ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC PROFILE OF THE NILE UNIVERSITY, ABUJA: POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

The sociolinguistic profile of the Nile University, Abuja is the type that should raise the curiosity of a researcher who is interested in communication. This researcher developed a hunch that there must be communication failure in the classroom discourse between lecturers and their students when he observed that the university is populated with academic and non-academic staff and students from different parts of the world, including Turkey, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Ghana, and Nigeria. The language of communication and instruction in the university, like all other universities in Nigeria, is English. The various peoples in the university speak the English Language in their distinct accents (the scope of the study is phonological). To analyse the effects of these varying accents in English in the classroom discourse between lecturers and their students, the researcher recorded some lectures which he tested on some selected students of the university in order to establish whether they had problems perceiving their lecturers' accents of English or not. The data generated were presented and analysed using simple statistical methods. The Labovian variationist approach to sociolinguistics was used. The finding was that the various accents affected perception adversely in the lecturer-student discourse. Discussions including policy suggestions were made for stakeholders to implement. It is hoped that in the end, stakeholders including lecturers, students, university managements and administrators will do their bits to improve classroom discourse between lecturers and students in Nigeria.