LANGUAGE AS AN AGENT OF SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION: PREFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO THE INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES IN NIGERIA

Obumneme F. Anasi

Abstract


There is always a positive and negative tendency in every growth. As a writer once said, the growth of water is at the expense of fire and vice versa. The more complex a society becomes, the more socially and technologically advanced it gets and the more communication problems it is confronted inescapably with.  It is no longer a story that the language of the Igbo nation is rapidly tilting towards extinction. An average Igbo family prefers borrowed languages to its own Igbo language. It is not a story to hear that it is becoming a taboo to hear Igbo language in many Igbo families. This study x-rays language as an agent of societal transformation, using the Igbo language as a case study.The introductory section, the definition of  bilingualism  and some of the causes of underutilization of Igbo language are also carefully examined.  


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