In:World Englishes on the Web: The Nigerian diaspora in the USA
Mirka Honkanen
[Varieties of English Around the World G63] 2020
► pp. v–vii
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Published online: 11 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g63.toc
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g63.toc
Table of contents
Chapter 1.Introduction1
Chapter 2.The sociolinguistics of the Nigerian diaspora9
2.1Nigeria as a reference point10
2.1.1The demographics of Nigeria: A buzzing giant10
2.1.2English in Nigeria11
2.1.3The status of Nigerian Pidgin14
2.1.4The educated Nigerian linguistic repertoire17
2.2Nigerians in the United States: “They are immigrants and they are Black”18
Chapter 3.Resources, repertoires, and authenticity in times of globalization23
3.1Crossing24
3.2The sociolinguistics of globalization26
3.3Resources and languages28
3.4Repertoires30
3.5Authenticity35
3.5.1Language and authenticity35
3.5.2Doing authentic Nigerianness41
3.5.2.1Key concepts of cultural membership41
3.5.2.2Approaches to cultural authenticity44
Chapter 4.Data and methods47
4.1Web forums as a data source48
4.1.1Nairaland: A Nigerian web forum48
4.1.2Nairaland as a virtual community52
4.2Corpus compilation and composition54
4.2.1The “World languages – digital languages” project54
4.2.2The Nairaland 2 corpus55
4.2.3The Net Corpora Administration Tool55
4.2.4The core 50 subcorpus57
4.3Global comparisons: The Corpus of Global Web-based English59
4.4Methods of analysis60
4.5Legal and ethical issues67
Chapter 5.African Americans and their vernacular English71
5.1Relations between U.S.-Nigerians and African Americans: “How Deep Is The Resentment?”72
5.2Attitudes toward AAVE: “ibonics is identity for an african american”82
5.3Linguistic features of AAVE85
Chapter 6.African-American linguistic resources in diasporic Nigerian repertoires91
6.1User types91
6.1.1User type I: Consistent experts92
6.1.2User type II: Inconsistent experts94
6.1.3User type III: Occasional users96
6.1.4User type IV: Minimal users99
6.1.5User type V: Non-users100
6.2AAVE features and practices103
6.2.1Authenticity issues103
6.2.1.1Controversial identities: “Reppin where am from faithfully”.103
6.2.1.2Reactions to expert usage of AAVE: “We NIGERIANS don’t talk street”.111
6.2.2Styleshifting into AAVE119
6.2.2.1Rap battling: “The music of hope. .and by the way its black”119
6.2.2.2Accommodation to one’s interlocutors: “Whatcha been up to homie?”125
6.2.2.3Fictional narratives: “Shes Ghetto and She’s got it all!”127
6.2.3Verbal markers131
6.2.3.1Habitual or iterative invariant be133
6.2.3.2Perfect done140
6.2.3.3Remote past been147
6.2.3.4Futurate finna149
6.2.3.5Futurate I’ma154
6.2.4Lexical and orthographic AAVE features164
6.2.4.1Spelling: “They call each others Doggs .. or is it dawgs?”164
6.2.4.2Lexis: “This is not hate! This is Real Talk!”173
6.2.5Practices of minimal usage: “Like my African american brothers go say”187
6.2.6Highly popular features202
6.2.6.1
Ain’t and other issues of negation: “I use the word ‘aint’ because i can”202
6.2.6.2Second-person plural pronoun y’all: “t’sup y’all?”212
6.2.6.3Augmentation with ass: “Is their sacral bone fractured or what?”218
Chapter 7.Nigerian linguistic resources in diasporic Nigerian repertoires229
7.1Nigerian Pidgin as a resource: “Pidgin English dey relieve stress well well”229
7.2Ethnic Nigerian languages: “My yoruba has improved ke? i’m a yoruba girl now!”248
7.3Nigerian English on the forum: “Critical parts of the Nigerian lexicon”253
7.3.1Morphosyntactic features254
7.3.2Lexical and stylistic features259
7.3.3Orthographic features: “Nigerians will grin and say ‘Yes sah’”267
7.4Abbreviations: “Thats the new lol o!”273
Chapter 8.Discussion277
Chapter 9.Conclusion305
References315
Index
