Nigerian Pidgin English: Multi-Prepositional Functionality of “Fo” Among Nigerian Staff of Ces in Manchaster

Abstract

Given its degree of neutrality and linguistic simplicity among the culturally and linguistically heterogeneous people of Nigeria, it can be rightly argued that Nigerian Pidgin English (henceforth NPE) is currently undergoing a shift towards creolization. In the past, NPE was regarded as "unruly jargon", "vulgar" and "broken English" mainly associated with a socio-economically deprived set of people. The reason for this negative perception was in connection to its origin as mainly a trade language which distanced its speakers from the speakers of language of the educated class, the lexifier English. This implies that the typical speakers of NPE were those who had little or no formal education.Recently, Nigerians have adopted a change in nomenclature from NPE to "Naija" because of its expanding functionality. The term "Naija" as used by the speakers of NPE refers to "Nigeria" as a country. The change to the reformed name is an attempt to erase the negative perception and attitude people have towards NPE as "broken English", argued to be either inaccurate or derogatory. NPE has become so popular that it is now recognized as one of the four commonly spoken languages in Nigeria while it competes with Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba -the country's national languages (Emananjo, 1985). It now operates as a de facto lingua franca, a bridge between social classes and ethnicities even when it lacks a standard orthography.The reality is that NPE, which was considered to be a debased, bastardized, jargonized and intellectually inferior language in Nigeria, is gradually growing to the status of language of wider communication. Media houses Studies on NPE revealed that it derives its vocabulary from English (superstrate), and its sound system from the syntax of the local languages (substrate). This study examined how the preposition "fo" (English "for") functions differently in various context, and what inherent meaning it has that explains its semantic versatility. The study was conducted with fifteen (15) Nigerian staff of CES, all within the age bracket of between 20 and 40 years. Four (4) participants were females while eleven (11) were males. The data were collected through naturally occurring casual speech. The findings revealed that "fo" can coincide with the English "for"; "fo" can function as a possessive marker when it precedes a proper noun; "fo" can function as "in" both as spatial and temporal; "fo" can function as "inside" (spatial) to overtly indicate the relationship between direct and indirect objects; "fo" can function as "on" (spatial locative [positional] & temporal), the interpretation of which is determined by the listener's semantic instinct at notional level coupled with the type of nominal in the string; "fo" can function as "of" to indicate a point of reference; "fo" can function as "by" (preposition of agent); and "fo" can also function as the spatial "to" (directional) among other roles. This study further revealed that "fo" in NPE is used to specify the mood and attitude of the speaker. With the findings fr...