LANGUAGE, GENDER AND SOLIDARITY: THE OGBA PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT

This project is titled: Language, Gender and Solidarity: The Ogba Perspective. It aims to investigate how social variables affect the use of Ogba language by male and female within the ages of 45-50years in Rivers State. The method used to carry out this research work is a structured interview method with the use of 76 word list and some recorded solidarity utterances from both male and female. The theoretical framework used for this study is “variation theory” propounded by William Labov in 1966. This theory involves some social parameters such as; age, gender, class etc. It is important to note that this theoretical framework has been modified; its recent modification was in 2006. The phonological and lexical variable of William Labov was used to analyse the data collected. After this research was carried out, it was concluded that variation indeed existed in Ogba language using the variable gender.