Word Formation Processes in the Nigerian Variant of the English Language of Immigrants Living in Great Britain

Abstract

In recent years, with the increasing pace of immigration processes and contacts between significantly different cultures, the relevance of studying the specific features of immigrant English has grown. Studies of this topic are far from being able to reflect contemporary realities – in particular, processes of English language development among immigrants. The purpose of the article is to study word-formation processes in the Nigerian variant of the English language of immigrants and the Nigerian territorial variant in accordance with the development periods of immigration to Great Britain. The work also takes into account the motivations and living conditions of Nigerian immigrants in the UK. The author finds that a key feature of the development of the Nigerian variant of immigrant English is the process of its convergence with British English, while Nigerian English is subject to the inverse process of creolisation. Other elements of novelty are the study of the lexical units of this variant of English including word formation, affixation, and lexical reduction, as well as illustrative material for each of the above groups. The fundamental characteristics of word formation, such as reduplication and derivative vocabulary belonging to British English or Nigerian languages, are taken into account.