Americanism and its Influence on the Orthography of Postgraduate Students

Abstract

The linguistic situation of Nigeria is no doubt influenced by contact with a handful of foreign languages. This is factored on various economic, religious, technological and political influences inherent in the country. The English spoken in Nigeria imitates carefully the Standard British English with confusing fluctuations with the American variety. This paper studies the influence of Americanism on the orthography of postgraduate students of English in the University of Ibadan. The study was premised on Ellis’ four stages of error analysis namely: collection of a sample of learner language, identification of errors, description of errors and explanation of errors. This study concludes that academic competence may not influence English language experts in the consistent use of SBE, though it has been the medium of instruction from secondary school to the postgraduate levels.