Rethinking Schneider's Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes: Non-Linear Development in Nigerian English (original) (raw)

2024, Zaria Journal of Liberal Arts (ZAJOLA)

This paper offers a critique of Schneider‘s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes (Schneider, 2007) and its underlying claim that Postcolonial Englishes (PCEs) grow into five developmental phases, viz., foundation, exonormative stabilisation, nativisation, endonormative stabilisation, and differentiation. According to this model, Nigerian English (NigE) as a postcolonial variety is currently placed in phase three, i.e. in the nativisation phase. The point of departure is the re-evaluation of the positioning of NigE on the developmental scale of the model, paying attention to all four parameters that define each of the phases: socio-political background, identity constructions, sociolinguistic conditions, and linguistic effects. This paper takes up this development and argues that the dynamic model as a research tool for PCEs (from the perspective of contact-induced change) does not fully capture the complex realities of the spread of English in Nigeria.