Power in Nigerian Pidgin (NP) Discourse

Abstract

Power may often be considered very significant when people of different classes, genders, races, ethnicities or religions interact especially in bilingual or multilingual milieus. This is very often expressed in the discourse of interlocutors with similar or different backgrounds or ethnic languages. Generally, especially in the public, Nigerian Pidgin (NP) is often denounced as an inappropriate, low class language by institutional authorities which constitute the power behind the discourse of political and social dominance and control as extrapolated by Fairclough (2001). However, the main objective of this paper is to show that NP speakers, as interlocutors belonging to the same class, the same socio-political and economic level, the same linguistic level, and living in the same place, Ajegunle, also demonstrate relationship of unequal power in their verbal interactions. Based on the conceptual frameworks propounded by Ventola (1979), Melrose (1995), Fairclough (2001, 2014), Gee (2004), Wodak & Meyer (2009) and Collings & Hollo (2010), I attempt a critical discourse analysis of NP, using sample texts obtained randomly at Ajegunle. It is demonstrated clearly in the way Nigerians interact among themselves, as NP speakers, that there is power in their discourse.

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