| This is a sociolinguistic study of the characteristics of the English language used in Africa. Because English has become a world language, it is assumed in this study that non-native speakers in Africa, Asia and other parts are slowly developing new varieties of English. These varieties have already been recognized as 'Indian English', 'Nigerian English', 'Ghanaian English', 'Singaporean English' and so on.;In addition, the study shows that the new varieties of English also have discourse patterns, structure and strategies which deviate from native English. These are found to be in narrative types, coherence in discourses, topic-comment relations and the social significance of proverbs, indirectness and circularity in verbal interaction. For these reasons, the analysis gives substantial attention to the influence of social markers of speaking such as age, sex, role, status, turn-taking, etc.;It is concluded that the English language in Africa is being acculturated to accommodate the context of situations in which it is used. In other words, the meaning systems which are expressed by African languages are being transferred to English, and these meanings remain either as a substratum or cause the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of native English to be modified. It is suggested that linguistic concepts such as communicative competence, meaning potential, verbal repertoire and language variation and contact should, when used in connection with English as a second language, be understood in terms of the socio-cultural settings in which English is being used.;The study shows that the English being used in Africa is slowly undergoing a process of contextualization. That is, new forms and usages are emerging which express the meanings and serve the functions of African local conditions. This process involves the use of several linguistic strategies, such as translation, semantic shifts and extension, calques, lexical hybridization, repetition and reduplication, and transfer. |
