YORUBA ENGLISH IN YORUBA MOVIES

ABSTRACT

It is a fact that there are new Englishes such as Ausralian English, Yoruba English, Hausa English, Igbo English among others. These new Englishes differ in so many ways from one another and from Standard English. This work studies Yoruba English as used in Yoruba movies. The essence of this is to investigate the structural features that are peculiar to Yoruba English and which distinguish it from other new Englishes. Two approaches were adopted for this work. They are ‘descriptive linguistic approach’ by Lehmann (1999) and ‘Language change’ by Trask (2010). The former explains that the description of a language is an activity that formulates, in most general way possible, the patterns underlying the linguistic data. Its purpose is to make the user understand the way the language works (Lehmann, 1999: 10).Language change by Trask (2010) explains that languages are always changing, that it is a dead language – a language which has died out and is no longer used – does not change any more. But a living language – a language which is still being learned by children – is always changing. These two approaches were adopted to account for the changes that have taken place in the use of Standard English by the Yorubas of Nigeria, and to describe these changes in order to identify the features of Yoruba English.Data were collected from different Yoruba movies which include Oyenusi, Ogoosupa, Alaniekun, Paramole, Jenifa, Alakada, Orisaibeji, among others. The data were extracted from these movies by the researcher who watched them in company of her friend. The data were therefore presented and classified into categories based on their themes and subject matters.The analysis therefore shows the peculiar structural features of Yoruba English which include transfer features, code – mixing and code – switching, mannerism, deixis and politeness feature. This work has therefore not only achieve its aim which is to identify the peculiar structural features of Yoruba English but has also make document available for the language and serve as reference point for linguists and researchers.