57

ENGLISH STUDIES IN : AN ASSESSMENT

Okeke, Chukwuma O. Dept. of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian University of Nigeria, Nsukka State, Nigeria

Ndiribe, Matthew O. Dept. of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages University of Nigeria, Nsukka Enugu State, Nigeria

Abstract This paper investigates the roles of Nigerian language policy in the teaching of the in Nigerian schools, especially, as have been evidenced in the various external examinations conducted by various examination bodies like WAEC, NECO and NABTEB in the country. By adopting the functional approach of needs analysis, the paper explores the functional components of language and discovers that the language policy of Nigeria, which seeks to make Nigerians ‘British’ in their own country, is counter-productive. This is because the policy ignores the cultural norms and the ways of Nigerians, which manifest in all their endeavours including the English language usage. Therefore, the paper posits that language should not be seen only from the formal aspects but the combination of formalism and functionalism. A case is, therefore, made for the adoption of the Nigerian English by the examination bodies since it enhances the intake of our teeming youths who seek admissions into institutions of higher learning. Also, it promotes mutual intelligibility among Nigerians. This, we believe, may be the solution to having an acceptable national-official language in Nigeria and will also lead to the cumulative positive effect of economic advancement of the country. Key words: English language, Nigerian language policy, Teaching of language

Introduction The annexation of what is currently known as Nigeria by the British in the nineteenth century has a lot of linguistic influence on the development of the country be it on technology, communication, military, commerce, religion, education and even in various social activities. The colonisation of Nigeria by the British placed Nigeria, as well as other countries colonised by the British, in the position to have the as their official language. In fact, these countries have come together to form a strong alliance of the former colonies of the British known as Commonwealth of Nations. Although nations like the United States of America (U.S.A), India, Ghana, , Gambia, Liberia, Australia, Nigeria speak English, there are lots of dissimilarities and cultural colourations inherent in the speech repertoire of each country. Alterton, Skandra, Paul, Tschichold & Cornelia (2002) affirm that the expansion of English has resulted in the diversification of its forms and functions. The terms New Englishes –, , Nigerian English (NE), etc, no longer constitute ambiguity (Mgbemena 2012). This is because no two Englishes explain the same concept exactly the same way. Some scholars like Bokambo (1982), Adegbite (1989), Jowit (1991), Bamiro (1994), Bamgbose (1998), Igboanusi (1998) and Mgbemena (2012), have commented on the prospects of Nigerian English in the advancement of the nation. While Bokamba (1982) and Olagoke (1981)

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

58

consider Nigerian English as deviation which they termed non-standard usages; Adegbite (1989) and Igboanusi (1998) see Nigerian English as innovations, a green-light and a signpost of acculturation of English in the socio-cultural linguistic context of the nation. Based on the above background information, the thrust of this paper is the negative impact the strict adherence to the British rules of English has on the performance of students who need some proficiency in English in order to advance the courses of their choices in the tertiary institutions. Therefore, the paper brings to the limelight the fact that Nigerian English as being witnessed in the various transitory examinations, such as West African Examination Certificate (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), and National Board for Technical examination (NABTEB), which is seen as laden with grammatical errors is just the manifestation of Nigerian flavour in the British English. But instead of seeing it from this perspective, students are penalised heavily for not sticking rigidly to the rules of the British English. This practice should be re-visited since the communicative import of the written and spoken forms of the English language is not in any way ambiguous. The paper is in seven sections. Section one presents the background to the study. In section two, an overview of the place of the English language in Nigerian language policy was made. Sections three and four look at functionalism and language teaching. Also, a comparison vis-a vis the with the British English was carried out to justify the need for Nigerian English. In section five, some irregularities in the British English counted as errors for Nigerian students were highlighted. Section six explores the social functions of appropriateness of expressions and the summary, recommendations and conclusion of the paper appear in section seven.

The Place of the English Language in the Nigerian Language Policy Firstly, the colonial language policy stipulates the use of Nigerian languages in the lower levels of primary education viz: pre-primary and first three years of primary education and English later. In 1977 as observed in Alajuruonye (1998), the government came up with what is known as the language policy when the National Policy on Education was formulated. In it the federal government made the pronouncements on language thus: each child should be encouraged to learn one of the three major languages other than his own mother tongue. For the pre-primary education: the medium of instruction will be principally the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community. For the primary education, the medium of instruction is initially the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community and at a later stage English (NPE .pp 3-7)

For the Nigerian secondary schools the policy does not specify the medium of instruction. By keeping silent, Alajuruonye (1998) concludes the policy adopts the English language. The revised edition of 1981 stipulates that students in junior secondary should offer English and other Nigerian languages. At the senior secondary level, students are to take English and one Nigerian language. However, Njoku (2004) sees English as both a second and official language in Nigeria. With colonialization and education, the English language becomes the language of politics, administration, and commerce. She also affirms that the oral and written forms of the English language become the standard for linguistic expression in education, scholarship, politics and administration and are not only acknowledged but entrenched. Alamu (2004) asserts that English in Nigeria enjoys the official status in the fields of administration, education, commerce and industry and international communication. Consequent

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

59

upon the use of English for these purposes in Nigeria, Alamu (2004) affirms that the English language has established itself as the language of upward mobility. He remarks that the role of English in various domains of language use in Nigeria has seemingly made it a sine qua non for the survival of an individual in the nation, as well as to the development of objectives in Nigeria. From the above explication, one can see that the English language has a heavy load to carry as far as the advancement of Nigeria is concerned. Therefore, for English to shoulder its responsibility effectively in Nigeria, as it has done in other countries like the United States of America, its shoulders must be broad enough to carry the enormous load. By implication, this suggests that along the way, the rules of the language and its grammar may be bent or modified for it to carry the heavy load.

Functionalism and the Teaching of Language According to McGuire (2006), functionalism asserts that nothing will be found in society unless its existence is functional for other features of the structure or working of the society. Austin (1961:230) emphasises the fact that a person does something as well as says something. He distinguishes between locutionary acts and illocutionary acts, the former being the utterances and the later being the acts we perform in uttering some utterances. The fore-going shows that the communicative function of language is an essential point of concern for any theory of language teaching that aims at adequacy. This would seem the best explanation for the current move away from language as a self-contained, closed system towards language as a communicative system. Finch (1998) asserts that communicating linguistically involves an interactive event between two or more people in which we take on certain roles; the most fundamental being speaker/writer vs. Listener/reader or put more simply addresser vs. Addressee and attempt to influence or understand others. Language is used to perform a function and nothing should be further from this. Declaratives are used to give information, and perform the function of statements; interrogatives are used to request something and perform the function of question; imperatives are used to give instructions and perform the function of commands. Finch (1998) concludes that the exact correlation between form and function occurs in idealised sentences. Richards & Schmidt (2002) see function as the purpose for which an utterance or unit of language is used. They go on to say that in language teaching, language functions are often described as categories of behaviour e.g. request, apologies, complaints, offers, compliments. The functional uses of language cannot be determined simply by studying the grammatical structure of sentences. In linguistics, the functional uses of language are studied in speech act theory, sociolinguistics and pragmatics. In the communicative approach to language teaching, a syllabus is often organised in terms of the different language functions and the needs to express or understand.

The American English vis-a-vis the British English One good and motivating factor for language re-engineering in Nigeria is the example of American English (AE). America, as we all know, was once a colony of the British and, as a result, inherited the English language as its official language. In fact, America and Britain are seen today in the whole world as monolingual nations even though there are some pockets of minor languages spoken in both America and Britain which are not English. America and Britain are also seen as partners in progress in all political fronts due to the fact that they speak the same language. But a closer look into the American English reveals a lot of independence in the use of English by Americans. This linguistic independence has necessitated the recognition of the American English in every English dictionary. The American language engineers have made sure that the

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

60

complicated systems of writing British English is discouraged. They tried very much to reduce or expunge all the irregularities that make the language cumbersome for easy comprehension for L2 learners. For instance, the American English engineers tried to regularise some of the irregular verbs in the British English. Observe the illustration below: English Words British English (BE) American English (AE) dig dug digged dream dreamt dreamed spell spelt spelled learn learnt learned

Another area of improvement in AE is in the area of spelling. The redundancy with which the BE is spelt was removed. The American language engineers make sure that those things that contribute to the sound of any word are maintained. (cf. Chukwuma & Otagburuagu 1997) BE AE favour favor honour honor programme program centre center characterise characterize victimise victimize travelling traveling metre meter

In the area of adjective comparison, the AE had done something to reduce the irregularity. For example, the comparison of the adjective ‘bad’ which has ‘worse’ and ‘worst’ for BE has ‘badder’ and ‘baddest’ for the AE. Also ‘stupid’ which is compared in BE as ‘more stupid’ and ‘most stupid’ have them as ‘stupider’ and ‘stupidest’ in AE. Likewise, in showing probability, where the BE uses ‘were’ to express, was reduced to the normal verb agreeing with the person and number as it is in the rules of the English language. Therefore, ‘if I were you’ in BE becomes ‘if I was you’ in AE, (Finch 2000, Katamba 1989). AE is made simpler and less mysterious than its BE counterpart in many areas and one thinks that this makes the language easier for her citizens and as a result enhances areas of technological advancements of the country. The question now is, why can’t the Nigerian language engineers borrow a leaf from the United States of America in the area of upgrading NE in order to promote academic and economic emancipation of the country?

Overview of Students’ Errors Due to Irregularities in the BE Strict adherence to the rules of BE by Nigerian students as we stated above leads to various forms and types of representations which are usually classified as errors in the writing and speaking of English. Observe the different classes of such errors below: i. Error of Overgeneralisations Overgeneralization rule is a process common in both first and second language learning, in which a learner extends the use of a grammatical rule of linguistic item beyond its accepted uses, generally by making words or structures follow a more regular pattern. For example, an English child

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

61

may use ‘ball’ to refer to all normal objects, or use ‘mans’ instead of ‘men’ for the plural of ‘man’, (Richards& Schmidt 2002). In Nigerian English studies, a lot of affixes are employed in the formation of new words or terms. These affixes have been employed mostly to generate nouns from verbs. These affixes are ‘– or’, ‘-er’, ‘-ive’, ‘-ish’, ‘-ment’ , etc. In English, ‘possessor’ is generated from the verb ‘possess’ meaning the one who possesses. In like manner, a Nigerian English student generates ‘fabricator’ from the verb ‘fabricate’ and thereby overgeneralises and produces an unacceptable English word. In the English language it is appropriate to generate ‘container’ from the verb ‘contain’, meaning that which contains the content but to generate ‘gossiper’ from ‘gossip’ is overgeneralisation and, therefore, unacceptable. Since gossip is the act of telling idle tales, the person that engages in telling idle tales should not be called a gossip according to British exceptional rule in this regard. A Nigerian student has no difficulty in generating ‘trickish’ from the verb ‘trick’ instead of the noun ‘trickster’ which is the normal English word. The overgeneralization should not be unconnected by the generation of the word ‘foolish’ from ‘fool’. Another area of overgeneralization is in the affixing of ‘- ment’ to ‘uplift’ in order to generate the word ‘upliftment’ when in actual sense ‘uplift’ serves as both noun and verb depending on the context. The words “vulcaniser” and “tiler” are non-existent in British English language vocabulary. These are so because the work of inflating car tubes is not done manually in British environment. Also, tiles are placed by special machines and not by a person trained in the act of placing the tiles as is in Nigeria. Also in Nigerian English studies, since a teacher teaches, a worker works, it is not abnormal to follow the trend to conclude that a ‘barber’ barbs. Unfortunately, in English a barber does not barb but ‘cuts’. That is to say that such expression like “I went to the barber to barb my hair” is unacceptable. Some will even say “I went to the barber to cut my head” whereas the right expression should read “I went to the barber to cut my hair.” Another area of overgeneralization in the study of English in Nigeria is in the area of derivational morphology (verbalisation). That is, the ability to form a verb out of a noun. It is rampant in Nigeria English sentences: * ‘I credited English in my WAEC’ instead of ‘I got or made credit in English in my WAEC. * ‘The man convocated yesterday’ instead of ‘The man did his convocation yesterday’. * ‘The players pocketed two million naira each for winning the championship’ instead of ‘the players were given or received two million naira each for winning the championship’. One of the reasons for verbalisation is to avoid lengthy sentences. Verbalisation reduces the length of a sentence which would have been lengthy following the normal rules. But the sentences generated by this rule are unacceptable in British English. A cursory look at the processes above reveals that the rules followed by the Nigerian students are the rules that operate in the language with some exceptions in certain conditions. In fact, there is no explanation as to why ‘enhance’ and ‘enhancement’ should be acceptable whereas ‘uplift’ and upliftment are unacceptable. It is purely the rule of the thumb. ii. Errors of Rule Applications The English language is rule-governed. Certain rule violations lead to unacceptable sentences in the language. Some English rules are violated by the Nigerian language user. Such rules are: a. Adverb intervention error b. Demonstrative-possessive co-occurrence error and c. The split infinitive error.

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

62

In the adverb intervention rule, it is unacceptable in old English for an adverb that modifies a verb to come before that verb in a sentence. Thus, the sentence ‘Mary often washes her hands’ then, would be unacceptable in the sense that the adverb ‘often’ comes before the verb it modifies. The sentence should read ‘Mary washes often her hands’ or ‘Mary washes her hands often’. But today’s British English accepts them. These violations are not peculiar to students alone but also to other highly placed L2 learners in the society. Sentences like “I so much love the man; We effectively managed the situation are apt in Nigeria (Napoli 1996). The demonstrative-possessive co-occurrence is unacceptable and ungrammatical in the English language. Demonstratives are those pronouns that point out some nouns they stand for. They include such pronouns like: ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, and ‘those’, which also point out the objects to which they refer. Possessive pronouns, on the other hand, are those pronouns that show possession. They are: my, his, our, their, her, your; so the sentences: ‘This my friend is good man’ is both ungrammatical and unacceptable in British English. The sentence should read ‘This friend of mine is a good man.’ ‘That their house is fine’ should read ‘That house of theirs is fine.’ ‘This our property is old’ should read ‘This property of ours is old.’ ‘Those your arguments were baseless' should read ‘Those arguments of yours were baseless.’ It is also generally wrong to split the infinitive in the middle of a sentence in BE. Such expression like ‘I expect Ndidi to carefully read the letter’ is ungrammatical but should read ‘I expect Ndidi to read the letter carefully. ‘She tried to clearly explain the situation instead of ‘She tried to explain the situation clearly.’

Interference of the Mother Tongue (MT) or First Language (L1) According to Anasiudu (2003:141), interference of the L1 with the English language (L2) is more pronounced in syntax, which is complicated from the already mastered structures of the primary language. There is also the transfer of phonological features from L1 to L2. According to Uzodimma (1973), thoughts and ideas are also expressed phonologically as in the statement below: *You carry mouth come to work and yet you are calling snuff. This is the typical example of direct translation of idiomatic expressions into English without due regard to the meaning achieved in the translation. The statement means: ‘You have come to work without eating any food yet, you are taking snuff.’ (cf Anasiudu 2003:142). Oluikpe (1974) on his own research provides instances of interference in Nigerian English usage with the examples such as ‘watch night’ for ‘night watchman’, ‘hide secret’ for ‘keep secret’, and ‘win an opponent’ for ‘beat an opponent’, ‘head bridge’ for ‘bridge head.’ Collocation extension is another area of interference in Nigerian English. Some words have associated relationship with other words in natural languages. This is also called selection restriction. For instance, the English verb ‘eat’ is associated with “edibles” but not with sand or money. But in Nigerian English, the word “eat” collocates with money and sand. For example such sentences like: ‘He ate my money since last month’ and ‘He has been eating it since he was dismissed from his job’ pass as good English in NE. Bodha (1994) describes such combination as contracting new relations. Other examples of collocation extension are seen in the following examples: ‘big money’ for ‘a lot of money’ ‘eat money’ for ‘to extort money’ or ‘spend money recklessly’ or ‘to embezzle funds’ ‘hear smell’ for ‘perceive an odour, fragrance or aroma’ ‘get message’ for ‘receive message’.

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

63

Redundancy is another aspect of interference where lexical items which serve as synonyms are used in a sentence. These sentences often result in tautology as in these examples: ‘raise up’ as in ‘Those that support the motion should raise up their hands.’ Hands should not be raised up because both raise and up indicate lifting of the hand above its normal position. ‘return back’ as in ‘He has returned back to his house.’ To return means to come or go back; back is the redundant item. ‘reverse back’ as in ‘The bus hit the man as it was reversing back’ It is either reverse or go backwards. Therefore, back after reverse is redundant. ‘repeat again’ as in ‘I will not repeat again when he is around’ It should either be repeat or do something again. So, to repeat again is redundant. A look at these errors due to the interference of mother tongue or first language L1 with the second or target language L2 is purely that of syntax and not of semantics. These expressions, even though they fall short of the standard rules of British English, do not hamper the semantic imports of the expression. Also, these errors are rampant because the Holy Bible, which is used by a good number of Nigerians, especially the authorised King James Version, commits these errors. For instance, in John 3:14, “Even so, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up.” ‘Up’ in this statement is redundant. So the Holy Bible somehow facilitates the errors of the rules of British English.

Social Functions of Appropriateness of Expressions It has been established that a sentence detached from the context of a situation does not convey the whole facts of the matter but gives a simply partial account of the speaker’s intention. Cook (1990) affirms thus: When we receive a linguistic message we pay attention to many factors from the language itself...the paralinguistic features of the spoken message...

What this means is that we are influenced by the situation in which we receive messages by our cultural and social relationship with the participants, by what we know and what we assume the sender knows. The implication of this observation is that our knowledge of language is not complete without a corresponding knowledge of the world outside the language, and this forms the basis for interpreting its use. A comprehensive knowledge of the social as well as cultural contexts is needed for a proper use of language to reflect the existing realties. However, English, like every other language, has both formal and informal varieties, and learners should be given opportunity to practice both varieties so as to use English appropriately in any given situation. On the communicative function of language against the background of social relationship, Littlewood (1981:4) opines: a student might say ‘shut the door, will you? to a flat mate, but to a stranger on a train it would be more appropriate to say, for example ‘Excuse me, would you mind closing the door’? To use the formal version with a stranger, would be equally likely to cause offence.

What this assertion means is that language variety should be chosen according to the social relationship and the social function the language is made to perform. Commenting on the social functions and the appropriateness of expression in Nigerian English Oluikpe (1993:9) has this to say:

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

64

...it is a mark of rudeness to address an elder by his first name. It is impolite if we do not say ‘I am sorry’ to our superior in the office if he hurts himself as a result of no faults of ours. Further, one could obtain permission from the chairman at a board meeting to attend to an emergency by just saying to the chairman ‘I am coming’. This is Nigerian English at spoken level characterised by its peculiar accent and local pragmatics. These features give it its national character. A look at this assertion by Oluikpe reveals errors of some kind no the rules of British spoken English. The fact is that one does not say ‘I am sorry’ when one does not contribute to the hurt of the experience. Therefore, an Englishman would rather say ‘It is a pity’ rather than saying ‘I am sorry’. But in Nigerian context, ‘it is a pity’ has no functional property to the person that hurts himself. The features of Nigerian English as expressed by Oluikpe (1993) are in line with our cultural norms and should not be seen as a violation to the rules of spoken or written English.

Summary and Conclusion A language policy of a country determines how far a country could advance in its total endeavours. This is because, for any development to be achieved by any country, the language policy of such a country should be modelled in such a way that it would not pose danger to the attainment of self- sufficiency and economic boost for the country. Nigeria adopted English as her official language with the attendant problem of trying to make Nigerians British in Nigeria. The insistence of the examination bodies/boards and academic institutions on the correct rules and forms of the British English language without considering Nigerian English based on culture and interference of the L1 is a disservice to the peoples of Nigeria. The condition by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) that for a student to study whatever course in the university, that such a student must have a credit in the English language is one law too harsh to the people and it is the reason why Nigeria is still a toddler in technological advancement. Our contention in this paper is that Nigerian English should be given a chance to develop, which in the long run may solve the problem of the Nigerian language to use for wider communication. We can borrow a leaf from the USA, where they have their own variety of English, which is not as complicated as the British English. It must surely help Nigeria in developing a variety of English with indigenous flavour. If this can be achieved, we believe it will be a giant stride towards having an official language that is to some extent indigenous to us. Again, it will have wider acceptability by over 400 language groups in the country as an official, . Also in this paper we pointed out that language is studied from two broad perspectives - the formalist and the functionalist approaches. The forms of the language stipulate the rules that guide the acceptability of any construction whereas the function talks about the communicative functions and semantic interpretation of the sentence. From our study so far, we discover that the culture and the context of the speaker influence his choices of diction. The words “vulcanizer” and “tiler,” for instance, cannot be seen as unacceptable just because they could not be found in the British dictionary whereas they are here with us and we make use of them in our everyday life experiences. Grammatically, they are well formed and semantically, everybody gets the meaning whenever and wherever they are used in discourse. The study highlights how American English has gone through modifications in various aspects that today we have both British and American English represented in virtually all English dictionaries. The Nigerian elite should note that nobody in the country uses purely the British variety of the English language both in speech and in writing. The little violations in rules such as infinitive

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

65

split, adverb interference and demonstrative-possessive co-occurrence among others, should be de- emphasised by the examination bodies and academic institutions, to avail the Nigerian people the opportunities of getting the tertiary education that enhances self actualization and nationhood. Finally, Aitchson (1991) asserts that “time changes all things and there is reason why language should escape this universal law”. Language should be seen as an instrument of communication without which human race is disorganised. The function of language should be uppermost in the analysis of any grammar. The L1 interference in the written and spoken English of Nigerians should be seen as part and parcel of the modifications of the English language and if well harnessed (towards international intelligibility), is likely to save us from the present social, political, economic and religious problems we are facing today because of the multilingual nature of the polity. This is necessary because we cannot claim to be a country when we are speaking another man’s tongue. But since picking one indigenous language as a national language is almost impossible, picking a dialect of English (here, the Nigerian English), with some features and nuances of meaning peculiar to Nigerian languages would be a nice alternative.

References Adegbite, E. (1989). Lexical-semantic variation in Nigerian English. , 8(2), 165-177. Aitchison, J. (1991). Language change: Progress or decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aiterton, D.J., Skandera, P. & Tscichold, P. (2002). Perspective on English as a world language. In Alamu, G. (2004). Nigerian languages and the democratic experience. In G. Alamu (Ed.), Nigerian languages and the democratic experience: Proceedings of the IXth annual conference of the association for the Nigerian language teachers (ANLAT), (pp. 23 – 30). Aba: National Institute for Nigerian Languages. 23-30. Alajuruonye, L. (1998). Problems with implementing the language policy. Paper presented at the 2nd National conference of the association of Nigerian language teachers (ANLAT). St Peters Unity School Akure, . September 9-13 Anasiudu, B.N. (2003). The underlying pedagogic problems of the English language in Nigeria: A diachronic view. Nsukka Journal of the Humanities. 13, 136-147. Austin, J.L. (1961). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bodha, A.S. (1994). Lexical innovation processes in Cameroun English. World Englishes. 13 (2), 245-260. Bamgbose, A. (1998). Torn between the norms: Innovations in world Englishes. World Englishes, 13 (1), 47-60. Bamiro, E. (1994). Lexico-semantic variation in Nigeria. World Englishes, 8 (2), 165-177. Bokamba, E. (1982). The Africanization of English. In B.B. Kachru (Ed.), The other tongue: English across culture. Urbana: Illinois University Press. Cook, V. (1990). Second language learning and teaching. London: Edward Arnold. Finch, G. S. (1998). How to study linguistics. London: Macmillan Press. Finch, G. (2000). Linguistic terms and concepts. London: Macmillan Press. Igboanusi, H. (1998). Lexico-semantic innovation processes in Nigerian English. In African Languages and Linguistics (RALL), 4 (2), 87-102. Jowit, D. (1991). Nigerian English usage: An introduction. Ibadan: Longman Press Ltd. Katamba, F. (1989). An introduction to phonology. London: Longman Groups.

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015

66

Littlewood, W. (1981). Communicative language teaching: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McGuire, P. (2006). Language versus authenticity. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 6 (2), 1- 13. Mgbemena, J. (2012). Variation or language change? Lexical innovation process in Nigerian English. Presented to the staff seminar series, Institute for Nigerian languages, Aba. 18-12-2013. Napoli, D.J. (1996). Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Njoku, T. (2004). Nigerian languages and the democratic experience. In G. Alamu (Ed.), (pp.13-22). Olagoke, D.O. (1981). Lexical deviation in Nigerian English. Journal of Languages and Africa Culture, (JLAC), 2 (3-4), 35-59. Oluikpe, B.O. (1974). A neglected problem of English language education in Nigerian primary and secondary schools. Journal of Nigeria English Studies Association (JNESA), 11 (2), Richards, J.C. & Schmidt, R. (2002). Dictionary of language and applied linguistics. London: Longman Group Ltd. Uzodinma, E.C.C. (1973). Problem areas in language education in Nigerian secondary schools. Language Education in Nigeria. Conference Papers on English Language Problems and Methods (LEIN). (pp. ). Cudimac Series 2.

Nsukka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015