GLOBALISATION AND LANGUAGE USE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INDIGENOUS NIGERIAN LANGUAGES ON BBC IGBO AND BBC YORUBA FACEBOOK PLATFORMS

Abstract

The dominance of English in Nigeria is partly attributable to globalisation and the subsequent increase in electronic information and global connectedness, which portends the extinction of languages not used in increasing domains, such as the Internet. Research on African language use on the Internet is limited, with existing studies mostly focused on multi-modality and other semiotic resources, and little attention on how African languages feature and are impacted on social media. This study aims to determine the level of usage of Igbo and Yoruba on the Internet, specifically on social media platforms of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It adopts the frameworks of Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis and Internet Linguistics to analyse the online language behaviour of Igbo and Yoruba users of BBC Facebook platforms. Users’ comments on selected news items posted between 2020 and 2022 constitute the data for the study. The study identifies the effect of the globalisation of language in the low level of usage of Igbo and Yoruba, in spite of the dedication of the BBC platforms to the languages, and their status as majority languages. The study recommends the use of indigenous languages in primary domains as well as in new domains such as the Internet.