Naijá ideologies within its native population can help in shaping focused policy interventions
What is it about?
In this publication I present the thematic analysis of a corpus of interviews and a questionnaire survey conducted in southern Nigeria in 2013, about ideologies connected to Naijá, a creole language whose lexicon comes mainly from English. These ideas refer to possible domains of language use and the nature of the language itself. I identify and name multiple ideologies and highlight how these differ considerably between the group of native vs. non native speakers of the language. Common held beliefs about the language demean it as a language with poor value. Native speakers, i.e. first language speakers of Naijá, have more positive ideas about it, and these ideas could constribute shaping interventions aimed at increasing the status of the language.
Why is it important?
This work is relevant to scholars and community members concerned with status planning of Naijá in southern Nigeria and especially in communities where the language is used as (one among the) first languages. It is also unique in the fine-tune analysis of language ideologies connected to Naijá in southern Nigeria among both native and non-native language speakers.