Peerglossia A Sociolinguistic Study of Its Effects on the English Language Proficiency of Nigerian Senior Secondary School Students in Kano State, Nigeria

This paper is on the sociolinguistic study of peerglossia –language of the peer group- and its effects on the English Language proficiency of the Senior Secondary School students(SSS) in Nigeria.The Nigerian Government and stakeholders in education are worried about the low level of English Language proficiency of the SSS students.The author is therefore interested in finding out the causes of the appalling decline in the performance of SSS students in English Language at the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE).The author therefore conducted a research on the relationship between sociolinguistic variables and students’ performance in English Language in some randomly selected secondary schools in Kano State in Northern Nigeria.The assumption is thatpeerglossia has an inhibitory effect on the language use of SSS students.From the written tests and questionnaire administered to the students,it was found that parents’ socio-economic and political status and education background influenced students’ choice of peergroup whose language use has deleterious effects on students’ language proficiency.The paper then suggests some ways through which students’ proficiency in English Language can be improved.

Keyword:Peerglossia, peer- group, socilinguistic variables, proficiency, inhibitoryeffects,language use, Nigerian English,ethnolinguistics