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PIDGIN
ENGLISH, EFFECTS AND DANGERS
ABSTRACT
The work
looks at the effects of the use of Pidgin English on the student’s ability to
learn English language in Nigeria secondary schools. Emphasis is on three
secondary schools in Lagos state.
Despite the
importance of Pidgin English, it has adversely affected the use of English
language. A great number of times, a student prefers to express his/herself in
Pidgin English rather than go through the rigours of speaking simple correct
English. Sometimes, they use it interchangeably and this results to
ungrammatical structures and non- standard English. When students resort to any
of the above mentioned problems, the importance of the English language
teaching is defeated. It is based on this problem that this research attempts
to find out the factors responsible for the problem and procure a possible
solution for them.
This work
also aims at finding the influence of Pidgin English on the ability of students
in learning English language. The method of findings in this essay includes
randomly selected secondary schools in Shasha area of Lagos state as mentioned
earlier.
The
sociological approach is used to examine the society and environment of its
use; it also looks at the position of Pidgin English and the English language
in Nigerian society. This essay is set to find out the adverse effect of Pidgin
English on students’ learning ability in English language resulting from their
environment and ethnic differences.
In the
course of this research, it was discovered that majority of students cannot
make clear error-free sentences; some cannot even communicate in the English
language except they were allowed to express themselves in Pidgin English. The
situation is really bad and the trend is not good as it lays bad precedence for
the university education and indeed questions the credibility of would be
graduates. This also accounts for the high rate of failure recorded in English
language examination every year in SSCE and NECO. If I may quote one of the
chief examiner’s words as he comments on the general performance of the 2007
senior secondary schools English language examination, he said, “contrary to
expectation, the performance of the candidates was awfully poor. Some of the
candidates scored zero in the whole paper, having failed to write an answer
that can earn a single mark in any section of the paper. It appears that a good
number of schools registered illiterate and unqualified candidates for this
test”.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
There have
been many speculations aout the origin of language over the years. Jespersen
(1921) proposed that human language originated while humans were enjoying
themselves in one of the more enduring speculations concerning the origin of
language. It remains however, a speculation. We simple do not know how language originated. However,
Yule (1985 1-4) argued that the origin of language could be divine, according
to one view, God created Adam and whatsoever Adam called every living creature,
that was the name thereof – (Genesis 2:9). Alternatively, following a Hindu
tradition, language came from the goddess Sarasvati, wife of Brahma, creator of
the universe. In an attempt to rediscover this original divine language, a few
experiments have been carried out, with rather conflicting results. The natural
sound was also seen as the concept of “:natural sounds”. The suggestion is that
primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sound which early men
and women heard around them. When an object flew by, making a CAWCAW sound, the
early humans imitated the sound and used it to refer to the object associated
with the sound.
Also, one
suggestion regarding the origin of the sounds of language involves a link
between physical gesture and orally produced sounds. It does seem reasonable
that physical gesture, involving the whole body, could have been a means of
indicating a wide range of emotional states and intentions. A quite different
level of speculation on the origins of human speech comes under the general
heading of gloss genetics. This focuses mainly on the biological basis on the
formation and development of human language.
Language
origin is inconsequential though, it is one of the major distinguishing factors
of man from animal because it forms the basis for communication which
essentially is a human characteristic. Effective communication, is spoken of
when there has been a large language well-conceived and articulated but of
course fathomable by the receiver who in turn decoded and send a feedback.
There is a need to note that there are different languages in the world with
their attendant dialect and variety problems.
The advent
of the colonial master in African presumably marked the beginning of the use of
the English language in the west Africa sub-regions. In other words, English
which is also Nigeria’s official language was brought to Africa by her former
colonial masters.
Nigeria,
being a multilingual nation, I suppose is one of the reason why English is
accepted as the language of official communication. The fact that most
Nigerians are illiterate and semi-illiterate made the using of English language
as the language of official communication a big problem. As a result, the
English language started having varieties, among which is, Pidgin English also known as Nigerian English.
Adedoyin
(1999. 40) is of the opinion that Pidgin English is developed from a contact
English (ce). He sees it as a first variety
of the Nigerian English. He stressed that when two people come in
contact, the necessity for communication would necessitate the evolvement of a
language of communication, a kind of inter-language, which will be a mixture of
the two languages in contact. He stressed that Nigeria Pidgin English is a
variety which is very strong among the less educated and educated people too. Pidgin
English is therefore defined as a language variety used for inter-ethic
context.
The oxford
advance learners dictionary defines pidgin as any of several languages
resulting from contact European traders and local people, for example, in West
Africa and the far east, containing elements of the local language(s) and
French or Dutch, still used for internal communication.
Yule (1996.
223-234) is of the view that it is a
variety of a language which was developed for some practical purposes, such as
trading among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who do not know
each other’s language.
According to
Opara (1999.52), pidgin English in Nigeria originated as a trade language that
is made up of foreign language and the local language. It also originated as a
result of the need for communication among Nigerians living in towns and cities
from different ethnic groups who have no common language. Spencer (1971) opined
that Nigerian pidgin English developed as a result of intertribal marriages.
The importance of Pidgin English in Nigeria cannot be over emphasized.
This version
of English cuts across institutions, establishments and societies yet it
remains the unofficial lingua-franca in Nigeria. It is the most effective means
if interaction among the illiterate servants of the learned masters, the market
women, and several other groups of people. The popularity of Pidgin English can
be seen in the various ways in which Nigerian business world and the media use
it. Apart from using pidgin English for advertisements on radio and television,
some bill boards disseminate their information using the pidgin English to
communicate to their readers. For example, Ken Saro Wiwa (1985) in his work,
Sozaboy (1965) used pidgin English. Also the work of Amos Tutuola, the Palm
Wine Drinkard is also written in the Pidgin English.
Soyinka
(1964.65) in his work, The Trial of Brother Jero and The Road respectively used
the pidgin English to accent the socio-economic aspects of Nigeria of them. In
most of his earlier works, the proportion of pidgin compared with English seems
to increase in favour of the former with the degree of informality of its
speakers particularly worth mentioning is the road.
Notwithstanding,
pidgin English though plays an important role in Nigeria, it also has some
adverse effects on children’s learning of the English language. They learn this
language early in life too. They may learn it from their parents of within the
environment which they live. Subsequently, they carry the language to school where
it becomes difficult for them to learn the proper language. Often, several
families live in the same compound or in a geographical area who do not
understand one another’s language; Pidgin becomes a convenient means of
communication among them. Children growing up in such area use the Pidgin
English officially and do not anything wrong in it.
At school,
especially in the southern Nigeria, where we have different ethnic groups residing in same settlements, for
instance, cities like Lagos, port Harcourt, Warri and other urban areas, Pidgin English is the commonest means of
communication especially outside the classroom. This makes it difficult for the
children of such settlements to use the correct or proper English in the class
room because they have learnt Pidgin early in life. It is against this
background that analysts have expressed concern over its continued use. They
believe that students who speak the Nigerian Pidgin English stand the risk of
losing fluency in the standard English going by the fact that the English
language is not just Nigeria’s official language but an internationally
recognised medium of communication in the contemporary world.
The
researcher is therefore out to investigate the following:
Whether the
use of pidgin English affect the students’ learning of English language
The effect
the use of pidgin English poses in use of English language
The role the
human brain paly in language acquisition.
It will look
into the history of the Pidgin English especially how it became so widely used,
and the role first language (LI) play in acquiring other languages. These will
be done discuss using the selected secondary school mentioned earlier.
1.1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS
It is
becoming increasingly difficult if a particular student really went to school
or perhaps was well schooled in the rudiments of English. It is not an over
statement if we say that most of the students cannot make simple, clear and
error-free sentences in English language.
This has been attributed to the frequent use of pidgin by students
either by way of code switching or code mixing in communication at home, school
and their neighbourhood.
Though
Pidgin English is fast becoming more and more important as a language but
notwithstanding, English remain the only official language of communication in
Nigeria. Therefore Pidgin English, when it is first learnt by children, poses
some problems in their later life. They will find it difficult to differentiate
between pidgin and Standard English both in their spoken and written form.
Again the
use of pidgin impeded proper communication in the sense that the children have
limited language as a means of communication in a country like ours. Where
English becomes a problem for a child when he gets to school as he cannot
understand the teacher because the only language he/she understands in pidgin
English.
1.2 AIM
This work
aims at finding the influence of pidgin
English on the ability of students in
learning language.
1.3 OBJECTIVES
The
objective of this study is to find out effects of Pidgin English on the
students learning ability in English language, the performance of student in
the English language and the possible solution to this problem.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
Students and
teachers, government, parents, authors, and publishers of English textbooks are
expected to benefit from the findings of this study. Students are going to
benefit from the study because they will discover that pidgin has some
limitations. For instance, they cannot use pidgin to write internal
examinations. They cannot use pidgin to communicate their ideas in the midst of
educated people. This study will help them begin to use English so as to be
conversant in it and at the same time meet their academic attainment. This
study will benefit the teachers in that it will move them to use simple and
correct English in teaching instead of Pidgin English. The school management
board will also benefit from this study since it will help them to understand
the causes of failure in English in the senior school certificate examinations
and other unified English examinations. The authors of textbooks at all level
of learning are not left out among the beneficiaries. This study will enable
them to realize that using pidgin English to express themselves will not in any
way build up the students whom they are trying to build.
1.5 RESEARCH METHODOLLOGY
This section
of the work explains the methodology to be employed by the researcher. The work
will sample the opinion of students from the schools under study as mentioned
earlier using questionnaires.
1.6 METHOD OF DATA CCOLLECTION
A total of
sixty questionnaires will be distributed to the schools under study. The items
in the questionnaires are prepared adequately to achieve the intended purposes
of this work. The questionnaires will be given to the students at random and collected
for computing and analysis.
1.7 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Does the use of Pidgin by way of
code-switching affect fluency in the use of English language?
Does the use
of Pidgin ensure better comprehension of the English language?
Does the
mother tongue affect further language acquisition or help broaden students’
horizon for more language acquisition?
Does Pidgin
affect student’s reading ability in English language?
Does Pidgin
affect student’s writing skills English language?
Does Pidgin
affect student’s listening skill in English language?
Are students
in the ss1 class different from the students in ss3 class in their attitude
towards the use of English?
Can
students’ choice of subject influence their attitude towards the use of Pidgin
English?
1.8 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study
has been limited to three schools in Shasha area of Lagos state. The reason
being that the researcher has taught and still teaching in some of the schools
in the areas under study and has discovered that most of the students express themselves mostly in Pidgin English
despite the efforts most teachers have
made to improve their performance in the English language. The schools under
study are:
Access
Universal College
Pacific
Comprehensive College
State High
School
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
The
following terms are defined here in relation to their context usage:
Pidgin
English: this is an informal
language used among people from different ethnic group who already have mother
tongue before coming in contact with English.
Nigeria
English (NE): this refers to the variety of world English
which is spoken by Nigerians with the peculiarities and worldview of Nigerians
adequately represented.
Standard
English: this refers to the language
of the British which is generally accepted and use as an official language in
Nigeria.
Mother
tongue: this refers to the first
language a person learns to speak before acquiring any other language. It is
also known as first language. (LI)
British
English: this is the variety of
English used and spoken in Britain.
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