Linguistic Imperialism in Nigerian Aspect

Linguistic Imperialism in Nigerian Aspect

The tide of western colonialism has ebbed for decades, yet the concomitant linguistic consequences have never come to an end. Unlike brutal invasions in the settlement of colonial territories, linguistic hegemony is established in a gentler way. The hegemony of English is referred as linguistic imperialism by Phillipson^[1], who defines it to be “dominance asserted and retained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages”. Phillipson’s discourse has provoked a continuous debate on the influence of linguistic imperialism. However, this essay holds the view that linguistic imperialism is definitely a problem, especially in the sense of linguistic inequality and diversity. Reasons will be discussed in the instance of Nigeria, which is selected for its great representativeness among Africa countries.

Nigeria was founded by the artificial combination of three different language based regions, Hausa in the North, Yoruba in the West and Igbo in the East according to the will of its British colony in 1914^[2]. Being the largest country in Africa, Nigeria has a population of more than 150 million. It is also considered one of the countries enjoying the highest language diversity in the world, with more than 400 languages spoken among its population^[3]. However, Nigeria is categorized by researchers as a country under linguistic imperialism^[4].

Interestingly, given multiple choices, instead of promoting indigenous language to fulfil decolonization purpose after independence, Nigerian government went into a straight English policy to unite the nation, chose English to be the official language. As a general acceptance of English has been laid back to the colonial past under British government, this policy further consolidate and justify the use of English over indigenous languages. English stands out from the three main indigenous languages in the political arena originally in that it is considered by the Nigerian government a neutral choice while recognizing any of the other three places a risk of ethnicity problem.

However, the contradiction between linguistic pluralism and political unity may not hold at all. For example, Malaysia is in similar language structure with Nigeria with Malay, Chinese and Tamil as three indigenous languages and English widely used as colonial language. In contrast, Malay is recognized as the official language with English only a second language and apparently, Malaysia is well united under language diversity. Malaysia’s success proves that a multilingual nation can be built not ethnically divisive and with its indigenous languages enjoying an equal status with English. Although it is what Nigeria government is calling for today, linguistic imperialism has already undermined the equality between languages during the process of negotiation, persuasion and legitimation^[5]. According to the survey of Danladi^[6] on language usage, only 24 percent of government officials admit the use of indigenous language in state houses of Assembly, and most publications and press are delivered only in English. English has completed the transformation from a language used for mere communication purpose under colonial relationship to an official practice in almost every daily aspects, including finance, education, law, administration, etc.

More specifically, linguistic Imperialism can cause language inequality, which refers to the unequal social valuation on English over indigenous languages. It is especially the case when the official is saturated in an unconscious but inrooted belief since colonial period that English serves better social functions and are more suitable for political and economic development than indigenous languages. Once English becomes the monopoly representative of power and profit, it gains its linguistic superiority. Fluent English speakers in the community can take advantage of additional resources available to form dominance over others, and the dominance of social status is closely related to people’s attitude toward languages. Facing material benefit, they are more prone to make spontaneous choice in language shift than in natural environment, as is illustrated by Nettle^[7], with the inequality in socioeconomic power widening, metropolitan language (English) is squeezing the space of peripheral language at an astonishing speed. Peripheral speakers may shift their tongue to English in pursuit of more opportunities and a promotion in socioeconomic status. In Nigeria, the instance of English translators, whose mere command of English can position them in the richest among the country^[8], is a perfect interpretation on the above relationship. On one hand, it reflects the indispensability of English on the way to power and profit. On the other hand, it mirrors a society with huge demand of English ability, which is said to be the equivalent of socioeconomic power in previous discussion.

The same conclusion (Linguistic imperialism leads to linguistic inequality) can be reached when it comes to the education sector of Nigeria. No matter the mushrooming of straight-for-English nursery in urban central, or the instructional and research use of English in tertiary education^[9], both reveal a socioeconomic power imbalance behind. Additionally, when an instructor presents teaching materials in English other than indigenous varieties in the classroom, it is subliminal for students to perceive its superiority^[10].Source of inequality is sowed in education period by linguistic imperialism.

Generally speaking, linguistic inequality is dangerous in that it shares an inextricable interrelationship with wider inequalities^[11]. When the comprehensibility of a non-indigenous language becomes member of parameters in evaluating one’s social functionality and effectiveness, it is natural to generate or even strengthen wider inequalities, such as inequalities in socioeconomic and culture.  

Apart from linguistic inequality, another problem arises when English teaching techniques cannot catch up with people’s enthusiasm in acquiring it given that indigenous languages have taken second place to English. In other words, when existing English teaching resources are not sufficient to fulfill the need of English learning, most learners are getting exposure to English in an inefficient way, in the price of a competence in their indigenous language that could have been achieved in the same amount of time consumed. According to Adeniyi^[12], even in Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, many children cannot speak and write English well, nor can they speak in their mother tongue. This may happen when their grandmothers, whose speaking English is not qualified for teaching, are forced by children’s parents to speak English at home. It does not mean that indigenous languages are dying because of its being ignored under the stroke of English, in fact, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo is still popular in Nigeria, but the integrity and purity of both language may be undermined in this rough transmission process. Nigerian pidgin is a product of such process, in which people mix indigenous vocabulary and grammar with English expressions. For example, “You are coming, right?” in English is mixed with words like “dey” and “abi” to be “You dey come abi?”^[13] . When people are speaking pidgin, they are speaking neither English nor their own indigenous language, but are speaking one as the product of linguistic imperialism. This actually hurts language diversity in Nigeria, since individual integrity is to some extent the basis of macro diversity. Under linguistic imperialism, many minority languages in Nigeria have no choice but to survive in a highly pidginized form, in which original vocabulary and grammar are heavily influenced by syntax in English. For example, Tarok, used to be a regionally important language in central Nigeria, now loses part of its identification due to numbers of construction similarity with others^[14]. If features of different languages cannot be distinguished, there will be no saying of linguistic diversity.