The Manifestation of Non-Standard Usage of English Among University Students: The Syntactic Perspective
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
This work intends to observe the non standard usage of English among university students from the sentence level. The research will identify if students really use the non Standard English in their interaction. English in a contact situation or as a second language of Nigerians tend to have some errors in the usage.
CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review
An elaborated review is needed in a study of this nature. To this end a survey of the opinion of some scholars on related area such as Standard English, the status of English in Nigeria was conducted and presented in this chapter.
Standard English
There is a reasonable consensus in the sociolinguistics literature about the term standardized language. The notion “Standard English” is somewhat imprecise and a direct and deliberate invention by the society to create a class and Standard for language. Hudson (1980:32) says: Standardization produces a Standard language among dialects; when the words and sentences of English are described. Yule (1985:180) defines Standard English as: “The variety which form the basis of print in newspaper and books which is used in the mass media and in schools … it is the variety normally taught to those who want to learn English as a second language”.
For a language to be Standard, there must be a referent and a model which that language must follow and this has to be the prescribed grammatical rules of that language which when one fails to follow, an incorrect grammar is produced which is in total deviance with the model. Quirk (1962:100) says: “Standard English is basically an ideal mode of expression that we seek when we wish to communicate beyond our immediate community with members of the nation as a whole or with members of wider community, English speakers as a whole”.
As an ideal, it cannot be perfected realized and we must expect that members of different wider communities and of course, Nigeria may have different realization operating in the continuum, but gearing towards what Kachru 1983 calls in his model, the inner core, Standard English, according to Allan (1999:32), can be further generally trichotomized into Scots, welsh and English varieties. Ahulu (1999:33) collaborates Quirks statement as he says: “The concept of Standard English is over the pedagogic principles or notion of correctness which is prescriptive and its discrimination between usages that are acceptable or unacceptable as a standard practice”.
Ahulu (1999:36) adds: “For a language to be standard, it must pass through filter … usage are not labeled standard merely because they are used and found acceptable by native speaker. The additional criterion … is the acceptability of such usage among educated people”.
Hudson (1996:33) come up with the criteria of the filter which a language must be sifted before it is said to be standard which are selection, codification, elaboration of function, acceptability (by the educated class) and intelligibility (international).
The Status of English in Nigeria
Among the different language spoken in Nigeria, English as a language has carved a niche out for itself. It is a language of its own class that emerged out of a mammoth of other languages. English language did not come to Nigeria just on its own. Its incursion into Nigeria was caused by lots of factors like trading, slavery, colonization and missionary activities in Nigerian by the Europeans and this was done in phases. English language in Nigeria was imported from Britain and adequately modified from time to time through the process of adaptation since its incursion in Nigerian environment. Its dominance in government circle in the colonial times and particularly in the 1950’s to the present is an uncontroversial fact. In fact, its dominance in recent times has reached an unbearable peak with the increasing impact of globalization in world economy and technology. British council made some interesting and impressive statement about the extent in which the English language is used in the world today. It says that it is used in over 70 countries as an official or semi official language and it has important status in over 20 countries including Nigeria. Third quarter of the world mail is written in English, while 80% of the world’s electronically stored information is done in English, of the estimated 40 million users of the internet, majority of its users communicate in English (Arsoba, 2000:1).
Nigeria as a country has its own variety of English which differ from that of other countries. On investigation of the English language in Nigeria thus far, there is no doubt that students tend to use non Standard English. In a multilingual environment like Nigeria which has many indigenous languages spoken in the country. It is the usefulness of a language that determines the status or importance of the language in the midst of other competing languages in the linguistic market place. Non-standard English in Nigeria has been marked by the feature and characteristics typical of endonormative stability, (Ekpe, 2007).
CHAPTER THREE
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
Having reviewed some selected literature related to the study subject matter in the previous chapter, in this chapter therefore, the data obtained for the study would be presented systematically and proficiently analyzed.
Data Presentation and Analysis
The grammatical features of English language spoken among final year students of Usmanu Danfodiyo University are expressions that are not in conformity with the norms of the Standard British English. Such expressions are seen as unacceptable to the native speakers of English language.
The implication of the deviance and deviation of Nigeria users of English language is that it diminishes international intelligibility and such errors and deviation could occasionally lead to misinterpretation of the communicative functions of the utterance.
In effect, the new communication norms develop for English in Nigeria could result in the performance of a communicative act which a Nigerian encoder does not intend and which the foreign decoder unfortunately misinterprets. The grammatical errors in this regard are not limited to phrases, clauses but also sentences.
Similarly, even though the topic of this project is a broad one, but for the purpose of this study we limited examples of cases of grammatical constraints alone. These are however best presented below “SBE” is used to refer to the “standard British English” where as “NE” is used to refer to the “Nigerian English”.
CHAPTER FOUR
Introduction
Having presented and analyzed the data in the previous chapter, the summary of the major findings followed by the conclusion and recommendation are presented in this chapter.
Summary of Findings
This project on the manifestation of non standard usage among final students (a syntactic perspective) is in essence a way to clearly identify the non standard usage of English among Nigeria speakers of English and also identify their grammatical constraint in the standard language.
The characteristics of Nigerian English appear in all the level of language analysis. The grammatical characteristics of Nigerian English have to do with the deviation from the rules of combining of words into phrases, and sentences.
The deviations can be seen in the areas of faulty structuring of words, wrong use of correlative conjunctions, wrong collocation of verbs and phrasal verbs, wrong application of plurals and idioms.
The fact remains that the various cultural and socio-linguistic thought of Nigerians cannot be adequately expressed in the standard form of the English language. It is clear that English has become an important language which cannot be easily discarded in Nigeria. It has become a Nigerian language which has provided another means for Nigerians to express their culture. Its use in the educational sector will remain as long as there is no alternative to replace it.
Different linguistic systems often have to mutually co-exist and struggle for predominance both in the individual and in the society as a whole. In the Nigerian context, the English language, though deliberate government politicalineptness, has outdone all other indigenous languages in establishing itself functionally as prim sinter pares. Translation from Nigerian language and cross-linguistic reverberation. These deviations from linguistic normality should rather be seen as products of the inconsistency of English language rules and cultural influence on language.
The findings indicate that the corpus of Nigeria English expressions used by the final students of the Department of Modern European Languages and Linguistics is dominantly marked by deviation. This further justifies the notable lack of proficiency that characterizes the usage of many undergraduate.
The grammatical variations have been demonstrated in this research and have been a pervasive characteristic of the Nigeria variety of English, which has been cultivated and nativised to accommodate the culture and traditions of the people. Success in helping the Nigeria speaker acquire appropriate forms of the target language depends on the identification of absolute standard by which to judge progress.
Conclusion
This project in essence has affirmed the use of non-standard English of most final year students. This is by no means a condemnation of it grammatical constraints which for sometime has been a subject of debate.
However, despite the acceptance of the existence of Nigerians English, there are still certain issues related to it which has not yet been sorted out. Some of these issues include phonological and semantics as well as the role it plays among Nigerians in their daily needs to communicate and interact with one another in official positions. The issue of officialuse or function as raised here is in fact a critical one.
This study has in essence show that individual speakers of one language wishing to express their feelings and using another language may not be able to do exactly as the native speakers of the language. Speakers of English language in Nigeria tend to think some of these ungrammatical sentences are correct because they saw it on a newspaper or been used by their lecturers in school and that tends to manifest in them. A clear demonstration of the grammatical constraints can be represented which in fact the findings revealed. So, in any given situation where learners of a second language are required to do better, there is need for special consideration of the fact that much has to be leant about the standard language.
Recommendation
Having investigated the issue of the manifestation of non Standard English among university students which has in fact show positive result, there are certain things which need to be checked. Some of these things are issues that relateto the teaching and learning of the language particularly the standard language in a Nigeria situation.
Given the numerous roles of English language in Nigeria, the language should be given priority in its teaching and learning. This will go a long way in enhancing its use in all areas especially in the education system. Good books and other learning materials in the subject should be made available by the government and the syllabus at all levels of the education system should be made functional such that learners will find the subject more interesting. Nigerian teachers of English language should strive on their teaching skills by using methodologies that will enable the students to gain competence in the use of the Standard English language
Language teachers need to be aware of the existence of different varieties of English, NigerianEnglish inclusive. They have to be careful in providing learners with the appropriate form. This is because; some of the ways in which problems arise in the learning process include lack of awareness from the teachers of the existence of difference varieties of English each with its definite features. Thus, the teachers themselves have to master the appropriate variety which is standard British a later time; they may consider the learning of other varieties.
Similarly, the teachers as a matter of utter must importance should provide learners with knowledge of both the forms for them to be able to clearly differentiate and make their own choice as which to use and when to use them.
Finally, it should also be made necessary that not only language teachers are required to learn the different varieties of English and know how and when to use those, government officials also should be included. There is need for formal documentation and expression of government interest not only within but also outside the country.
REFERENCE
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