Writing practices and ideologies of power: a sociolinguistic study of advertisements in Nigerian Pidgin

Abstract

So far, only a small body of work has addressed the expansion of the communicative functions of contact languages in the Atlantic basin (e.g. Heyd & Mair 2014; Moll 2015). The absence of top-down, state-administered language policies requires looking at the standardizing and multiplier roles of private digital media (e.g. Beltman 2018), instant messaging, social media, pop music, and visual media. The emergence of more formal registers in contact languages on both sides of the Atlantic, including the spread of vernacular orthographies opens up possibilities for the study of language policies and language ideologies (e.g. Migge, Léglise & Bartens 2010; Yakpo 2016). Pidgins and creoles, by virtue of the nature of their emergence from contact situations are sites for examining the role social factors have played and continue to play in the development of language. Nigerian Pidgin (aka Naija (Langwej), a West African contact language that evolved out of contact situations between speakers of English varieties and Nigerian languages, is essentially a spoken language with emerging orthographic practices. Drawing on theoretical approaches that view language as socially constructed in use, this paper examines the use of non-standardised orthography in written texts obtained from billboard advertisements in Naija within the Nigerian social context. The study explores in what ways non-standardised language practises are being empowered by their use in the advertising space: what informs the choice of the medium (Naija) to convey written messages in Naija in spite of its non-standardised orthographic status? Who are the target audience? What considerations inform the choice of an English based orthography for Naija when it is only accessible to those who are literate in English? The findings of the study will have implications for orthographic standardisation of Naija and other non-standardised varieties.