Attitudes of Nigerians towards Accents of English

There is a need to investigate which variety of English is most likely to act as a marker of linguistic identity in Nigeria. It is not always clear whether the subjects are able to differentiate successfully between dialectal varieties of English from the inner circle. This study will therefore investigate the attitudes of Nigerian students towards varieties of English both from the inner circle and the non-inner circle. The study shall investigate the attitudes of the Nigerian university students to five English accents namely; British English, American English, Ghanaian English, Jamaican English and Nigerian English. This study shall employ a range of direct (e.g. interviews and questionnaire) and indirect (e.g. the verbal-guise test) techniques of attitude measurement in order to obtain in-depth information regarding such perceptions. This research is expected to contribute to the exploration of the future development of English in Nigeria in the context of World Englishes. It will provide explanations for the underlying motivations for linguistic variation and change in postcolonial countries such as Nigeria, where English plays a significant role in virtually every sector and where there is a recurrent issue of competing English norms among the speakers of English.