GLOBALIZATION: IGBO TRADERS AND LANGUAGE USE ON CUSTOMERS

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 2021

The research aims at investigating inclusion strategies in Nigeria business places by taking a look at the way buyers and sellers use language while engaging in business transactions and the effect it has in the whole dealings. This is especially as they have diverse choices before them. Giles’ Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) which addresses convergence and divergence is used as a theoretical framework to reveal the socio-pragmatic elements in the discourse of a multi-cultural Nigeria business places. The research tries to see how inclusiveness is achieved in the face of diversity. Findings reveal that several languages come in contact with one another, including English, Yoruba, Pidgin, Igbo and Hausa in the market transactions in Nigeria. Participants employ various bargaining and pragmatic strategies which include greetings, humour, cajoling, flattery, pleading as well as code-switching and code-mixing. The study helps to establish that both buyers and sellers want to be...

2015

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper was to analyse the communication strategies employed by miraa traders from Igembe and Somali origin, in their business discourse. The researchers were given the impetus to undertake this study because of the uniqueness exhibited in miraa traders ’ discourse. The study aimed at establishing communication strategies depicted in their discourse and was guided by the Politeness Theory as advanced by Brown and Levinson (1987) and Communication Accommodation Theory by Giles (1971) to form the basis of its theoretical framework. The study was carried out at Muringene Market and in Maua Town in Kenya. It employed the social networks approach to identify participants. The purposive sampling procedure was used. Data was collected by tape-recording negotiations as miraa traders went on with their business interactions and through non-participants observation. Data analysis was largely qualitative. The study found out that miraa traders make use of sever...

Cahiers d'études africaines, 1985

B. Mùller -Les marchandises comme monnaies : l'intégration de la traite d'outremer dans la structure commerciale interne des Igbo du Sud-Est-Nigeria. Les recherches récentes ont prouvé l'existence, en pays igbo, d'importants échanges internes, indépendants du commerce avec l'outre-mer et probablement antérieurs à son apparition. Il est dès lors possible de démontrer que le commerce européen de la première moitié du xixe siècle répondait à une demande africaine et fournissait des marchandises utilisées comme « monnaies » indigènes dans l'intérieur du pays. Le fonctionnement, à l'époque précoloniale, de ces systèmes monétaires décentralisés constitue un facteur critique pour expliquer les échanges entre unités politiques autonomes aussi bien que les relations commerciales avec la côte.

The transatlantic trade through the Biafran coast from the i6th century onwards has been regarded by numerous authors as the key to the development of an internal trade and market structure in Igboland. Only since the research by G. I. Jones, A. E. Afigbo and others are we beginning to understand that the economy of Igboland has relied for its subsistence equilibrium and the development of specialized crafts on an intensive internal exchange, which was virtually independent from overseas trade. (1) European imports responded to African demands and had to adapt to the necessities of Igbo economy. (2) Imports consisted partly of commodities used as 'native' currencies which were required for the internal exchange. (3) The sudden expansion of the palm-oil trade at the beginning of the 19th century was possible because the Igbo in the densely populated areas were already producing oil and other items for exchange. The functioning of decentralized and interrelated precolonial currency systems seems thereby of critical importance not only to explain the trade between the autonomous political units inside Igboland but also to shed new light on the trade relations with the coast.

Formulaic exchange, according to Crystal (1997:157), is a term used in some theoretical and de-scriptive studies of grammar to refer to utterances which lack normal syntactic or morphological characteristics. It can, in other words, be referred to as any fixed-form expression which serves a particular social purpose such as greeting exchange, skipping rhymes or the words of traditional ceremonies such as marriage, burial etc. Every language/culture has its own special way/ways of manifesting these social functions. This paper examines the different utterances used by different Igbo varieties to express these rituals/cultural attitudes with emphasis on the O̩ni̩cha Igbo lect. The objective of the paper is to document the formulaic utterances in the Igbo language. The purpose of the documentation is first and foremost to preserve these ritual expressions which do not exist in written form in any of the dialects of Igbo. Secondly, because the majority of the Ig-bo youth are not competent native speakers, and in view of the current reality of globalization wherein English has become the world’s language to the detriment of many, especially African languages, there is greater risk for these expressions to be lost forever. It is discovered that most of these expressions are almost non-existent among the younger generation of Igbo speakers. The majority of these young Igbo speakers do not understand these expressions when used by adult speakers. Some of them who understand may only be able to respond in English. Ritual expres-sions are collected from different varieties of Igbo and analyzed. The data include both lexical and phrasal expressions. The paper tries to document these utterances and especially the utter-ances in O̩ni̩cha Igbo in order to prevent their extinction from the language. This study suggests therefore that lexicographers should source and document the utterances in Igbo dictionaries.

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA TECHNOLOGY, 2024

Communication is sacrosanct to the success and sustainability of a society and its various components. This paper examined the role that indigenous languages play in the administration of traditional markets in southwest Nigeria with a focus on selected markets in Oluyole local government in Ibadan, Oyo state. The study is anchored on the Uses and Gratification media theory. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design using a questionnaire as its research instrument. Cluster sampling and convenience sampling were employed to select 312 respondents in five markets which are Oja Ibadan, Mosfala, Afowosopo, Ayegun, and Akorede markets in Oluyole Local Government. Findings from this study reveal that indigenous languages play a positive role in market administration as they are indispensable cultural legacies without which all forms of human interactions can be carried out. It was concluded that the usage of indigenous languages has a role to play in various aspects of market administration in Oluyole local government. This paper therefore recommends that market administrators, traders and other personnel operating in traditional markets should not relent in their employment of indigenous languages in the daily achievement of their various goals within the market.

Book Chapter, 2019

The paper examines the influence of languages in contact on Igbo speakers of the English language. The paper describes the concept of language in contact in Nigeria context with particular reference to the level of use and level of prestige of the two languages, English and Igbo, the social status of Igbo language in Nigeria and Problems of languages in contact especially the Igbo speakers of English. It was discovered that speakers of all ages use English almost exclusively for official matters. The use of English appears to be more prominent regardless of age: the older people use English even where Igbo should be appropriated while the younger ones use both languages but English more. The paper also shows that the younger generation may not be proficient enough in the Igbo language to pass it onto the next generation. The paper concludes that parents should teach their children their mother-tongue. It is important to know that the knowledge of the mothertongue aids the acquisition of the English language. The paper recommends the teaching of the sounds of the languages since some sounds are not available in both languages. The speakers of the Igbo language should be made to understand that the Igbo language is their identity. The paper recommends that Igbo speakers should be admonished to speak and teach the language to their children.

Pragmatics and Society, 2011

In: Carole de Feral, Maarten Kossmann & Mauro Tosco (Hrsg.), Language Contact and Language Change in Africa: Hommage à Robert Nicolai (Vol. 2). Paris: Presses Universitaires de l’École Normale Supérieure, p. 251-268. 2014.

There is no doubt about the fact that the most fundamental avenue to sustain a language and save it from extinction is by using it as a language of communication. This implies that one needs to be speaking such language in his/her daily interactions with fellow speakers. The refusal to speak a given language jeopardizes or threatens the continuous existence of such language. It was on the above premise that this study was carried out to investigate Igbo language usage as a means of communication with focus on the residents of SouthEast Nigeria. The survey research method was utilised for the study while questionnaire was employed as data collection instrument. A sample of 381 was drawn from the total population while the multi stage sampling technique was as well deployed for the study. It was found that the Igbo language is going into extinction as the Igbos now prefer to interact in English language even among themselves. It was consequently recommended that parents, Igbo traditional leaders, Igbo cultural institutions and organisations as well as the governments of the states in the SouthEast , should take concrete actions in preserving and promoting the Igbo language which is one of the major indicators of the Igbo identity.

CROSSROADS: A Journal of English Studies, 2019

Advertising texts are significant to manufacturers to promote and skyrocket products' consumption. This study examined kinds of textual choices in advertising, accounting for their frequencies. Two advertisements each from MTN ® and Etisalat ®-of the Nigerian advertising universe-were chosen for sample analysis, employing Transitivity and word-formation procedures, as the conceptual frameworks. Transitivity allowed tables and graphs to compute the recurrence of textual components. The research revealed Material Processes of has offered, go rock (MTN); and get, pick up (Etisalat) as pronounced choices. Circumstances of Location such as This week… (MTN); and on weeknights… (Etisalat) are choices of communicative augmentations. The investigation further recapitulated creative over-generalization (yous), word play fragmentation (Y'ello), and alphanumeric code (9javaganza) as communicative facilities of MTN and Etisalat constructs. Hence, the researcher suggested that an extensive study of language choice in advertising domains can strengthen government policies to benefit, among others, readers, researchers, manufacturers, and advertising practitioners.

2025

This linguistic essay examines the intricate sociolinguistic dynamics of contemporary Mali. Moving forward to an enhanced linguistic pluralism, Mali officializes its majority laguanges, emphasizing the already wider use and dominance of its indigenous languages over French, particularly at the societal level. Moveover, the presiding position of Bambara as a langua franca is also looked up with respect to its socio-cultural and historical use, both as language family (The Niger-Congo language family), and as a representative of the Mande cluster.

AFRREV IJAH: An International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2019

In this paper, we are going to discuss the status of Ìgbò Language and Culture in the past (i.e. yesterday), presently, (i.e. today) and apparently predict the future (i.e. tomorrow) with the view to draw the attention of the Ìgbò to the level of neglect and endangerment the Ìgbò language and culture are facing. The Ìgbò language and culture would be reviewed from the pre literate era of the igbo to the present dispensation. It concludes that the Ìgbò should be encouraged to adopt a positive attitude towards their language and culture, speak the language and work with it, manifest their rich cultures and get their children to do the same. Beside these, certainly, there will be no Igbo language and culture tomorrow. Again, schools should be encouraged to implement the mother tongue/ language of the immediate community MT/LIC medium policy at the appropriate levels of education. The Ìgbò should shun and dismiss the fallacy that the Ìgbò language is not complete or defective of any lan...

Effective communication is a crucial factor in business success in the global village that the world has come to be. In Nigeria, the overwhelming proportion of business with the outside world is conducted using the English. The need for Nigerian business people to use the language effectively will obviously contribute to success rates in their various interactions with business people from across the globe. However, as English becomes more domesticated in Nigeria, and as local varieties become more entrenched and less stigmatized, many Nigerians including those involved in international business may no longer be adequately conscious of the fact that the peculiar Nige-rian ways they speak may pose fundamental communication challenges to non Nigerian business partners who may not be quite familiar with " Nigerian English ". This paper explores these challenges by systematically aggregating findings from diverse practical observations of international business communication situations involving educated Nigerian. Based on some observed challenges , the paper advances some pedagogical innovations from the field of intercultural communication ; to prepare Nigerian L2 English learners for enhanced oral communication performance in the international business world without having disparaging attitudes towards local varieties of English.

2022

This paper examined the language of persuasion and negotiation in the Ghanaian market context using a local community market (Agartha Market) in Koforidua as a case study. It investigates how the language of persuasion and negotiation is couched in the context of the market by both traders and customers. The theoretical framework within which this study is hinged is the stylistic theory of Leech and Short [1]. Specifically, the grammatical and figure-of-speech prong of the theory have been used. While observation and audio recordings were used to collect the data, the content descriptive method was used in the description and analysis of the data. The findings revealed that, relative to sentence complexity, persuasion and negotiation made adequate use of compound sentences than simple sentence structures. While simple sentence structures are used by traders to attract customers' attention and arouse their psychological interest and curiosity, customers used them in negotiations for mainly interrogative and position-shift purposes. Compound and complex structures were used by traders for elaborative purposes in order to espouse the good qualities that are inherent in their products in order to convince their customers to buy their wares. Figuratively, repetition, hyperbole, and suspense are the key tropes used. These tropes are dominant in persuasion than in negotiation. Again, while the language of persuasion is monologue that of negotiation is dialogue. Code-mixing is also common characteristic in the language of negotiation and persuasion. The dominant local language (Twi) and the official language (English) are usually used in the communication process. This research thus has implication for research and pedagogy as it extends the literature and can also influence the restructuring of educational polices especially those related to language since society and school (education) are intricately related.