King Shumba, Smiling Devil and Baby Doctor: A sociolinguistic study of lecturers’ nicknames in two Nigerian universities

Abstract

This article explores the categories of nicknames which students in two Nigerian universities assign to lecturers. It interrogates the motivations behind lecturers’ nicknames and defines the socio-academic circumstances in which nicknames are given and used. The study is rooted in the socio-onomastic theory of nicknames which views nicknames as social actions that are bounded by social negotiations. Drawing on ethnographic data collected through participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations with twenty students and ten lecturers in each of these universities, the study discovers that students discreetly appropriate nicknames to their lecturers for a number of reasons, namely: (i) to lampoon their lecturers in a way that the school context does not overtly permit, (ii) to capture the classroom identity of the lecturers, and (iii) to create humour either in stigmatising or extolling their lecturers’ teaching behaviour, appearance or habits of speech. In this way, students use nicknames to confer social personalities on their lecturers, and they also serve as discreet internal evaluation mechanisms for their teachers in the lived everyday experience of the school environment.

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