ASPECTS OF SEMANTIC VARIATION IN NIGERIAN ENGLISH: A STUDY OF YEAR TWO STUDENTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF UYO

Abstract

English language today is a global language with many varieties occasioned by domestication and nativization. This paper takes samples from year two under graduate students in the Department of English, Obio Akpa Campus, addressing some aspects of semantic variations which have taken place in the Nigerian variety of English. The data for this study were collected from thirty year-two Nigeria students from the Department of English and Literary Studies, Akwa Ibom State University.We administered questionnaire to them to investigate the differences in usage in the two varieties of English (Nigerian and British) and theresponses from the subject revealed the usages they prefer. Simple percentages were used in analyzing the data. Using the pragmatic theory of language as its theoretical framework. The findings reveal that the meaning of semantic items in Nigerian English may be achieved through creativity and may be independent of the original meaning in the language. Many of these semantic variations are influenced by the new environment within which the language now finds itself.The paper concludes and recommends that the issue of variation characterizing the Nigerian variety of English should not be seen as errors, rather it should be adopted into the Nigerian variety of English since these different shades of meaning to English words and expressions have been created by Nigerians to suit their convenience and to conform to their socio-cultural environment. This paper joins in the agitation for the standardization of Nigerian English as a distinct variety of the new Englishes to enhance its propagation of the knowledge and maximize its communicative potentials as a language of official communication in Nigeri