Nigerian Bilinguals’ Linguistic and Cultural Identity Management Practices as Possible Precursors of Endangerment

Abstract

This survey was carried out among Nigerian-language-English bilinguals to compare the extent of their use of the English Language with that of their indigenous languages and also find out if they are conscious of subjecting their indigenous languages as well as their cultural identities to avoidable extinction. Copies of a self-constructed eleven-item questionnaire validated at 91.4 Cronbach alpha were administered to two hundred bilingual undergraduates got through a multi-stage sampling procedure. One hundred and ninety-nine copies were useful and the data collected were analysed using frequency counts, percentages, and t-test statistical tools in answering three research questions and testing three null hypotheses. The findings showed that Nigerian undergraduates speak English more frequently than their indigenous languages for informal interactions, a slightly greater proportion of the female sample prefer to use English language in informal interactions, the use of English for informal interactions is more common among students of the private university than the public ones, there are no significant differences between the undergraduates from minority linguistic groups and those from majority language groups in their sense of foreboding on the likely death of their languages, there is no significant difference in readiness to change language behaviour patterns between minority language Nigerian students and their majority language counterparts, and there is no significant difference between males and females in their readiness to start using their indigenous languages for informal transactions in order to save such languages.