the objective of this research to: 1. Find out whether multilingualism affects the educational system in Nigeria? 2. Find out if the National Policy on Education is relevant in meeting the problems of multilingualism in Nigeria? 5

3. Find out whether the use of the mother tongue aids learning and enhances academic performance of students? 4. Find out the merits and demerits of multilingualism?

1.4 Significance of Study This research will be very significant to educational planners, curriculum designers and educational administrators in implementing the national policy on education as it has to do with language policy and study in the educational system. The research, when completed, and the findings made, will serve as a rich resource material for researchers in related areas. Teachers who are saddled with the onerous task of implementing the National Policy on Education will find this study very valuable as it will expose the facts and figures about multilingualism in Nigeria and the implications it has in implementing the National Policy on Education. Students studying Linguistics and other Nigerian Languages will find this work useful as a reference material and valuable guide as it has thrown more light on the problems of multilingualism on the educational system in the country, thus opening the door for further researchers in the area The findings of this research will create awareness and motivation to federal and state governments to discharge their financial roles in the implementation of language policy in education by carefully mapping out the stages that can be gradually implemented and evaluated with minimum strains on the dwindling financial resources of the government. This will involve giving due consideration to: a. The production of text books, readers, instructional materials and other gadgets and b. The training and retraining of teachers on how best to implement the National Policy on Education as it has to do with language policy. This will impact very seriously on the use of the mother tongue in childhood education for better academic performance.

1.5 Scope and Limitation The research will cover the concepts of multilingualism and the problems in Nigeria. It will also discuss some of the multilingual countries and their language 6

policies and the ways to encourage multilingualism. The research is also limited to multilingualism and its positive and negative effects on our educational system. This research will also examine what the National Policy on Education said about language in Nigeria, the problem of implementing this policy and perhaps the method to use in the implementation of these policies in order to meet the desired objectives.

1.6 Research Questions 1. Does multilingualism affects the educational system in Nigeria? 2. Is the National Policy on Education relevant in meeting the problems of multilingualism in Nigeria? 3. Does the use of mother tongue aids learning and enhance academic performance of students? 4. What are the merits and demerits of multilingualism? 7

CHAPTER TWO

THEORETICAL REVIEW

A press issue in multilingual research is the need for work, that is grounded in, or contributes to, the construction of elaborated theoretical outlooks. On the whole, a great deal of bilingual and English-language learner literacy research has been published without explicit reference, or with only incidental reference, to theory about how multilingual literacy processes might function and develop, how they might be similar to and different from monolingual literacy processes, and how learning and using multiple languages might affect one‟s literacy (August & Hakuta, 1997; Fitzgerald, 1995; Fitzgerald & Cummins, 1999; Garcia, 2000). There are notable exceptions, such as Berhard‟s (1991, 2000) seminar work toward developing a theory of second-language reading and Carrell Devine and Eskey‟s (1988) description of second language reading of an interactive process. The word theory is complicated to define. Researchers and philosophers who hold different epistemological stances may attribute different meanings to it (Creswell, 2002; Hill, 1972; 1978). However, most educators and researchers in the social sciences consider theory to be an inherent part of their work and press for it to be explicit (Hill, 1977-1978). Theory can be defined as the formal or informal identification of sets of variables, constructs, or principles and of hypothetical explanations of relationships between and among those variables, constructs, or principles. (Creswell, 2002, DeGroot, 1969; Kerlinger, 1965; Mitcheu & Myles, 1998; Pedhazur & Schmekin, 1991). For the purpose of this research work, I favour the General Factor Theory Cronbach, 1970) which states that one generic set of language subprocesses are not attached to a particular “mode” (reading, writing, listening speaking) as they are learned. Rather, once a subprocess is learned, understanding is available for use in any mode. In a competing theoretical outlook called the Oral Precedence Theory, a cornerstone tenet is that oral language understanding in the new language form the bases for reading and writing processes and development in the new language. 8

Hypothetically, new language understanding would be first acquired and learned in the specific modalities of listening and speaking, and these would then provide a foundation for learning about reading and writing. Oral understanding in the new language would become available for use and transfer to reading and writing in the new language. These competing theoretical outlooks have implications for whether and how reading in the new language could begin in concert with listening and speaking in the new language. According to the General Factor Theory, a student could learn about a facet or process involved in the new language for example, about a syntactic structure in the new language – first through listening and speaking, and then his or her understanding could be used and manifested in reading and writing. It is equally possible according to this theory that a student could learn about a syntactical structure in the new language through reading and writing first and that understanding could then be manifested later in listening and speaking. Conversely, according to the Oral Precedence Theory, students should first develop some optimal level of oral proficiency in the new language before learning to read and write it. The present report consists of case studies of language planning in different regions of the world. Two nations, relevant from a language planning stand point, have been chosen from the five regions of the world as defined by UNESCO. The regions and countries studied are as follows: In Africa: Burkina Faso and Tanzania, in the Arab states: and , in Asia and the pacific: Cambodia and India, in Europe and North America: Finland and Spain, and in Latin America and the Caribbean: Guatemala and . The countries evaluated have been chosen because they present complex linguistic situations. Since the evaluation has been limited to two countries per region, a large number or interested cases have had to be excluded, but it is hoped that the countries selected are as representative as possible. Language planning activities in the countries in question have been evaluated with the help of existing literature and information from experts in the field. The investigation has particularly focused on the status and corpus of endogenous (indigenous) and endangered languages on the role of the educational system in language planning. Our initial reaction to the term “language planning” may be that it is an unnecessary or even impossible activity. We perhaps look upon language as something that cannot be planned we may ask ourselves why people cannot communicate with 9

each other as they have always done. The fact is that people cannot communicate with each other today as they used to do in the past. Society is developing and language has to adjust to reality. Political decisions are taken and this may means that new communities are created which may lack a common means of communication. In cases such as these, language planning is desirable and indeed necessary. Language planning has been characterized by Bamgbose (1991:109), referring to Fishman (1974:79), as “the organized pursuit of solution to language problems”. Related Nations are “language cultivation”, “Language policy”, and “Language politics”. In French literature, we find terms such as amusement linguistigue, gestation linguistigue, planifcation linguistique, politique linguistigue. In English, less conscious instances of language planning are sometimes designated as “language treatment”. The “language problems” evoked in the quotation below could include such phenomena as the lack of a common language in a politically defined unit, the absence of a writing system, the lack of technical vocabulary, the shortage of school textbooks, and so on. Presumably every multilingual political unit, in which some languages are stronger and others are weather (which often means that the later are endangered), can be called a linguistically problematic area. Even in monolingual nations, the insufficiency of the national language in any domain has to be regarded as being a linguistic problem. In fact, every region in the world where languages come into contact, such as through invasion, migration, or the creation of new nations, is relevant in the context. Bamgbose also raises the question of the classical division between “status planning” and “corpus planning”, which he largely but not completely equates with activities having to do with language policy and implementation respectively. In the light of the above a discussion of terms, status planning would be equated merely with language policy or language politics, whereas corpus planning largely overlaps with language cultivation. Status planning, for example, involves the allocation of languages to different societal domains, such as the official sphere, education, business, media etc. The explicit proclamation of a language as the official medium of communication naturally enhances its importance to a significant extent, but the introduction of a particular language in schools, for example, can have far-reaching consequences. According to Bamgbose (1991) corpus planning refers to such activities as the production of grammars and dictionaries, the design of orthographies the choice of script, spelling reforms, the production of primers and readers, etc. 10

In normal practice, a policy decision aimed at granting status to a given language in a particular societal domain is first taken, and is then implemented in some way, to the extent that some kind of concrete language material is produced. As Bamgbose (1991:110) points out, policy making without implementation does not lead to much progress, whereas implementation without policy decisions is difficult to achieve (although Bamgbose observes that the lack of a policy in some countries has worked to the advantage of linguists and missionaries who have been able to describe and codify “exotic” languages without the intervention of the authorities). In fact, Bangbose (1991 1:133) points out that “it would appear that there is a correlation between the strength of a country‟s language policy and the nature of its implementation machinery”. A third distinction singled out by Banigbose is that of Noss (1971:25), who observed that policies exist at three levels: official, educational, and general. Official policy is concerned, with what language (s) is / are to be used at governmental level; educational policy deals with the question of language use in different kinds of schools; while general language policy refers to language use in mass communication, business and contacts with foreigners (Bangbose 1991 : 111). Naturally, a country which recognizes more than one language at the official level is already automatically involved in far-reaching language planning. It should be noted, however, that many countries do not mention explicitly in their constitution which official language (s) they recognize. In such cases; as Garobaghi (1983: 1) points out, that the language in which the constitution is drafted is to be considered the official language. Languages other than the official one (s) are obviously often found in the educational system, let alone in informal settings. A final theoretical distinction originally suggested by Haugen (1974) is the four-stage model for language planning: a norm is selected by modifying or creating a variety; the norm is then codified (the orthography, pronunciation, grammar and lexicon are established); its function is elaborated (For example, by coining the necessary lexical items), and, last but not the least, its acceptance in the community is ensured. When it comes to the question of which language (s) to promote, Poth (1997: 17) reminds us of the following important parameters: the number of speakers, the 11

dialect variation, the degree of similarity with neighboring languages, the available resources and the didactic coefficient. This research will not be complete without mentioning the sociolinguistic theory adopted for this work. There are so many models in sociolinguistics but the one most suitable for this research is the model of „Acts of Identity‟ propounded by Robert Le page and his associates in Agbedo (2001). A basic tenet of this approach is that all linguistic behaviour is stimulated by some social contexts or the other. The individual is considered to be the locus of language behaviour along with the realization that individual behaviour at any given moment is largely unpredictable. The individual is also seen as an active and creative agent, constantly locating and relocating himself within the multi-dimension linguistic environment through what le page refers to as „projection‟ and „focusing‟. According to him assumes universal linguistic features but for him, the individual manipulates these features in creating a social identity but he creates his rules - - - so as to resemble as closely as possible those of the group or groups with which, from time to time, he wishes to identify as constrained by a number of factors. These include; (a) The extent to which he is able to identify his model groups. (b) The extent to which he has sufficient access to those model groups and sufficient analytic ability to work out the rules of their behaviour. (c) The strength of various motivations towards one or another model and towards retaining his sense of his own unique identity. (d) His ability to modify his behaviour. In conclusion, when we compare the theory of multilingualism and the theory on sociolinguistics, we found out that, they are all discussing almost the same thing i.e. discussing individuals, their languages and the society they live in. Each and every one of them has a role to play in the life of one another, in order to function well in the society.

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2.2 EMPIRICAL STUDIES An individual who is competent in two languages must keep them more or less separate in language production and reception. How can this be achieved in such a way that when one language is „on‟ the other is „off.‟ Penfield and Roberts (1959) proposed a theory which is known as the single – switch theory to account for this phenomenon; it assumed one mental device, a „switch‟ which operated in such a way that when one language was on, the other was off. Apart from the problem of the neutral status of such a device, (the switch was still not more than a metaphor for an unknown device in the brain) results of experiments using the bilingual version of the stroop procedure showed that this theory was too simple. Subjects had to respond (i.e., name colour words) in one language, so that system must be „on‟ but the printed words in the other language still distracted the subjects and therefore this system was „on‟ too. These findings are in agreement with the common-sense observation that bilinguals are quite capable of speaking one language while listening to someone else speaking another language. These facts can be accounted for in a theory in which two switches are hypothesized: an output switch and an input switch (Macnamara, 1967). The speaker is in control of the output switch, choosing a certain language deliberately. But as the results of the bilingual stroop test show, that he cannot control the input switch in the same way: subjects were not able to filter out the language of the distracting word. The input switch is therefore said to be „data‟ driven; the language signal from the outside operated the switch, whether the bilingual wants it or not. If these input and output switches really exist, their operation should require time, like any other mental operation. Various studies were taken to see whether this is so. For instance Kolers (1966) asked French English bilinguals to read aloud monolingual and mixed French English passages. The subjects answered comprehension questions equally well for monolingual and bilingual texts, but the reading aloud of mixed passages took considerably more time Kolers computed that each switch took them between 0.3 and 0.5 second. Reacting critically to this early study, other researchers suggested that Kolers had not differentiated between the input and output switch. Reading aloud requires both receptive and productive language processing Macnamara et al, (1968) isolated the output switch in an experiment in which bilinguals had to write numerals, i.e linguistically neutral stimuli; first in one language, then in the other 13

and then alternating between the two languages. It was found that the task required more time in the last condition, when the output switch was involved. Each switch took about 0.2 second. In a subsequent study, Macnamara and Kushnir (1971) looked at the input switch separately in a relatively simple experiment. They asked bilinguals to read monolingual and bilingual passages silently. The subjects read the monolingual passages faster than the bilingual passages, and each switch took about 0.17 second. The two switch model appeared to find rather strong support in the various studies. Even the computation times corresponded neatly. Kolers 0.3 to 0.5 second for input plus output switch was approximately the same as the 0.2 second for the output switch and 0.17 seconds for the input switch founded by Macnamara and his colleagues. The value of the two switch model was later seriously questioned, however on the basis of observations of natural – code switching in bilingual and new the research result. Many bilinguals switch from one language to the other in their daily interaction. This form of code – switching takes place between sentences as well as within sentences. Studies which took the structural constraints on switching into account yielded quite different results. For instance, Chan et al (1983) asked Chinese – English bilinguals to read a passage with spontaneous or natural switches, and compared the reading speed with that of a monolingual Chinese passage. They found no differences between the reading speed for the two conditions. This result supported Paradis‟s contention that bilinguals do not use a special switching mechanism different from the mechanism monolinguals employ in language processing. According to Paradis‟s (1977 114), there is no need to hypothesize any special anatomical structure or function in the brain of the bilingual as different from the monolingual. The same general neural mechanism that makes a speaker select /k/ and not /t/ in a given context can account for the selection of case instead of from age: with regard to input, bilinguals have no problem with switches when they can anticipate them. If not, it takes some time to adjust to the „new‟ code, but this is the same for the monolingual who needs some extra time for processing a sentence, if he is not expecting that he will be addressed and suddenly some body asks him a question. One aspect of bilingual language usage that we will touch upon only briefly is translation ability. Contrary to expectation, it turns out that bilinguals who are very 14

proficient in both languages are not always good translators. Lambert, Havelka and Gardner (1959) asked English – French bilinguals to translate lists of English and French words the speed of translation did not correlate with the subject degree of bilingualism probably, because bilinguals use their two languages in different domains of their life. They are connected to different cultural experiences. If a bilingual speaker always uses language (A) in informal, and language (B) in formal setting, it will be difficult to translate a passage referring to experiences in informal setting from language (A) into language (B). It might take some extra time to find „the right words‟ for these words generally do not come up in the situation in which (B) is spoken. In using language, Herbert Clark proposed a broadly integrative theory of language and action, in his book, he examines both the social and cognitive aspects of language use, drawing from speech act theory by (Austin 1965; Searle 1965; Allen 1980), theories of discourse and dialogue (Reichman 1985; Grosz and Sider 1990), and theories of social interaction (Goffman 1970; Brown and Levison 1987; Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974). In order to integrate these different perspectives, the book relies on empirical research by Clark and his students over the last fifteen years. Clark began the work with an overview of its‟ central thesis that “language use is really a form of joint action” i.e, action carried out by ensemble of people acting in coordination with one another. As a joint activity, conversation consists of a joint action and the individual action by the conversational participants that constitute the joint action (Bruce 1975; power, 1974; Clark and Carlson 1982; Cohen and Levesque 1991; Gross and Sidner 1990). Joint activities require coordination of both the content of the activity and the process by which the activity moves forward. The source of conversants, ability to coordinate is their common ground, the set of knowledge, beliefs and suppositions that they believe they share (Stalnaker 1978; Clark and Marshall 1981; Prince 1981). Common ground makes it possible for a speaker and a hearer to coordinate on what the speaker means and what the hearer understands the speaker to mean. these core ideas are expanded and elaborated. One core claim is that communicative acts are the primitive- level actions that all joint activities consist of. Speaker and hearers coordinate the production and interpretation of communicative acts through the mediation of a signaling system (Schilling 1960; Lewis 1969). The signs of the signaling system and their interpretation 15

are often defined by convention, but the signal and its‟ interpretation can also rely on the speaker‟s and heare common ground. Conversants accumulate common ground with joint signaling events, which move the conversants from one state of the conversation to the next. At the utterance level, each joint signaling event includes a presentation phase, in which the initiator presents a contribution, and an acceptance phase, in which the other conversants indicate a degree to which they understand and accept or reject that contribution. Conversants try to manage the production and interpretation of communicative acts with the least collaborative effort, i.e., with the smallest cumulative effort of the speaker and hearer combined. Since signaling systems encompass all types of signs, not merely those signaled by purely linguistic means, conversation can use any of a complex set of signals, such as facial expressions, gesture, speech, and shared awareness of actions and objects in a shared environment (Brennan 1990). A second core claim is that dialogue has a layer of structure above the level of communicative acts. The conversants base their interpretation of each utterance level act on the assumption that each utterance level signaling event contributes to another joint action, namely some structured purpose, which defines a larger joint activity (goal or plan) at the discourse level (Bruce 1975; Power 1974; Allen and Perrault 1980; Litman 1985). At the discourse level, each joint signaling event consists of individual segments, or section in Clark‟s terminology. A transition between two sections and another depends on a set of relations that can hold between sections, such as another being subsequent to some other being a part of the other. Computational linguists who read this study will notice that these core ideas are consistent in many ways with commonly assumed planning model of dialogue in computational linguistics. While Clark does not always make clear the relationship between his proposals and work in computational linguistics, many researchers in computational linguistics have used these ideas within computational frame works that are more precise and testable. Clark argues that his perspective is inconsistent with planning models of dialogue, but Clark‟s view of planning mechanisms appears to reflect the state of the art circa 1971, when STRIPS was first proposed (Fikes and Nilsson 1971). He rejects all models based on planning because “people ------don‟t know in advance what they will actually do (because) they cannot get any thing doing without the other joining them, and they cannot know in advance what the other will 16

do”(P.319). However, it is not beyond the ability of current planning and control mechanisms to respond dynamically to a change in the environment or an unpredictable response by a conversational partner (Barto, Bradtke, and Singh 1995) Further more, plan–revision mechanisms have been successfully used to model these phenomena (Cawsey 1993; Carletta 1992). An additional thread that Clark integrate into his account is the effect of social relationships on language production and interpretation. Following Goffman (1970), and Brown and Levinson (1987), Clark claims that the production of each utterance level signaling event is governed by a set of social constraints that derive from the social situation in which the conver station is carried out and the social relationship that holds between the conversant. These theories claim it is primarily the orientation to social constraints that leads to many indirect forms of communicative acts. The use of planning representations in the interpretation of these indirect speech acts has been the focus of much work on computational linguistics (Perrault and Allen 1980, Litman 1985; Mcroy and Hirst (1995), but these theories have had little impact on models of language production used in computational linguistics (with the exception of models reported by Hovy (1990) and Walker, Calm, and Whittaker (1997). Thus, Clark provides a view of language use that integrates a number of perspectives, many of which have (individual) already been influential in computational linguistics. The integrative model that Clark presents has manly complexities, but the book is accessible to readers with little or no back ground. The claims are nicely illustrated with excerpts from naturally occurring dialogues and backed up by empirical research by Clark and his students. What is most remarkable about this book is the degree to which it reflects the convergence of various branches of discourse and dialogue theory on set of common models based on theoretical perspectives in linguistics, psychology, philosophy, sociolinguistics and computational linguistics. As a result, although the book is not written for computation audience, it should be of interest to computational linguists studying language as a means of acting in the world described as bilingual or multilingual. In the first situation, the two or more languages spoken by two different groups and each group is monolingual, a few bilingual individuals take care of the necessary inter-group communication as is the case in ex-colonial countries where the colonialists and a few neo-colonialist elite spoke the colonial master‟s language while the indigenous people 17

spoke the local language. In societies of the second type, all people are bilinguals. Approximations to such a form of societal bilingualism can be found in Africa countries and India where people speak more than two languages. In the third form of societal bilingual, one group is monolingual, and the other bilingual. In most cases, this last group will form a minority perhaps not in the numerical or statistical sense, but rather in the sociological sense. This situation, Appel and Muysken further note, is typical of what obtains in Greeland, where the people who speak Greenlandic Inuit must be bilingual, i.e. learn Dannish, while Dannish speaking group, which is sociologically dominant, can remain monolingual. This notwithstanding, those types of bilingual societies are more of theoretical forms, which in reality do not exist in a pure form in the practical world of our contemporary times. As Appel and Muysken observe, different mixtures are much more common, given that the linguistic situations of most countries is far more complex, with more than two groups and more than two languages involved.

2.3 LANGUAGE POLICIES IN MULTILINGUAL COUNTRIES Agbedo (2007) said that many nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to protect and promote regional and ethnic languages whose viability is threatened. Language policy is what a government does either officially through legislation, court decision policy to determine how language are used, cultivate language skills needed to meet national priorities or to establish the rights of individuals or groups to used and maintain languages. The preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity in today‟s world is a major concern to many scientists, artists, writers, politicians, and leaders of linguistic communities. Up to one half of the 6000 languages currently spoken in the world are estimated to be in danger of disappearing during the 21st century. Many factors affect the existence and usage of any given human language, including the size of the natives speaking population, its use in formal communication, geographical dispersion and the socio-economic standing of its speakers. National language policies can either mitigate or exacerbate the effects of some of these factors. Language policy laws can be categorized in a number of ways such as the following: assimilation policies, non-intervention policies, differentiated legal statute policies, vocalarization of the official languages policies (unilingualism), 18

bilingual or trilingual policies, strategic multilingualism policies, linguistic internationalization policies. According to him, a policy of assimilation is one that uses measures to accelerate the downsizing of one or more linguistic minority group(s). The ultimate goal of such policies is to foster national unity inside a state (based on the idea that a single language in the country will favour that end. It is based on the belief that every person in a given society should be able to function in the dominant language regardless of which language that person speaks. Countries that have such policies include , Burma, Indonesian, Iran, , (United Nations Protectorate), Pakistan, Syria, Thailand, Vietnam. A policy of non-intervention consists in choosing to allow the normal rapport between, the main linguistic group and the minorities evolve on it own. This almost invariably favours the dominant group. Sometimes such policies are accompanied by administrative measures protecting certain minorities. Such policies exist in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chile, Congo-Kinshasa, Cote d‟Ivoire, Cuba, Czech Republic, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Germany, Gibraltar, Guinea, Guyana, Jamaica, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mali, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, El Salvador, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vermont. Agbedo (2007) differentiates legal statute policy and recognizes a different legal statute for a given language usually aims at allowing the coexistence of multiple linguistic groups inside a state. Typically, the majority has all its linguistic rights secured and sometimes promoted while the minority or minorities are given special protection for their language. Countries that have this type of policy include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, California, China, Croatia, Estonia, European Council, Republic of Macedonia, Guatemala, Latvia, Lithuania, Manitoba, Ontario, , New Mexico, , Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Wales, Yukon, Unilingualism, as a policy favours one official language. Sometimes, it favours the (or a) national language, sometimes it favours a colonial language with a strong influence internationally. In some cases, such policies are accompanied by measures recognizing and protecting minority languages or indigenous languages. This approach may be considered in two broadly different types of situations: where the official language is also the first language of the majority of the 19

population, and where it is not. Such countries where this policy is adopted include Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, , Croatia, East Timor, Egypt, Estonia, Franca, India, Iran, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Republic of Macedonia, , Morocco, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, North Korea, Nepal, , Republic of Philippines, Poland, Quebec, Saint Pierre and Mongolia, Slovakia, Slovenia, , South Korea, , Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Voivodine. There are many ways in which these policies can be applied. It could be based on non-territorialized individual rights or territorialized individual rights. A policy of bilingualism based on non-territorialized individual rights recognizes the same right to all members of a community/territory. This is practised in the following countries. , , Canada, , Tchad, Djibouti, Guinea, Hong Kong, Ireland, , , Matta, Nauru, , , , , , , , Tanzania , , . A language policy based on territorialized individual rights recognizes the same rights for all members of a community within a specific region. This is the traditional practice in the Acosta Valley, the Balearic Islands, Basque Country. Brandenburg, Brittany, Catatonia, Channel Islands, Corsica, Faeroe, Finland, Fruili, Venezuela Giuliani, Galicia, Haiwan, Isle of Man, Microriesia, Navarre, Northern Ireland, Nicaragua, The Philippines, etc. A policy of this type based on territorial rights is practised in , , Frisqourg, Grison, , Tioino, Valais. A policy of multilingualism based on non-territorialized individual rights recognizes the same rights for all members of a community whatever their location in the national territory. This is the policy adopted and practiced in in linguistic internationalization policies. We have the linguistic policies where both local and international languages are recognised as official. Another way of looking at language policy is Fishman (1971) cited in Agbedo (2000) which recognizes three types labelled A, B and C. According to Agbedo (2000:192), all the three types linger on the notion of a Great Tradition and its relationship to the twin goals of nationalise and nationalism. Fishman (1971) defined the great tradition as the assumed existence of a set of cultural features-law, government, religion, history, which are shared by the nation and can serve to integrate the members of the State into a cohesive body. Such a Great Tradition usually has as 20

one of its manifestations and its major vehicles of expression, a language, which very often is the appropriate choice for adoption as the national language or official language. The existence or non-existence of a Great Tradition in a given nation state determines which of the policy types to adopt. The type A policy is adopted in a nation- states where the ruling elite is of the opinion that there is no Great Tradition, hence the option of creating an exoglassic state by adopting the language of the ex-colonial masters. This is usually the preferred option in linguistically heterogeneous countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, etc. Type B policy is adopted in endoglossic countries where the elite acknowledge the existence of a Great Tradition with a related language of expression. This is the typical case in Israel, Somalia, USA, France, UK, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Type C policy is adopted in mixed States, which as Agbedo (193) observes, “…….recognizes the existence of several competing Great Traditions, each with its own social, religions or geographical base and linguistic traditions”. This situation is most typical of Common Wealth-Asia, specifically India where Hindi is the National and Official Language. (NOL) with English as a subsidiary Official Language (OL) and fourteen indigenous languages as Regional Official Languages (ROL). We also note typical ideologies described by Cobarrubias (1983), which may motivate decision making in language planning in a given society. These as listed by Agbedo quoting Cobarrubias include the ideologies of linguistic assimilation, linguistic pluralism, vernacularization, internationalization, linguistic assimilation ideology derives from the belief that everyone, regardless of origin should learn the dominant language of the society. This is the ideology, which informed USA‟s melting-pot policy that adopted the WASP core cultural consensus and English as its language of expression. The same goes for French in France, Portuguese in Portal, Spanish in Spain and indeed all endoglossic states. Linguistic pluralism ideology derives from the recognition of more than one language, English/French in Canada, Afrikaans/English in South Africa, Finnish/Swedish in Finland, etc. Vernaculanzation ideology derives from the modernization and standardization of an indigenous language and its adoption as an official language, for example, Neo-Melanesian in Papua New Guinca, Swahili in Tancania, Kenya, , Quechua in Peru, Tagalog in the Philippines. Hebrew in Isreal. Turk in Turkey. Internationalism as an ideology refers to the adoption of a non- 21

indigenous language of wider communication as an official language, for instance, English in Nigeria, Ghana, India, Sierra Leone etc. In a review of language policy and planning research reminiscent of Cobarruba (1983), Galdino reports that Reichnan (1985) identify current interest in examining how language policies serve as mechanisms of social control by dominant elites and also stress how all policies are ideological in nature although the ideology may not be apparent or acknowledged. Tollefson (1995) also discusses how language policies at all levels reflect relations of unequal power and that language policies are both outcomes of and sites for power struggles. Among other contributions to language policy analysis is Ocha (1995) who presents a five-step typology that contructed a continuum from subtractive to additive bilingual education policies. He describes the prevailing practices in the United States as “Traditional bilingualism” operating under an assimilationist ideology. Another contributor, Schmidt (1997) describes the three positions of linguistic pluralism (advocating acceptance and respect for linguistic diversity along with the right to non-discrimination on the basis of language and the right to ethnolinguistic – cultural reproduction). Linguistic assimilationist (language loss in the name of socio-economic “advancement”) and “Latino nationalist” (creation of Spanish dominant language domains within the U.S.) in current debates surrounding language policy that affects Latino. In the countries of Africa, most of which are multilingual, the issue of language policy with reference to language choice in education is fundamental to any discussion of the role education plays in all facets of development in this continent. Before the advent of European colonialism, the history of language policy in Africa started with the introduction of Islam in parts of North, West and East Africa, where Muslim communities emerged with basic literacy and higher education in Arabic. But it was during European colonial rule that definite language policies were enunciated for the first time, with far-reaching consequences for the educational, literacy, linguistic, economic and cultural development of modern African countries. Various, and often divergent, language policies were introduced by the Portuguese, French, Spanish and British colonial powers. There was also the case of South Africa, where the ruling Afrikaner nationalist party enforced a language policy that was aimed at developing their language as the , language of education and culture, and a strong competitor with English. 22

Each colonial power had its own cultural and political standpoint that gave rise to its particular brand of language policy. There were often conflicting approaches to language policy, because the European missionaries, government officials and settlers had divergent opinions on how to deal African colonial subjects. Wikipedia factors that have influenced language policies include the attitudes of the colonial administration and the African government after independence, the multilingual (or monolingual) nature of each country, the level of development of its languages as vehicles of modern communication and the desire to acquire a modern technological culture. African multilingualism. Africa is the most complex multilingual part of the world in terms of numbers of languages, the sizes of the communities speaking them, and the area each language covers (Alexander, 1972). The problem of delineating languages and dialects, and the variation of names of languages, makes it difficult to estimate the actual numbers of language in Africa. Ki-zero (1981) attributes the presence of so many languages to the sparseness of population. He says: The very vastness of the African continent, with a diluted and therefore itinerant population living in a nature at once generous with fruits and minerals, but cruel with its endemic and epidemic diseases, prevented it from reaching the threshold of demographic concentration which has always been one of the preconditions of major qualitative changes in the social, political and economic spheres.

Despite the complex nature of this multilingualism, a continuum of communication networks existed through social, economic and military contacts. This facilitated communication and developed individuals with multilingual abilities. From Wikipedia we know that the scramble for Africa and its eventual arbitrary partition created geographical entities that completely ignored ethnolinguistic realities in most cases. At one extreme, for example, are relatively small areas such as Cameroon with more than 100 languages, while at the other extreme there are countries with one predominant mother tongue, such as Botswana, Burundi, , Rwanda, Somalia, and Swaziland. However, even in these countries, individuals are likely to be multilingual, often speaking at least one African and a European language. 23

Before the advent of colonial rule, there were no apparent language policies except in areas dominated by Islam or, in the case of Ethiopia by coptic Christianity. In the Muslim areas in Africa, followers of this religion were expected to acquire basic literacy in Arabic enable them recite the Koran and other important religious texts. Areas of the Sahel in West Africa covering such countries as, Burkina Faso, Mali, Northern Nigeria and Senegal are cases in point, while in East Africa, Islam had spread to the whole coast of East Africa as early as the tenth century A. D. However, the Arabic language did not gain a foothold as there were very few Arabic-speaking settlers. Islam was spread in these countries by the first few African converts who were often chiefs of their areas. The introduction to the Arabic script nonetheless enabled these Muslims to develop literates‟ traditions in their own African Languages. We have, therefore, languages such as Fulani, Hausa, Somali, Swahili, Wolof and Yoruba with relatively extensively literatures using the Arabic script Swahili, for example, developed epic, religious and popular poetry in previous centuries. The language was used as an official language of the court as Swahili letters from the Sultan of Kilwa on the Tanzanian coast to the Portuguese Governor-General in Goa in the seventeenth century attest. Language policy in such Muslim areas then was to learn sufficient Arabic to recite the sacred books and to have adequate mastery of their own African language to be able to understand the translations of Arabic religious texts and Islamic jurisprudence. A few educated scholars would also learn and master the Arabic language, and there are many classical works written by African scholars in the Arabic language. Of course, the broad masses had no working knowledge of this language, even though they might be bilingual or multilingual in African languages.

Colonial administration: It was during colonial rule that we see the emergence of definite language policies. Different colonial powers tended to have their own language policy as part of the ethos of their imperial attitudes. The Germans, the British and the Dutch favour the use of African vernaculars or lingua franca as media of education at the lower levels of education and administration. The missionaries of those countries devised orthographies, and wrote grammars and dictionaries from African languages, as a step towards developing literacy in indigenous languages. The objective was to teach the Bible and other religious texts in the mother tongue, as this was considered the correct way to impart the message of 24

God. We see in the areas ruled by these powers therefore, a development of a literate tradition in the Roman script. Brann (1982) has interesting views on language policies in Africa. He noted that the Germanic races, including the German, British and Dutch, held a more protestant view of peoples and their individualistic languages and cultures, while the Romance colonial powers the French, Portuguese, Hawaiians and Spanish- had a more „Catholic‟ attitude in their outlook, going back to the period of the Roman Empire. The colonial policy of the French tallied with their own policy at home, where language was developed as a means of nation-building in the reign of Franco in the sixteenth century and onwards. In the seventeenth century, the French Academy was inaugurated with the aim of providing a unified language to a country that still spoke many dialects and of encouraging the growth of a high culture through a normative form of standard French. policy in Africa was promoted by the Alliance Francoise (originally called Alliance pour la propagation e la purification de la language Françoise). The French were concerned that pidginized forms of French should not emerge in their colonies and that in the colonies only metropolitan. French as spoken at home must be taught and promoted. The British, for example, recognized the existence of English-based creoles and pidgins, while the French for long time refused similar recognition. In the belief that French was the most cultured language, and had a civilizing mission, French colonial language policy discouraged research into or development of African languages. French was to be the only official language of administration, education and culture. As a consequence, African languages in areas governed by the French were the least developed, if developed at all, at independence. Most of these language had not even acquired orthographical system, despite the well-known fact that these language were the true vehicle of communication among Africans. There was a deceptive assumption on the part of the French that all education from the nursery to the University was entirely conducted in French, an impossible situation, since there were neither adequate teachers nor materials for such a comprehensive policy. In Madagascar, the French implemented the provisions of the Brazzaville Conference of 1945, which aimed at the assimilation programme of „education in French only‟. Malagasy reappeared in 1955 but was taught as a foreign language, like English. 25

From Wikipedia we learn that the Portuguese had an even more intolerant policy towards African languages. On the basis of their political stand that the overseas territories of Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde were an inalienable part of metropolitan Portugal. They took stern measures to ensure that no African languages were promoted. They went as far as punishing missionaries who used African languages in education. The direct result was that at independence Portuguese had to be accepted as the official and national language of these countries by African governments, as there was no alternative. The Germans, in their East-African territories up to the end of the First World War, had a policy of promoting Swahili as the lingua franca. In the then Tanganyika, both German and African civil servants and members of the armed forces had to know Swahili to be employed, a fact which rapidly helped the spread of this language. Also, German missionary scholars such as Rebmann, Krapf and Buttner wrote grammas of Swahili and collected manuscripts in Swahili Arabic Script of pre-twentieth century classical literature which are still to be found in the libraries of the University of Berlin, Hamburg and Leipzig. From Wikipedia we learn that German missionaries opened schools every where and worked on the development of orthographies and texts in Tanzanian languages. The same is true in parts of British-ruled Africa such as Zambia (Central Africa), where Chibemba was developed, (Shona and Nedbele) and Malawi (Chichewa). It can be said that as a result of the German and British colonial language policies, all major African languages were fairly developed, and widely used in the education system and administration. There is also a rich tradition of academic research on African languages by German and British scholars in their universities. The Germans, the Belgians (in Ruanda Burundi) and the British encouraged the growth of multilingualism in Africa languages and bilingualism in Africa Lingua Franca and their European languages. Language policies in education differed, depending on the lobbies at work. The general pattern however, was the use of local languages up to elementary class three as the medium of instruction, and then, if there was a developed lingua franca such as Swahili and Hausa, that would take over for another two or three years, after which English would continue as the medium. English would be taught as a subject right from the start. The colonial German government had also participated in the building of schools, requiring that indigenous people must be 26

taught Swahili and Arithmetic in order to produce clerks, craftsman and skilled manual workers. German colonial officers too were compelled to learn Swahili and other African languages before they were sent to Africa. Facilities for the study of Swahili were created in certain German universities. The British in Tanganyika continued to encourage the teaching of Swahili and other African languages when that country was mandated to them after the first World War. It was such positive action by the German and British rulers that made Swahili emerge as a candidate to be the national/official language of the United Republic of Tanzania. From Wekipedia we know that the British followed similar policies in West Africa, encouraging the development and use of African languages and lingua franca. Thus, we see such languages as Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and many others in Nigeria well developed at independence. In Kenya, with a politically strong settler community, there were three groups influencing language policy. The missionaries wanted to develop the vernacular languages, of which there are over forty, for the purpose of elementary education and catechism. The settlers favoured Swahili and the vernaculars, while British civil servants saw the introduction of English as early as possible in the education system as the best way of ensuring African progress. Eventually, in the 1930s, mother tongues were used in lower primary education. Swahili was introduced in the intermediate levels, and English took over in the upper primary and higher stages. But by the 1950s the policy was to used English right from nursery school as medium of instruction. Ethiopia and Somalia: Ethiopia is the African country with the shortest period of European colonization. It also has an abundance of indigenous written records of its history, literature and sacred texts using an indigenous script (Bender et al., 1976). The Aksum Kingdom in the fourth century A. D. used Ge‟ez, the ancient classical language as the official language of administration. Ge‟ez also became the church language. Ethiopia is multilingual and multiethnic, According to Bender et al (1976) there are about a dozen Semitic languages, twenty-two Cushitic, eighteen Omotic and eighteen Nilo-Saharan, English, French and Italian have been the vehicles of introducing Western culture and the media of higher education in this country, Italian and French have been gradually replaced by English, while Arabic serves as a lingua franca among Muslim Ethiopians, and is used as the language of religious teaching. was Federated to Ethiopia in 1952, its official languages having been Arabic and 27

Tigririnya. However, the revised constitution of Ethiopia (Proclamation 149 of 1955, Article 125) declared Amharic as the only national official language of the whole empire (Abdulaaziz, 1991). Other Ethiopia languages were completely suppressed, a fact that led to a great deal of resentment. With the overthrow of Haile Selassie and the advert of the Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, the language policy was radically changed. The policy now was to recognize the linguistic, cultural and social rights of all nationalities, Article 5 of the 1974 National Democratic Revolution programme of Socialist Ethiopia States: within the envious of nationality, each nationality has the right to determine its political, economic, and social life, and use its own language. Somalia is one of the most homogenous areas of African in terms of ethnicity, language, culture and religion. Throughout this country the Somali language has been in contact with Italian, Arabic and English. Contact with Islam and Arabic goes back many centuries. During colonial rule English was used as the official language and language of education in the North while Italian prevailed in the south of the country, including the capital Mogadishu. With the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and the pan- Arab/pan-Islam and pan-African policies of Nasser, Arabic was introduced in a very big way in Somalia, Arabic primary and secondary schools were opened in large numbers. Tertiary education in Arabic was also introduced and there was a major programme of scholarship awards for Somali students to study in Egypt. All this resulted in the Arabic language becoming a strong second language and later the acceptance of Somali as an Arab country. During colonial rule, the Italian government completely ignored the Somali language and used Italian for all official and educational purposes. Very few Somali could enter primary and secondary schools, which were mostly for Italian and mulattos. During the United Nations trusteeship period of 1950-1960, however, the Italian government made a commitment to provide education of good quality that would prepare Somalis for independence in the Southern part. English continued as the official language of education in the North. At independence, when the two parts were joined, there was a curious linguistic dilemma. The North had English while the South had Italian as the official make languages, and Somali had become the common language of oral communication in all aspects of political, economic and cultural life of the country. Somali, up to this stage, 28

had no official written system. There was a passionate national debate as to whether Somalia should adopt the Arabic or the Roman, or should devise an indigenous script. This wrangling delayed the introduction of Somali Revolutionary Council which under Siad Barre declared that henceforth the Roman script would be used as the official orthography (Latin, 1977), Sino then, the Somali Language Academy has done tremendous work to develop Somali as a working national official language. At present, Somali is used as the only medium in primary and secondary schools, making it the only country in sub-Sahara Africa to provide secondary education in the indigenous language. Afrikaner linguistic nationalism from about 1875. The policy was to develop Afrikaner into a modern language of literature and technology, and also as the official language of at least the Afrikaner community. The South African Banta Act of 1953 created the apartheid policy of separate development, under which the African would live in their own specified areas. In the beginning, the policy was to encourage the use of mother tongues as media of instruction for subjects in the primary and secondary schools, as means of consolidating the linguistic and cultural apartheid. This never quite worked, as will been seen below. Later, in the 1950s, there was a deliberate policy of teaching Afrikaans in all African schools. The Banta homelands were considered as an Afrikaner backyard, not to be exposed to English or other languages. Later, the Black consciousness movement led by Steve Biko insisted on reversing this policy in favour of English. In an attempt to take a global view of Nigeria‟s language problem. It would not be wrong to conclude, in the light of Simpson‟s observation that such attempts are extremely few. Simpson has observed that Nigeria intellectuals who feel there should be a change in the linguistic status Quo have not usually been forthcoming on the question of the type and modality of change regarding the question of a national language. The paucity of materials on the question bears him out (I shall, for the purpose of this research, concerned with the following proposals: Simpson (1978), Osaji (1979) and Olagoke (1982). Simpson (1979), His position on the national language question represents the most unequivocal one in the literature up to this point. He sees the choice of a Nigerian language as the national language in place of English as the ultimate aim of a national language policy for Nigeria. He, however, draws a line between the ultimate aim of the policy and what he calls the “Immediate objective” of the policy. The ultimate objective 29

presumably represents the preconditions for the ultimate aim. His proposal is, to a large extent, an explication of the immediate objective of the national language policy. His proposal consists of four “phases” each of these will be referred to in this research. Simpson suggests that the national language policy should first aim at what he called limited official multilingualism. This limited official multilingualism entails taking stock of the languages within each State, the approximate number of users of each language and the domains of use of the language. Decision will then be reached “either by consensuses or on those to be considered as the official language particular States, apart from English. These official languages will then be referred to as Nigeria‟s official languages in addition to English. He tentatively proposes a maximum of three as state languages apart from English. It is difficult to see why it is necessary to know the approximate number of users of each language since, according to Simpson, this choice is to be made “either by consensus or referendum”. A democratically conducted referendum is certainly independent of official statistics on language census. The second phase in Simpson‟s framework concerns the introduction of designated state languages into public life, such as in the mass media, business and education. In addition, he suggests that children in the geographical South of the country be taught a language of the north and vice versa. The limitation of Simpson‟s proposal comes from the following suggestion of his (p7) That the choice of language (out of the state languages spoken in particular areas although many towns have to create classes for more than one state language, especially in state capitals. that schools in areas whose languages are not among and where the children do not adequately understand any of the state languages may continue to teach in the . (My emphasis, Bis)

Certain flaws emerge immediately from the suggestions made above. In the first place, we find that while some towns and schools will be able to carry out their educational affairs with just one language, the administration of other towns and schools will be saddled with the use of multiple languages. Moreover, while a category of children will be exposed to their mother tongue right from the start of their educational life, another category will have to be contented with the language of the erstwhile colonizer. 30

Simpson justifies the need to have English-speaking schools on the ground that it is necessary to „prevent children whose mother tongues are state languages outside the towns where their parents reside, from having to travel far to attend schools which use their mother tongues‟. It is easy to see that Simpson proposal has been built into a confederal framework where everybody carries their ethnic background with them whenever they go in the country. Nothing in the psychology of language prevents a child of, for instance, Urhobo parents but born and bred in Benin from learning successfully through the medium of Edo. Simpson‟s suggestion that English speaking schools be set up for children whose languages are not among the designated state languages overlooks one important fact about Nigeria namely that it is precisely the speakers of these “remote” languages who have the least exposure to English. This then raises the question as to whether any of the State languages will not be more suitable than English. Another draw back in Simpson‟s proposal is that it saddles learners with very many languages in their formative years. This will hardly leave enough room for some other creative learning. Let us consider, for example, a child whose mother tongue is not one of the state languages. This child provided she is not to neglect her own mother tongue, there will have to learn five languages: her own mother tongue, at least one State language, English, a language of the opposite geographical area and the adopted national languages. Simpson‟s proposal that children in the geographical South be made to learn a language of the geographical north and vice versa is simply unacceptable. In the first place, the motion of geographical north or south is not only nebulous, but lacks constitutional status. Is Idoma in the geographical north or south? A more fundamental critique, of course, is that it is a proposal which cannot but promote one language at the expense of others. The fact is that when southern school authorities have to choose a language of the geographical north no other language apart from Hausa will attract serious attention, whereas northern school administrators will legitimately have a choice between Igbo and Yoruba. This will automatically put Hausa ahead of other major languages. This would amount to building the choice of a national language into phase two, an issue which is actually dealt with in his phase three. Simpson reserves the actual choice of a national language for phase three. Thus phase comes about according to him, after years of the application of phase two and it 31

involves choosing “by Consensus or referendum” there is no logical link between phase two and phase three, since the referendum on the national language can be conducted without reference to that on “State languages”. Simpson‟s proposal cannot but lead to a cul-de-sac, and the flaws which have been highlighted suggest that “State languages” particularly in linguistically heterogeneous states, can have no status in a national language policy. Rather, we need to look at the language situation in Local Government Areas (LGA) if we are really out to ensure that the majority of Nigeria children learn in their own mother tongue. He concludes his proposal by making an excursion into the relative strength of the three major languages in Nigeria, the three languages which according to him, could seriously be considered in the search for a national language, to identify the language which will most probably emerge as the national language. He, however, did not allow his analytical excursion to take him very far before arriving at the conclusion that the other major languages should give way to Hausa. As it is the case with all the other proposals so far presented on the national language question, statistical considerations constitute the basis of all the argumentations. As a matter of fact most of the reasons adduced by Simpson to support his choice of Hausa can be reduced to the number of people who speak Hausa either as a first language or as a second language. Thus his choice of Hausa as the proposed national language is based on the perceived numerical superiority of the language. Other factors which in Simpson‟s contention speak in favour of Hausa are: 1. Since Hausa has relatively fewer dialects its learnability will be enhanced over and above other major languages. 2. Hausa has a greater number of Nigerian speaker not of northern origin. 3. Hausa has greater influence outside Nigerian borders. I am simply not aware that the number of dialects of a language is a function of learnability. Although Simpson consider the Nigerian languages from the standpoint of available literature and critical studies done on them, this criterion does not seem to him to be of any crucial relevance, since he still goes for Hausa in spite of his own claim that Yoruba has an edge over the two other major languages in this respect. If the choice of a national language for a country as politically and culturally complex as Nigeria were just that of determining the language which possesses numerical superiority in terms of first and second language speakers, then we the 32

people of Nigeria would have sung the “nunc dimitis”, of English as our official language a long time ago. However, the issue is not that straight forward and herein lies the major flaw in Simpson‟s proposal, as well as other proposals put forward in a similar vein. As a matter of fact it is correct to say that the question of numerical superiority constitutes the most crucial criterion in Simpson‟s framework then we must conclude that he has argued against himself apparently without knowing it. Simpson supports his choice of Hausa with the claim that “Hausa has been MORE READILY and more widely embraced by a large number of non-Hausa Nigerians from the four corners of the Federation. (p. 14). We do not have to reject this claim before we can argue against the choice or relative numerical superiority as a crucial factor in the choice of a national language. The counter/argument is taken precisely from Simpson‟s analysis. He says inter-alia: “…This stems from the attitude of the northerner towards the Hausa language. Very many northerners would refuse to use English even when they know it …” (P 13) (My emphasis B.S) What we would like to ask is who prevents non-Hausa Nigerians from refusing to use Hausa. “even when they know it”? Without realizing its implications for the choice of national language, Simpson‟s observation shows that the attitudinal criterion is more crucial than that of numerical superiority or learnability. Needless to say, the attitudinal criterion is directly linked to socio-political factors. It is rather strange that Simpson‟s proposal has nothing to say on the most crucial factors in the choice of a national language, in spite of the fact that he did make reference to the „delicate nature‟ of choosing a national language. The step towards choosing a national language has to be a cautious one, not because of any difficulty in determining numerical superiority or ease of learnability but precisely because of socio-political factors. This issue will be taken up in greater detail in my research. Osaji (1979) In fairness to him it has got to be stated that his apparent pessimism is probably a result of his exceptionally perceptive understanding of the socio-political and cultural problems involved in the choice of a national language. Much more than in Sampson‟s proposal, we find, in Osaji‟s analysis that greater recognition has got to be accorded to attitudinal factors over and above a mere consideration of a numerical superiority. He correctly analyzed Nigeria‟s situation as 33

being characterized by a “multiplicity of antagonistic great traditions. He goes further to say: …Since each of these great traditions is numerically and ideologically strong enough to support separate and large scale socio-cultural and administrative integrations, their competition within a single polity makes for rather constant internal tension and for inter-ethnic disunity.

The problem with Osaji‟s analysis is that he appears to see Nigeria‟s language situation as a completely hopeless one. His analysis relies mainly on the Federal Government‟s position on the language issue: The Government is fully aware that the trend the world over is to have a national language which is a means of preserving the people‟s culture. Although the adoption of a lingua France in Nigeria is a task which cannot be achieved overnight, Government is of the view that a beginning should be made as soon as possible and considers it to be in the interest of national unity that each child should be encouraged to learn one of three major languages in Nigeria other than his own (vernacular).

The position of the Federal Government on the language issue will be subjected to critical analysis. Needless to say, a critique of the Federal Government‟s position is also to be seen as a critique of all other proposals presented within the same “Wazobia” framework. Osaji, who basically remains within the Wazobia framework, has technically ruled out the possibility of Nigeria adopting an indigenous language as the national language to be politically neutral for it to become a national language. He further contends that there is no politically neutral indigenous language in the country. In spite of this observation, he suggests a set of factors which according to him affect the choice of an indigenous national language and which ought to be considered by the authorities. these factors are: a. Population of speakers, with age, occupation and class distribution. 34

b. Location: geographical, political and social boundaries. c. Present status: any evidence of change in status e.g. decline, increase, age-shift, geographical extension, etc. d. Literature: oral and written tradition, use in educational institutions and in political, religious and other organisations; mass media using the language, such as newspapers, radio, television. e. History of any specialized use of the language including education, history of social and religious pressure groups, and history of any relation with other languages of the area concerned. f. economic strength: method of finance, state or private or national, staff recruitment and training facilities, availability of teaching materials, foreign aid and technical assistance requirements: g. Administrative, commercial and mass media requirements in terms of cost for changing language. h. Adult education facilities, and literacy campaigns. Osaji however, does not show exactly how crucial these factors are in the choice of a national language. The most curious thing about his proposal is that he calls on us to allow an ill-defined concept of the “spirit of Ramatism” (pp 172 – 173) to prevail so that Hausa could be adopted as the national language after virtually arguing against the possibility of the emergence of indigenous language as national language. OLAGOKE (1982) Olagoke‟s contribution, very much like the proposals already considered, is set within the WAZOBIA framework. Typically, not all the proposals set within the WAZOBIA framework are sufficiently convinced about the possibilities of the ultimate victory of an indigenous language over English. The pessimistic streak encountered in Osaji‟s analysis is also to be found in Olagoke‟s. According to Olagoke, English will most likely remain Nigeria‟s common language “for many years to come” as “there is no linguistic group in this country, however minor, that would like to see any language prevail other than its own, and failing that, they will not allow any ethnic and political prejudice may inhibit the selection of a national language. However what weakens his argument is his apparent inability to situate the phenomenon of ethnic and political prejudice, which characterizes contemporary neo-colonial Nigeria within the correct historical and socio-economic context. 35

Olagoke who, according to the title of his paper, sets out to discuss the issue of the quest for a national language for Nigeria, devotes a lot of time to questioning the rationale behind the teaching of foreign languages in Nigerian schools, so much so, that he is unable to come up with any substantial improvement on the Federal Government‟s position on the language issue. What he calls the “best linguistic policy hardly goes beyond what the Government itself considers a “beginning”. We find the crux of his proposal in the following: Sorry; for every post-primary student to master a major or class one Nigeria language other than the mother tongue of that is major or speakers of major languages. It means learning one more, which ever is convenient or acceptable. Children from the other linguistic groups would learn any major language. If a firm foundation in the mother tongue is first laid, it will be mastered in primary school and continually reinforced throughout life. The major Nigerian language chosen as a second Nigerian language would be learned in secondary school along with English. The additional burden of other European languages would not apply, leaving the student free, for scientific and cultural subjects.

I have quoted this passage in full to show exactly how much Olagoke has to say on what his topic promises us, that is “choosing a national language for Nigeria”. How for instance, does the fact that a Nigerian has acquired a second Nigeria language lead to the emergence of a national language? And how are we to interpret “convenient or acceptable” in the choice of a second Nigerian language in the Federal Republic? In spite of the superficiality of Olagoke analysis I find his categorization of Nigerian language quite useful. It, at least, renders a possible controversy on how to define a minority language unnecessary. He has divided Nigerian – languages into four classes on the basis of the number of speakers of the language. Before concluding this critical review of existing proposals of the national language issue, I will consider the most substantial arguments which inform the Wazobia option. It is to be noted that the most important characteristic of the Wazobia 36

option is that it places the three major languages of Nigeria, i.e. Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba on an equal footing, how belt on a higher pedestal than that of all other Nigeria languages. There is no explicit reference to any of the three languages as the best candidates for the status of the national language. Traditional wisdom on the national language issue has come to regards Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, referred to as class one languages in Olagoke‟s framework, as the only candidates which could be considered in the choice of a national Nigeria languages. Simpson, for instance, would like to convince us that “the three major Nigeria languages stands out as the OBVIOUS candidates for filling the position now being, occupied by English, “pig (my emphasis B. S.) Let us now look at the arguments which underlie such a position. The most important argument put forward by the Wazobia school of thought has to do with numerical considerations. The argument based on numerical considerations cannot be more forcefully presented than the way Simpson presents it in the following: (also on p. 9) These three languages definitely account for more than half of the Nigerian population, from the point of view of mother-tongue usage. When we add the number of people who speak at least one of them as second language, the remaining percentage of the population may be less than 70%. Most of the other languages would each then cover only a small percentage of the entire population of Nigeria most often, less than 1%.

We are thus reminded that Wazobia speakers constitute over 80% of Nigerians. This, from the point of view of numerical statistics, is incontrovertible. If the situation were so straightforward the national language question would have been a non-issue, since any country where about 80% of the population speak a particular language cannot be said to have a language problem. The Soviet Union, for instance, did not find it difficult to adopt Russia as national language since more than half the population speak the language, similarly, if the former Northern Nigeria has been a sovereign state there would have been no problem whatsoever in having Hausa as the national language of that hypothetical country. The problem with those in the Wazobia school of thought 37

who are pushing the numerical superiority argument is that they are committing what can be described as the fallacy of numbers. This fallacy of numbers lies in not perceiving the crucial difference between “80% with three” and “80% with one”. They have failed to see that Wazobia is only an imaginary language, that what we have on the ground are three languages of what Osaji has very aptly referred to as “antagonistic great traditions”. Or are we to believe that somebody in the WAZOBIA school is about to conjure up a language out of these antagonisc great tradition? The truth of the matter is that the Wazobia option is the best recipe for the perpetuation of an imperialist tongue in a former belong a former colony. This is particularly so because nobody has told us how to fill the theoretical and practical gap between the three language status and the ultimate status of a national language. What it all implies is that while the languages of the “antagonistic great traditions” continue to have their say, English will continue to have its way. The remaining arguments presented by this very influence school of thought which can be considered substantial can been seen in the following observation taken from Olagoke ( P. 201). They (i.e. Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba) have been used in education and mass media and posses relatively wide bodies of literature. Then populations of speakers are large enough to produce adequate numbers of teachers to instruct the other linguistic groups.

It is undeniable that a Wazobia language has some initial advantages over a non a Wazobia language. However, these initial advantages will be out weighed by the socio- political considerations which tlilt in favour of non-Wazobia language. As a matter of fact, the initial advantages of the Wazobia languages need not be overemphasized as no Nigerian language, Wazobia or non Wazobia, has gone beyond the elementary stage with regard to educational, legal and political needs. This implies that a lot of effort will still be required from the government and the people of Nigeria to make any language chosen adequately perform its functions as a national language. Even if we grant the Wazobia languages are advanced with respect to educational needs, mass media and literature, these initial advantages will constitute necessary but non-sufficient grounds for a pre-eminent position, since the initial advantages are not eternal categories but 38

acquired in the course of history. As Swahili and particularly English have shown today‟s inconsequential language can become a world language in the course of time, given the right historical and political circumstances. The weaker argument of the Wazobia option is that which claims that it will be easier for the Wazobia language to produce an adequate number of teachers to teach other linguistic groups. If the 80% of the Wazobia speakers include second language speakers, there is no reason why second language non-wazobia speakers cannot teach other linguistic groups. A rational language policy is not necessarily the quickest one. In concluding this critique of the Wazobia option, I would like to draw attention to some other problems which have not featured in the analysis so far considered. The first of course is the anti-democratic nature of the Wazobia syndrome. It violates one basic text of the corporate existence of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Wazobia syndrome reflected an extremely narrow perception of the cultural and political set-up of our nation. A more practical problem of the Wazobia option is that it is a veritable source of disunity and discord in Nigeria. The point is this: If government says that “each child should be encouraged to learn one of the three major languages in Nigeria other than his own vernacular who is going to decide which other Nigeria languages the child learn? The child‟s parents or the authorities of the child‟s State? If the latter are to make the decision, how is the decision going to be made? What line of argument would, for instance, like the authorities in Imo State in deciding whether the Aba child should learn Hausa or Yoruba? Conversely, how will the Kano State authorities decides between Igbo and Yoruba? Will a geographical zone with more ethnic minorities not remain with “its own Wazobia” more than other geographical zones with less number of ethnic minorities? Isn‟t the Wazobia option leading us along the path of ethnic ganging up in a most dangerous manner? If the Wazobia syndrome is incapable of solving the language problem of the country, it should at least refrain from further dividing our country along ethnic lines. I strongly believe that the only chance of Nigeria having an indigenous national language lies in adopting an appropriate non-Wazobia language as the national language, with a policy attached to it, this brings about language policy in education. Wikipedia says many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations 39

historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have polices designed to protect and promote regional and ethnic language whose viability is threatened. Language policy as is what a government does either officially through legislation, decisions or policy to determine how languages are used, cultivate language skills needed to meet national priorities or to establish the rights of individuals or groups to use and maintain languages. The preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity in today‟s world is a major concern to many scientists, artists, writers, politicians, leaders of linguistic communities, and defenders of linguistic human rights. Up to one half of the 600 languages currently spoken in the world are estimated to be in danger of disappearing during the 21st century. Many factors affect the existence and usage of any given human language, including the size of the native speaking population, its use informal communication, and the geographical dispersion and the socio-economic weight of the speakers. National language policies can either mitigate or exacerbate the effects of some of these factors.

The formulation of a policy Crucial to language planning in the formulation of a policy. This formulation involves the following general objectives: i) Development: An examination of whether the policy contributes to the development of the society in question. ii) Democratization: An examination of whether the policy is favourable to the creation of equal opportunity for members of the society. iii) Unity: An examination of whether the policy is going to reinforce the unity of the society in question. iv) Foreign-relations: An examination of whether the policy could be an obstacle to communication with the international community. The political ideology of Nigeria can be seen in the light of the principles above. This ideology is provided by the underlying assumption of its political constitution and the allied derivative documents such as national development plans. In paragraph I of NPE the country‟s ideology is identified by the following statements: 1) A free and democratic society 40

2) A just and egalitarian society 3) A united, strong and self reliant nation 4) A great and dynamic economy 5) A land of bright and full opportunities for all citizens. Based on the national ideology above are the aims and objectives of education in Nigeria stated in paragraph 5 as follows: 1) The inculcation of national consciousness and national unity 2) The inculcation of the right type of values and attitude for the survival of the individual and the society 3) The training of the mind in the understanding of the world around 4) The acquisition of appropriate skills, abilities and competences both mental and physical as equipment for the individual to live in and contribute to the development of the society. The N. P. E., will be assessed later in this research in terms of whether it fulfils the aims and objectives above.

Requirements for a language policy: In formulating a language policy, five or six major factors or dimensions are considered very useful. They are useful in differentiating between language policy and accompanying developments that tend to obtain where three different dimensions or decisions (see 6:3) have been reached.

The factors can be summarized as follows: i. Perceived socio-cultural integration of the society in question. In other words, there is the need to find out whether the society in question is highly integrated in terms of having great traditions in common at the national levels. These traditions may include, among others, history, religion, culture, literatures etc. ii. There is the need for a selection of national language among the various languages that are in use in the society. Such a decision may lead to the assignment of different roles to these languages. In assigning functions the government would consider the factor of political integration of the different groups of people, that is nationalism. iii. There is the need for adaptation of a language of wider communication (LWC). This will involve a consideration of whether such a language will be permanent 41

national symbol or not, or a transitional language which can be used for modern function, or a unifying language that could only be seen as a working language. iv. Another factor that has to do with the concern of language planning is the issue of selection of minor or major language, foreign or indigenous, etc. If a foreign language is selected, do the users aim at endonormative (local norm) standardization? If the modernization of the language tradition is to be done, it is the modernization of one or several languages that would be pursued? v. There is also the need to consider the goals of bilingualism or multilingual within the society in which the policy has been designed. The issue that would be considered are whether the local, regional or transitional language would be upgraded to the languages of wider communication or function as the prime languages, or whether to abandon all other indigenous language and make use of the transitional LWC or a consideration of the regional languages to function as national languages would be up graded to function as the prime languages. vi. The consideration of the goal of biculturalism is necessarily important. The decision has to be made as to whether to transfer the transitional language to the language of wider communication thus leading to modernity or new integration, or try to blend tradition with the modern spheres, that is, taking on the foreign language in question and using it alongside some indigenous language as the basis for fostering unity or integrating the bilingual/multilingual community. From what we have mentioned above as the principles needed for the formulation of effective language policy, it seems that the Nigeria language policy is not a standard policy since it failed to meet with these principles mention above. In the opinion of Emenajo (1998), it may be a misnomer to talk about language policy in Nigeria because the nation does not have a de jure national language policy. Although he recognizes the existence of a de facto policy, one that can be extrapolated from a number of different but complementary government documents, Emenanjo laments that “…Nigeria does not have a national policy on languages because she does not consider languages important in the planning, sustenance, and overall development of the Nigerian polity -- - “The deliberate omission of language in both the mission statements of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) and the Vision Report, observes Emenanjo, underscores the low of rating of language in the development paradigms of post dependent Nigerian governments. As Agbedo (1999:2) notes… “Contrary to what 42

obtained in the Old Europe where the birth of a new nation witnessed a wholistic approach to development programmes… the Nigerian nation like most ex-colonial Black Africa nations failed to appreciate the immense potentials of indigenous languages while articulating its national development programmes …” Nigeria had to wait for almost two to elapse after independence before some attempts to formulate a comprehensive language policy were made; yet the policies so far enunciated have been evidently negligible compared to the language planning efforts of the newly independent nations of Europe. The policy statement concerning language policy in Nigeria is contained in the Federal Government National Policy on Education enunciated in 1977 and revised in 1987 and 1995. Among other things, the multilingual language policy seems to accord well with the logic of the Nigerian language situation described by Emenanjo (1998:4) as „…a multilingual and multicultural mosaic with some 400 odd languages: 3 demulcents (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba); 12 choralects, 3 exolects (English, French, and Arabic of which, English is official), and the remaining other chibonalects or „local‟ small group languages …” Specific provisions of the policy recognize the special position of English as an exoglossic official language; the primus inter pares position of

Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba as L1 and L2 and as potential indigenous lingua francas, the equality of all ethnic groups and their languages and the use of all languages in the nursery and „junior‟ primary school education as well as in adult education. Like any well written document, the National language policy, notes Olafe (1990:51) is quite beautiful on paper: it caters for English as a language of inter ethnic/international communication, the major and minor languages in the states, and the multi- ethnic/multilingual nature of the country. However, the policy has not yielded the desired result largely due to what Ojo (1998) cited in Agbedo (1998:3) feels is “…the yawning gap between policy formulation and policy implementation”. The problem of policy implementation tends to constitute the crux of dialectical disputation among scholars. To some, (cf Chumbow, 1990,Awoniyi, J.A (1982); Jubril, 1990) the implementation problem stems largely from the obvious inconsistencies of the policy while the other argument is that the trilingual policy is impracticable in a multilingual Nigeria that has been trying unsuccessfully to stimulate a delicate balance between inherently antagonistic ethnic nationalities. 43

Given the seeming intractable nature of Nigeria‟s language problems, a set of proposals has been advanced concerning the adoption of a functional national language policy. The proposals illustrate two distinct approaches multilingual and unilingual to the problems. While the multilingual approach (cf Simpson, 1978; Osaji, 1979; Olagoke, (1982) represents one variety of the attempt to streamline the current trilingual policy, the unilingual approach represented by Sofunike 1990) rejects all the proposals cast within the mould of Wazobia theoretical framework. There is also the status quo approach which favours the retention of English as Nigerian‟s lingua franca. Perhaps it was in recognition of the disparities that characterized the literature on solutions to Nigeria‟s language problems that Bamgbose (1976) identified three policy options for Nigeria. These include (i) the status quo approach which will retain English as a lingua franca, (ii) the gradualist approach that involves planned multilingualism until one language evolves as a lingua franca and (iii) the radical approach which calls for an immediate policy decision in favour of a particular language, one that will be taught in all States in addition to the major language of the states and English. Bamgbose went further to posit that if the language of national integration is one which unites the various ethnic nationalities as well as the elite and the masses, that language is yet to be found in Nigeria and an essential prerequisite to finding it is a firm decision on one of the three policy options. Interestingly, the current timid and flat-footed national language policy is the result of a policy decision already taken in favour of the status quo approach option. These so called trilingual language policy which pretends to accord official status to a number of indigenous languages and priority attention to their development has turned out to be merely cosmetic and hypocritical as most Nigerian languages have hardly survived the overbearing heat of the English language often regarded by the ignorant ruling elite and policy makers as Nigeria‟s lingual franca par excellence. It may seem reasonable to concede that Nigeria has not been lacking in growing statutory provisions and institutional arrangements geared towards developing local languages. For instance, the former NERC (Nigeria Education Research Council) now NERDC (Nigeria Education Research Development Council) has produced curricular for the primary, junior and senior secondary schools in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba; Braille orthographies in Hausa Igbo and Yoruba; and funded metalanguage projects in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. The National Language Centre (now renamed Language Development Centre) 44

has equally produced four manuals of Nigerian orthographies covering twenty languages, a Quadralingual dictionary on legislative terminology in Hausa, Igbo and

Yorba; harmonized L1 and L2 syllabuses for Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba in Colleges of Education. The National Institute for Nigerian languages has also been established presumably to train teachers in local languages and research into different aspects of Nigerian languages. Although laudable, these measures, according to Essien (1998:10), … have come too little too late … and therefore fall short of the tremendous and sustained efforts, energies, and commitment that European governments put to develop their own natural languages to cope with the linguistic needs of their own respective societies …‟The foregoing‟ perhaps explains the unfortunate situation whereby English of the country, one defined by Essien (1996) as “…a language in a multilingual setting which, regardless of size, usually invests its speakers not only with a full panoply of uses that signify a standard language but also with prestige, self-confidence and power….” The grave implications which the prevailing linguistic situation for the indigenous languages and Nigeria‟s overall national development struggle have been variously discussed (cf Agbedo, 1998a, b, 1999, Chumbow, 1990; Bamgbose, 1983; Elugbe, 1990, Simpson 1978; Sofunke, 1990; Essien, 1998). The essential strands of the argument point some what gloomily to the fact that Nigeria‟s timid language policy and the blind glorification of the English language by the ruling class have conspired to undermine the local languages and rob them of their utilitarian values in the all important national development drive. In this connection for instance, Agbedo (1998B) examined the concept of exclusion and showed how the efficacity of language as an instrument of exclusion has been used by the millieux diligent to exclude the vast majority of Nigerians from participating in the overall national development process. Given the maniacal tenacity with which the powerful minority in charge of the socio- economic and political management of the nation holds on to the primacy of language, Oyalaran (1990:27) laments that the ruling minority is devising newer ways of marginalizing the non-literate majority better methods of stripping their language of all values and of roles in disseminating to Nigerians requisite information about the affairs of the nation. In the light of the fact that he who controls language controls history and perhaps destiny (cf Allen, 1976) and given the that English language is by all intents and 45

purposes “ a reinforcing agent of the British value and ways of life” (cf Essien, 1995b), Agbedo (1999:5) enjoins Nigeria and other African nations where development is being carried out in what Fishman (1968) refers to as „official exoglossic language to develop with language(s)rooted in the socio-cultural heritage, tradition and collective consciousness of the people as obtained in European, American, Australian and South East Asia Nations. This is imperatives if African nations hope to cope with the challenges of the new millennium.

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CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This chapter is organised under these headings:

3.1 Design of the Study This research which is descriptive in nature which is based on multilingualism in Nigeria and it implications for implementing the National Policy on Education. It involves the study of a group of people or items considered to be representative of the entire group/population.

3.2 Area of Study/Research Area The question of a national language affects the whole nation. Because of that Nigeria as a whole is suppose to be covered in this research, but because in the secondary school, within the Nsukka Education Zone of Anambra State teachers in those schools came from different ethnic groups and thereby speaks different languages. That is why the research study was based on ten secondary schools within the Nsukka Education Zone including the University Secondary School.

3.3 Sampling and Sampling Procedure In carrying out this research, ten (10) secondary schools out of a total of twenty- five (25) schools in the Nsukka Education zone were selected by a random sampling technique.

The Ten Secondary Schools Are 1) University Secondary School, Nsukka. 2) Nsukka High School, Nsukka. 3) Community Secondary School, Itch. 4) Community Secondary School Ihe-Akpu Awka. 5) Girls Secondary School, Lejja. 6) Community Secondary School Obukpa 7) Shalom Academy Nsukka 47

8) Saint Cyprian Secondary School , Nsukka 9) Community Secondary School Ibagwa-Ani 10) Community Secondary School Alor-Uno

3.4 Instrument for Data Collection In the ten secondary schools, 200 respondents were contacted and given a questionnaire. In addition ten secondary schools randomly selected, twenty (20) teachers per school, were also randomly selected to represent the entire teaching staff.

Table 1 number of entire populations Schools No of teachers 1 20 2 20 3 20 4 20 5 20 6 20 7 20 8 20 9 20 10 20

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The items are built on a four point rating scale. A - Agree = 4 SA - Strongly agree = 3 D - Disagree = 2 SD - Strongly disagreed = 1 The value attached to the Questionnaire items helped in the analysis of the data collected.

3.5 Method of Data Collection The data was collected through questionnaire.

3.6 Method of Data Analysis The data collected would be analysed using the mean of the responses of the respondents on each items in the questionnaire. The cut off points for the mean value were determined. Items that attracted mean scores from 2.50 and above were considered as positive while items with scores of less than 2.50 were considered as negative. Instrument for data collection is the questionnaire The questionnaire was designed to elicit responses from the respondents.

3.7 Validation of Instrument The questionnaires were validated by a specialist in the department of linguistics and Nigerian languages, and the project supervisor. All of them were from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka

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CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

4.1 DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS This chapter deals with the presentation and analysis of the data collected during the research survey followed by the interpretation. The presentation will take the form of tabulation followed by the analysis, explanation and interpretation of the data collected from the questionnaire. Here the objectives of the study will be looked into and the research questions answered. The items are built on a four point rating scale. SA = Strongly Agree = 4 A = Agree = 3 SD = Strongly Disagree = 2 D = Disagree = 1 The values attached to the response items helped in the analysis of the data collected.

Table I(a) Teachers reaction to the merits of multilingualism, whether a multilingual individual has access to world technology and educational advancement. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 46 184

A = 3 31 93

SD = 2 2 4

D = 1 3 3

 82 284 3.46

The above table shows that forty six of the respondents (teachers) strongly agreed and thirty one agreed that a multilingual individual has access to world technology and educational advancement. However two of the respondents strongly disagreed with the same statement while three of the respondents disagreed. 50

Summatively, this reaction has a mean score of 3.46, which is above the cut-off mark of 2.5. Therefore, a multilingual individual has access to world technology and educational advancement.

Table I(b) Information from teachers on whether multilingualism facilitates interpersonal, ethnic and interracial communication.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 56 224

A = 3 19 57

SD = 2 2 4

D = 1 5 5

 82 290 3.54

The table above shows that multilingualism facilitates interpersonal, ethnic and inter- racial communication, as evidenced by the responses of fifty six (56) out of eighty two respondents (strongly agreed) while nineteen (19) respondents agreed with the statement. This attracted a mean score of 3.54 which is above the cut-off point.

Table 1(c) Responses of teachers to whether multilingualism enhances faster thinking and reasoning.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 28 112

A = 3 23 69

SD = 2 13 26

D = 1 18 18

82 225 2.76

The table above has a mean score of 2.76, which is above the cut-off point of 2.5. This shows a positive response that multilingualism enhances faster thinking and reasoning. 51

Table 2(a) Teachers’ response on whether multilingualism leads to dominance of one language and a progressively decreasing efficiency in the other languages.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 9 36

A = 3 29 87

SD = 2 12 24

D = 1 32 32

 82 179 2.18

The above table shows that thirty eight (38_ respondents agreed to the statement while forty four respondents disagreed. This shows that greater number of respondents disagreed attracting a mean score of 2.18 below the cut-off point. Therefore multilingualism does not lead to dominance of one language and a progressively decreasing efficiency in the others.

Table 2(b) Whether Multilingualism Creates Problems in a Bilingual Setting

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 12 36

A = 3 31 93

SD = 2 11 22

D = 1 28 28

82 179 2.27

Table 2(b) Whether multilingualism create problems in a bilingual setting. The above table shows that forty three (43) of the total number of respondents agreed that multilingualism creates problems in a multilingual setting while thirty nine (39) of the 52

respondents disagreed. The table has a mean score of 2.18 which is below the cut-off point. Therefore, multilingualism does not create problem in a bilingual setting.

Table 2(c) Multilingualism can lead to the dearth of other languages.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 15 60

A = 3 18 54

SD = 2 15 30

D = 1 34 34

 82 178 2.17

The table above shows the teachers‟ reaction whether multilingualism can lead to the dearth of other languages. Forty nine (49) out of total number of respondents disagreed while thirty three (33) teachers were of the opinion that multilingualism can lead to the dearth of other languages. The table attracted a mean score of 1.91 implying that multilingualism cannot lead to the dearth of other languages.

Table 3(a) Multilingualism is a Problem in Implementing the National Policy on Education in Nigeria. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 50 220

A = 3 18 54

SD = 2 4 8

D = 1 10 10

82 292 3.56

The table above shows that sixty eight (68) out of a total number of eighty two teacher respondents agreed that multilingualism is a problem in implementing the National Policy on Education in Nigeria, while fourteen (14) of the respondents disagreed. The 53

table has a high mean score of 3.56 indicating that there is a problem in the implementation of language policy in a multilingual Nigeria.

Table 3(b) Non-committal by government to provide textbooks and develop orthographies as stated in the National Policy on Education. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 36 144

A = 3 37 111

SD = 2 4 8

D = 1 5 5

 82 268 3.27

The table above shows that thirty six and thirty seven respondents strongly agreed and agreed respectively, that government is not committed to providing textbooks and developing orthographies to aid the implementation of language policy. Nine respondents however disagreed. The table has a mean score of 3.27, which goes to confirm the non-commitment by government to the provision of textbooks and orthographies to aid the implementation of language policy.

Table 3(c) The implementation of the policy is hampered by the clause- “subject to the availability of teachers”. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 23 62

A = 3 30 90

SD = 2 11 22

D = 1 18 18

82 222 2.70

The above table shows that fifty three of the teacher respondents agreed that the clause “subject to the availability of teachers” hampers the implementation of policy while 54

twenty nine responding disagreed. The table has a mean score of 2.70 which indicates that the clause hampers the implementation.

Table 4 Multilingualism affects the education system in Nigeria.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 15 60

A = 3 29 87

SD = 2 11 22

D = 1 27 27

 82 196 2.37

Table 4 above shows that forty four (44) teacher respondents agreed that multilingualism affects the education system in Nigeria, while thirty eighty (38) of the respondents disagreed. The table has a mean score of 2.34 which is below the cut-off point. It follows therefore that multilingualism does not affect the education system in Nigeria.

Table 5 Multilingualism poses a lot of problem in the Nigerian Education system

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 15 60

A = 3 15 45

SD = 2 15 30

D = 1 37 37

82 272 2.09

The table above shows that thirty (30) respondents agreed that multilingualism poses a lot of problem in the Nigeria education system while fifty two (52) of the respondents 55

disagreed with the statement. This response attracted a mean score of 2.09 which is below the cut-off point. Thus multilingualism does not pose a lot of problem in Nigerian Education system.

Table 6 The use of many languages in Nigeria makes it difficult to have a language policy in Education

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 27 108

A = 3 30 90

SD = 2 16 32

D = 1 9 9

 82 239 2.91

The above table shows that twenty seven (27) and thirty (30) respondents strongly agreed and agreed respectively with the statement that the use of many languages in Nigeria makes it difficult to have a language policy in Education. Twenty five (25) of the respondents however disagreed to the statement. On the whole, the responses have a mean score of 2.91 which confirms that the use of many languages makes it difficult to have a language policy in Education.

Table 7 An indigenous language should be chosen as the official language in Nigeria Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 19 76

A = 3 23 69

SD = 2 25 50

D = 1 15 15

82 210 (2.56)

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The above table shows that forty two (42) respondents out of the total number of eighty two agreed that an indigenous language should be chosen as the official language in Nigeria, while forty (40) respondents disagreed with the choice of an indigenous language as the official language in Nigeria. On the whole, the response attracted a mean score of 2.56 thus accepting the choice of an indigenous language to be chosen as an official language.

Table 8 The National Policy on Education is relevant in solving the multilingual problem in Nigerian education.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 25 100

A = 3 35 105

SD = 2 10 20

D = 1 12 12

 82 237 2.89

The above table shows that sixty (60) teacher respondents out of the total of eight two (82) agreed that the National Policy on Education is relevant in solving the multilingual problems in Nigerian education system. Twenty two (22) of the respondents however disagreed with the statement. The table attracted a mean score of 2.89 which confirms that the national policy is relevant in solving the multilingual problems in Nigerian Education system. 57

Table 9 National Policy on Education is silent over the multilingual problems in Education. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 35 140

A = 3 38 114

SD = 2 6 12

D = 1 3 3

 82 271 3.29

The table above shows that seventy three (73) teacher respondents out of the total of eighty two were of the opinion that the National Policy on education is silent over the multilingual problems in Education. Nine (9) teacher respondents however disagreed. The table attracted a mean score of 3.29 which confirms in strong terms that the National Policy is silent over the problems of multilingualism in Nigeria.

Table 10 Nigeria has no language policy

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 37 148

A = 3 30 90

SD = 2 9 18

D = 1 6 6

82 260 3.17

The above table shows that sixty seven (67) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents where of the opinion that Nigeria has no language policy. Fifteen (15) others disagreed with the statement. The table has a mean score of 3.17 which is above the cut-off point. This confirms that Nigeria has no language policy.

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Table 11 A language policy is imperative for a multilingual country like Nigeria.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 30 120

A = 3 27 81

SD = 2 15 30

D = 1 10 10

 82 241 2.92

The above table shows that fifty seven (57) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that a language policy is imperative in a multilingual country like Nigeria Twenty five (25) others disagreed with the statement. The table attracted a mean score of 2.93 confirming that a language policy is imperative in a multilingual country like Nigeria.

Table 12 The content of the present National Policy on Education on multilingualism is grossly inadequate.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 36 144

A = 3 30 90

SD = 2 10 20

D = 1 6 6

82 260 3.17

The table above shows that sixty six (66) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that the content of the National Policy on Education on Multilingualism is grossly inadequate. Sixteen other however disagreed with the statement. The table has a mean score of 3.17 which confirms that the content of the present National Policy on Education on Multilingualism is grossly inadequate. 59

Table 13 The National Policy on Education has not fully addressed the problems of multilingualism. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 34 136

A = 3 25 75

SD = 2 10 30

D = 1 13 13

 82 254 3.09

The table shows that fifty nine (59) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that the National Policy on Education has not fully addressed the problems of multilingualism in Nigeria. Twenty three (23) other teacher respondents disagreed with the statement. The table attracted a mean score of 3.09 which shows that the National Policy on Education has not fully addressed the problems of multilingualism.

Table 14 The use of mother tongue aids learning and enhances academic performance of students. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 26 104

A = 3 49 147

SD = 2 3 14

D = 1 4 11

82 246 3.36

The table above shows that seventy five (75) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that the use of mother tongue aids learning and enhances academic performance of students. Eighteen (18) others disagreed with the statement. The reactions to the above statement attracted a mean score of 3.36. This confirms that the use of mother tongue aids learning and enhances the academic performance of students. 60

Table 15 Mother tongue is considered adequate as a medium of instruction in Nigeria Education system

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X  SA = 4 16 64

A = 3 32 69

SD = 2 12 24

D = 1 22 22

 82 206 2.51

The above table shows that forty eight (48) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed with the statement that mother tongue is considered adequately as a medium of instruction in Nigeria Education system. Thirty four (34) others disagreed with the statement. The table attracted a mean score of 2.51 and shows that mother tongue is considered adequate as a medium of instruction in Nigeria education system.

Table 16 In early primary schools, mother tongue of our pupils are used as a medium of instructions in our schools. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 25 100

A = 3 40 120

SD = 2 6 12

D = 1 11 11

82 243 2.96

The above table shows that sixty five (65) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that in early primary , mother tongue of our pupils are used as a medium of instructions while seventeen others disagreed with the statement. The table attracted a mean score of 2.96, confirming that in many cases mother tongue are used as a medium of instruction in our school.

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Table 17 Children learn better and easier when they are taught using their mother tongue. Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 33 132

A = 3 36 108

SD = 2 5 10

D = 1 8 8

 82 258 3.14

The above table shows that sixty nine (69) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that children learn better when they are taught using their mother tongue. Thirteen other respondents disagreed with the statement. The table attracted a mean score of 3.14, showing in strong terms that children learn better and easier when taught with the mother tongue.

Table 18 The National Policy on Education does not encourage multilingualism Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 14 56

A = 3 18 54

SD = 2 16 32

D = 1 34 34

82 176 2.14

The above table shows that thirty two (32) out of eighty two(82) teacher respondents agreed that the National Policy on Education does not encourage multilingualism. Fifty(50) teacher respondents disagreed with this statement. The table attracted a mean score of 2.14 which is below the cut-off point of 2.5. This shows that the National policy on Education encourages multilingualism.

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Table 19 National Policy on Education encourages the use of English as a medium of instructions in schools.

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 33 132

A = 3 38 114

SD = 2 5 10

D = 1 6 6

 82 262 3.19

The table above shows that seventy one (71) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that the National Policy on Education encourages the use of English as a medium of instruction in schools. Eleven other respondents disagreed with the statement. The table has a mean score of 3.19, which shows that the National Policy on Education encourages the use of English as a medium of instruction in our schools.

Table 20 Multilingualism breeds disunity in Nigeria

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 20 80

A = 3 19 57

SD = 2 26 52

D = 1 17 17

82 206 2.51

The table above shows that thirty nine (39) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that multilingualism breeds disunity in Nigeria. Forty three other disagreed with the idea. The table attracted a mean score of 2.51 which shows that multilingualism breeds disunity in the country.

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Table 21 The National Policy on Education encourages multilingualism as a means of fostering unity in the country

Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean  X 

SA = 4 20 80

A = 3 22 66

SD = 2 16 32

D = 1 24 24

 82 202 2.46

The table above shows that forty two (42) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that the National Policy on Education encourages multilingualism as a means of fostering unity in Nigeria. Forty (40) others disagreed with this statements. The table attracted a mean score of 2.46, which shows that the National Policy on Education does not encourage multilingualism as a means of fostering unity in the country.

Table 22 Freedom of association is more in a multilingual nation like Nigeria Teacher’s rating (X) Frequency (F) FX Mean

SA = 4 10 40

A = 3 20 60

SD = 2 18 36

D = 1 34 34

82 170 2.07

The table above shows that thirty (30) out of eighty two (82) teacher respondents agreed that freedom of association is more in a multilingual nation like Nigeria. Fifty two (52) others however disagreed with the statement. The table attracted a mean score of 2.07 showing that freedom of association is not more in a multilingual nation like Nigeria. 64

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION The thrust of this research is to identify the implication of language policy in a multilingual country with special reference to the Nigerian situation. The research examined the definitions of multilingualism and factors that encourage it. Four research questions were formulated to guide the study. Related literatures were reviewed under the following headings.  The concepts of multilingualism  Multilingual countries and how they encourage multilingualism  Multilingualism in Nigeria.  Language policy in multilingual countries.  Theories on multilingualism, language planning and policy  Empirical study on language planning and multilingualism. In carrying out this research, ten (10) secondary schools out of a total of twenty five (25) secondary schools in Nsukka Education zone were selected using a random sampling technique. The instrument used for the study was the questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed using the mean of the responses of the respondents on each item in the questionnaire. The cutoff point for the mean value was determined. Items that attracted mean scores of 2.50 and above were considered as positive while items with scores of less than 2.50 were considered as negative. The result show that there is no problem in the implementation of language policy in a multilingual country like Nigeria. The study identified that the use of mother tongue/indigenous language should be chosen to enhance academic performance of students. The study also revealed that freedom of association is not hampered by multilingualism, as typified by the Nigerian situation.

CONCLUSION Multilingual problems in the „geographical expression‟ called Nigeria pre dated 1914 when the Northern and southern protectorates were fused into one by the colonial administrators. In fact, multilingualism has always been the norm in both protectorates. The real problem in our view is the near absence of well articulated solutions, concrete 65

implementation strategies and the political will to meet the scope and nature of these hydra headed sociolinguistic problems; hence the need to adopt a multilingual approach in solving Nigeria‟s linguistic problems in public and social life. Both national, subregional and regional interrelated needs summon political leaders, linguistics, language planners, educators, etc to evolve a more vibrant and articulate policy which, no doubt should be armed with political teeth in the field. Far from being a plague, multilingualism in the country should in fact be seen as a source of wealth and strength, which if properly harnessed and managed will act as a source of synergy for a more effective, directed, guided as well as vibrant evolution of a modern, economically viable and technologically developed nation. Rather than resorting to an ad hoc approach to linguistic policy, the government should be seen and heard to be more committed in the implementation of a more vibrant and articulated language policy which is expected to usher the country into the 21st century. Nigeria should embark at once on a vigorous drive for the training of professional interpreters and translators in European and Nigerian codes. In tune with Ajulo (1990:18), It may be necessary to create national or regional schools of translation and interpretation, a usual practice of multilingual countries, whose areas of specialization should cover political, scientific, cultural, literature, technical, literary and philosophical fields. Armed with the academic and practical knowledge of what each linguistic code entails, as well the technical art of translations, which would be acquired from programmes run in the tertiary institutions. These disciples of nation-building should embark on the translation into Nigerian codes of books on agriculture, politics, technology, economy, philosophy and prose, poetry, drama written by Nigerians and foreign authors, official documents, laws, edicts, constitutions and other texts of the state and federal government as well as those of sub-regional and regional statutory bodies such as ECOWAS and AU. This will enables Nigerians to understand and follow government works in either their own codes or those of their immediate environment. In addition, Nigerians should be encouraged to write in their maternal codes where they possess the linguistic ability. This means that printing and publishing houses may need to re-adapt themselves to the changing tide of events in the country. 66

Linguistic and cultural barriers are partly responsible for the prejudices which have constantly held back the realization of the lofty objectives and aims of the founding fathers of ECOWAS and AU with regard to sub-regional and regional integration. The problems are not insurmountable. North America, and Asia, National governments are busy promoting regional development and integration despite linguistic and cultural differences. New languages are being learned in the schools and in adult learning centers and older people are encouraged to return to formal education. The West African sub-region should wake from the deep slumber into which she had fallen in almost all spheres of human endeavour. Like the legendary Reggae singer, Robert Nestar Marley a.k.a. Bob Marley exhorted Africans when he sang Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds, Nigerians and Africans should take their destiny in their hands combining their dual heritage in finding solutions to the problems of national, subregional and regional integration. Irrespective of differences in political convictions, indignations and principles, the primary and more permanent interests of our people should be close to our hearts. It is in this light as well as other reasons adduced above that General Abacha‟s foresight in declaring that „Nigeria will embark on a vigorous language programme that should ensure that our people within the shortest possible time, become bilingual‟ deserves to be applauded. The Federal Government should provide funds for general implementation of the language policy in Education n carefully worked out stages that can gradually implemented and evaluated with minimum strain on government(s) dwindling financial resources. This should involve giving due consideration to: a. the production of texts books, readers, and other literacy materials and b. the training of teachers in the use of mother tongue medium In this respect, the curriculum of teacher‟s training colleges should be reviewed to incorporate principles of the methodology of mother tongue education.

RECOMMENDATIONS The government should be seen and heard to be more committed in the implementation of a more vibrant and articulate policy which is expected to usher the country into the twenty-first century. Nigeria should embark at once on a vigorous drive 67

for the training of professional interpreters and translators in European and Nigerian codes. In tune with Ajulo (1990:18), it may be necessary to create national or regional schools of translation and interpretation, a usual practice of multilingual countries, whose areas of specialisation should cover political, scientific, cultural, literature, technical, literary and philosophical fields. Armed with the academic and practical knowledge of what each linguistic code entails, as well the technical art of translation, which would be acquired from programmes run in the tertiary institutions, these disciples of nation-building should embark on the translation into Nigerian codes of books on agriculture, politics, technology, economy, philosophy and prose, poetry, drama, written by Nigerians and foreign authors, official documents, laws, edicts, constitutions, and other texts of the State and Federal Governments as well as those of sub-regional and regional statutory bodies such as ECOWAS and AU. This will enable Nigerians to understand and follow government works in either their own codes or those of their immediate environments. In addition, Nigerians should be encouraged to write in their material codes where they possess the linguistic ability. This means that printing and publishing houses may be needed to re-adapt themselves to the changing tide of events in the country. Readership in diversified linguistic codes need not to be small if and when the reading culture is systematically drummed home to Nigerians and cultivated. It is, in fact, the usual practice of multilingual societies. In all spheres of life as well as in subjects such as politics, economics, agriculture, history, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, linguistics and foreign languages, books, work books, and pedagogical materials should be written by Nigerians, either individually or collectively, as a matter of educational policy. For the purpose of quality these books should be edited by a competent body of experts with regard to ideas, theories methodology and style as well as technical qualities such as binding and presentation. These would be more easily understood by Nigerians. Such books according to Ade-Ojo (1977:6), would be fed and nurtured by Nigerians‟ own experience while at the same time responding to certain geo-cultural realities of our immediate neighbours. For economic, political, cultural as well as geographical reasons, Nigeria and Nigerians stand to gain in establishing cultural, sporting, social, business, educational and professional relations not only with our immediate neighbours but also with all other French – speaking African and European countries. 68

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APPENDIX

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND

NIGERIAN LANGUAGES

QUESTIONNAIRE ON MULTILINGUALISM IN NIGERIA: IMPLICATION FOR IMPLEMENTING THE NATIONAL POLICY ON EDUCATION

Dear Respondents,

The researcher is a post graduate student of the department of linguistics and

Nigerian Languages, carrying out an investigation on the above topic.

Below are questions and statements that seek your views on the topic under investigation. Please respond to them by ticking [ ] beside the option as they apply to you.

Your responses will be held in absolute confidence and will be used only for the purpose of this study.

Thanks, for your co-operation.

Yours Faithfully,

Eze Victoria U.

79

SECTION A

Please tick in the appropriate column

1. Gender: Male [ ] Female [ ]

2. Marital status: (a) Married [ ] (b) Single [ ]

(c) Widow/ widower [ ] (d) Divorced [ ]

3. Level of Education (a ) Secondary level [ ]

(b) Tertiary level [ ]

4. Place of residence in Nigeria………………………………………………

5. How many language do you speak one [ ] two [ ] more than one [ ]

6. If more than two, do you mix them in speech? Yes [ ] No [ ]

SECTION B

Tick [  ] in the column provided as may be appropriate to you

Key: A = Agree 3

SA = Strongly Agree 4

D = Disagree 1

SD = Strongly Disagree 2

S/No Question A SA D SD 1. These are the merits of multilingualism (b) A multilingual/bilingual has access to the world technology and educational advancement (c) It facilitates inter personal, ethnic and interracial communication (d) It enhances fast thinking and reasoning 80

2. The demerits of multilingualism are: (a) It leads to dominance in one language and a progressively decreasing efficiently in the other languages. (b) Creates some problems in learning in a bilingual/multilingual setting. (c) Multilingualism can lead to the death of other languages. 3. Problems of implementing the National Policy on Education in Multilingual Nigeria. (a) Death of teacher in schools to teach the agreed major languages in Nigeria. (b) Non-committal by government to provide text books and develop orthographies as stated in the National Policy on Education. (c) The implication of the policy is hampered by the clauses, “subject” to the availability of teachers. 4. Multilingualism affects the Educational system in Nigeria. 5. It poses a lot of problems in Nigerian Educational system. 6. The use of many languages in the country makes it difficult to have a language policy in education. 7. An indigenous language should be chosen as the official language in Nigeria. 8. The National Policy on Education is relevant in solving the multilingual problems in Nigeria on Education. 9. The National policy is silent over the multilingual problem in Nigeria Education. 81

10. Nigeria has no language policy. 11. A language policy is imperative for multilingual country like Nigeria. 12. The content of the present National policy on Education on multilingualism is grossly inadequate. 13. The National policy on Education has not fully addressed the problem of multilingualism. 14. The use of mother tongue aids learning and enhances academic performance of students. 15. Mother tongue is considered adequate as a medium of instruction in Nigeria Education system. 16. In early primary schools, mother tongue of our pupils are used as a medium of instructions in our schools. 17. The study of one Nigerian indigenous language as a core subject at the senior level of our school system affects the use of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in our schools. 18. Children learn better and easier when they are taught using their mother tongue. 19. The Nigeria Policy on Education does not encourage multilingualism. 20. But it encourages the use of English as a medium of instruction in schools. 21. Multilingualism breeds disunity in Nigeria. 22. The National Policy on Education encourages multilingualism as a means of fostering unity in the country. 23. Freedom of association is more in a multilingual nation like Nigeria.