Pidgin English proverbs as a source of structural nativization in Nigerian English

Bibliographic Data

ID18978101
AuthorsMarcus Callies (0000-0002-7069-5819, Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, English‐Speaking Cultures University of Bremen Bremen Germany, corresponding author), Folajimi Oyebola (0000-0003-4528-0563, Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, English‐Speaking Cultures University of Bremen Bremen Germany)
Year2025
Volume44
Issue1-2
Pages166-183
Publication date2025-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueWorld Englishes (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0883-2919 • E-ISSN: 1467-971X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/weng.12699
OpenAlexW4401067441
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited33

In this paper, we explore the role of Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) proverbs in language contact settings and their impact on the development of idiomatic phraseology in Nigerian English (NgE). In a set of 100 NPE proverbs, we identified lexical keywords that served as anchors for searches in the large‐scale Nairaland corpus to detect recurrent collocational patterns that in further proximity searches yielded frequent, lexico‐grammatically variable patterns that may be interpreted as innovations at the early stages of idiom formation. The findings suggest that cognitively motivated key lexical items of NPE proverbs may serve as a basis for the formation of variable but also lexico‐grammatically more condensed idiomatic expressions in NgE

Creole language · Linguistics · Pidgin · Sociology · Gender Studies in Language · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Philosophy · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism