This paper examines the relationship between standard language ideologies and ethnicity as performed in music. This is premised against the assumption that research on language and race/ethnicity has tended to focus more on institutional settings and how ideologies about race or ethnicity are (re) produced and sustained through language policies and practices in these settings while little is done to account for how these tendencies are performed out of institutional settings. It is against this backdrop that this paper examines two Cameroonian songs as sites wherein ideologies about standard language are sustained and challenged. The ethnicisation of linguistic sounds in one True Feelings permeates a colonial tendency establishing the standard norm versus the non-standard variety between British English and Cameroon English or New Englishes in general. The purported Standard English is depicted as the norm against which deviant forms are judged. This tendency is decolonised Be Proud wherein plea is made to diversity and linguistic plurality as the alternation between different sound forms and structures is associated to the creative potential of the language. The analysis therefore demonstrates that there is need to consider and amplify the enormous research in the emerging field of Raciolinguistics by extending the debate into informal settings where such ideological work is either sustained or challenged.

This paper examines the discursive representation of power distribution between men (as husbands) and women (as wives) in Nollywood movies to unravel the ideological resource(s) against which such power is vested. Gender representation in Nollywood movies is imbued with ideologies that index differential power relations between men and women within the family circle. The bone of contention remains the distribution of power between men and women, with a tendency to always see women as victimized and sidelined social actors. Movie producers either sustain or subvert these ideological propensities. From this perspective, this paper examines the role of ideology in power distribution between men (as husbands) and women (as wives) within the marriage institution in an attempt to answer the following questions. What resource (s) is/are depicted as power resource(s) in Nollywood movies? Through what discursive means are these ideological propensities sustained or subverted in the two selected movies? As a follow-up to these questions, this paper hypothesized that wealth/money is ideologically tantamount to power within the family unit. Nollywood filmmakers use discursive linguistic and non-linguistic strategies to sustain this ideology. The analysis demonstrates that wealth is represented as a power resource, a representation that engenders unwarranted pursuit for wealth/money to wield power. The representation and understanding of women’s domestic roles, sex roles, and other related political roles as marginal rather than complementary have tended to create resistance resulting in miscommunication and unnecessary tensions.

This paper sets out to analyze the depiction of Nigerian traditional religious practices vis-à-vis Western religious practices in some Nigerian movies against the backdrop that some Nollywood films are imbued with ideologies that uphold and promulgate western Christian values at the expense of core Nigerian traditional religious values. Previous studies demonstrate that the tendency in Western religious thought has been to see African cultural practices and spirituality as void of moral character in the history of human civilization deserving distillation. It is unfortunate that the tendency for most African filmmakers is still to produce contents that discredit Nigerian spirituality by portraying it as void of moral character. The study is informed by Multimodal Discourse Analysis which provides methodological tools applied in the analyses of the selected movies. The paper, therefore, analyses the discursive strategies used to promote western Christian practices against those of Nigeria in particular and Africa at large in the movies under study. This paper assumes that Nigerian traditional religions and spirituality are depicted in contrast to western religious values in a conflicting space. By depicting custodians of Nigerian traditional religions and spirituality in malevolent practices in contrast to custodians of western religion depicted as benevolent, the filmmakers in the films under study undermine the essence of Nigerian core values. The analyses demonstrate that the Nollywood movies selected for the study are imbued with stereotypes that serve a colonial agenda by properly engaging Nigeria’s religious history with western religions. They serve as a medium through which western religious ideologies are upheld at the detriment of traditional Nigerian values in particular and African in general.