ABSTRACT
This study investigates language use and modes of communication in Nsukka Urban development projects, Enugu State. The study deals specifically with type of development agents and the impact of identified modes of communication in developing the area. The study used 102 respondents, comprising different development agents in the study area. The instrument used for data collection are observation, interviews, document analysis which was analyzed qualitatively; the qualitative data gotten as a natural phenomenon was clearly written out using tables and their percentages determined. The structured questionnaires was analyzed quantitatively and presented in tables and percentages. It contains a four point likert scale type on the phenomenon of language use and modes of communication using an analytical framework developed from Systemic Functional Linguistics. The analysis reveals that the three modes of communication (the phonic, the graphic and the multimodal) are commonly used in development communication in the study. Suggestions and recommendations are made on the possibilities for increasing development agenda and improving overall living conditions of the area.
1. INTRODUCTION
This study was motivated by the understanding that if development as suggested by world organization the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) should involve human participation, then language and communication holds key to its success. This is because language and development are so inter-related that it is impossible to talk of development without mentioning language and vice-versa. Since development is human centred, a study on development process should involve a study on human relations in the process of change and language which is basic to human communication and social understanding is crucial here. This study is a strong case for refocusing on the role of language in meeting this objective.
It is pertinent to mention that scholars and development workers are coming to appreciate the importance of using language analysis as a method of studying social change. According to Christie, (2005),” language is a basic resource we require to negotiate social relationships with others, to construct our sense of our world by shaping values, meanings and understandings”. Development involves interactants interacting with concepts to create meanings and messages, construct and reconstruct meanings and values in order to arrive at a common understanding usually witnessed by a common social action. The meanings arrived at greatly impact on the social action to be undertaken. (Oketch, 2006). Through the interaction in the project areas the participants continually and consistently construct their social world. The three variables of field, tenor and mode of discourse, under the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) provide a good analytical tool to explain the metafunctions of language within the study area and how it impacts on the dissemination and acquisition of development information.
Since language is the embodiment of culture the analysis will also delve into the aspects of context such as culture and situation to examine its role and the impact on this discourse in the multilingual and multicultural Nsukka urban society. As such, a study on the role of language use and modes of communication in the development process is paramount as it establishes the impact and role language plays in the social process of change envisioned in this study as development.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
In recent times and in line with millennium development goals, there has been the idea of change and growth in all aspects of human life especially in developing countries. This is because they are the most deprived and the need for development is the right option. This period has witnessed the emergence of organizations and government in support of development. Development is a multi-dimensional concept whose meaning varies along a continuum of disciplines. One definition of development which is directly related to achievement of poverty reduction and of millennium development goals is the definition by international development agencies. (United Nations and World Bank) A common theme within most definitions is that development encompasses change in a variety of the aspects of human condition.
For the purpose of this study development encompasses ideological values, sustainability, empowerment, capacity building, participation, transparency etc. It is seen as a form of social change that will lead to progress, the process of enlarging people’s choices, acquiring knowledge and having access to resources for a decent standard of living and condition of moving from worse to better, (Coetzee 2001). The process of development in third world countries and especially Nsukka Nigeria is very slow and with little impact. This may be as a result of the region’s attitude to change. Sach (2005) says development is meaningless if it does not stem
from the people’s own desire for change. This is the realization that development should be people driven re-oriented development practice to focus on efforts geared towards empowering people to take control of their own development destiny.
Many governments, world organization, non-governmental organizations, communities and individuals turned to investing enormous time and resources to support and sustain the standard of living in third world countries (UNDP 2005, World Bank report 1999). It is pertinent to note that development adopted a capitalist ideology through a homogenous process of making people believe that the path to development has remained very slow. The goal of achieving development is still a pipe dream in spite of the enormous resources invested in development and the deadline for the realization of the millennium development goals according to UNDP has shifted from 2015 to 2025. Generally speaking, development as a social act is both a process and a product. This is because it presupposes access to knowledge and skills, the capacity with which to combat undesirable human condition. The process to reaching this desired end is a social one and development workers have come to that realization. A look at the MDGs proves that it is absolutely human centred. Therefore, the role language plays in carrying information, communicating attitudes and value, ideologies and expressing power and dominion in the field of development should not be ignored.
In governance, we cannot overemphasize the fact that political pledges are not always met especially in carrying out programmes that will positively influence the citizens. Many African governments also have failed to transfer their pledges and values to the citizen’s need. These development challenges led to the emergence of non-governmental organization (NGO) as an alternative way of organizing themselves to meet up socio-economic requirements. NGOs are no longer new developments; they have been in development initiative for a long time now. As
Nyangoro (1993) notes, they are even older than the World Bank. NGOs have been involved in development initiatives longer than even the World Bank, the United Nations and any other official aid agency that were established in the period around the Second World War. In the study area and Nigeria at large, they are best known for their provision of services such as health care, education, poverty alleviation, environmental conservation, water and sanitation. In the recent years, NGOs have covered diverse issues affecting the lives of people especially in the rural and urban settlements. This study will be carried out in the Nsukka urban, the host community of the prominent institution of learning, the University of Nigeria among other sub- communities.
THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC PRACTICE AND INTERVENTION IN THE STUDY AREA
According to Agbedo (2009), inter-ethnic communication especially among the educated class is English. Significantly, this urban area has been identified as extended diglossia which is contrary to the classical interpretation of the original concept of diglossia. This is due to the nature of language situation in the area. English is the language used for communication in formal situations. Even in intra language interpersonal communications, Igbo is the preferred language in which case the more mutually intelligible dialect (MID) is mostly preferred. Generally, the Nsukka Dialect Clusters (NDC) is the preferred code in most outside home domains, a situation which derives from the fact that the preference of NDC is however not general to all the constituting dialects. Speakers of such dialects as Ezikeoba and Ukehe that enjoy high ethnolinguistic vitality perception usually prefer them to MID or English in virtually all domains and situations except in situations where the dictates of accommodation theory point to the choice and use of either MID or English as an inescapable option. The thrust of this investigation is on the modes of information dissemination in community development, the term
community is referred to people who live in a specified geographical area, sharing common norms within a socially acceptable structure and to whom development initiative was directed. It also entails a variety of activities done within or on behalf of a community to add to or enhance it in some way (Burkey, 1993).
The notion of speech community according to Agbedo (2007:17) has been one of the key concepts in sociolinguistics since its beginning, and yet at the same time remains one of the least satisfactory. As Duranti (1997) in Agbedo notes, all efforts since then share “the concern for a definition of speech community as a real group of people who share something about the way in which they use language, though they differ significantly on the details. These differences in terminological exactness received generous attention in Patrick (2002) but which Agbedo (2007: 20) tries to harmonize by stating that the definitions “help to define a set of people who have something in common linguistically, that is, a language or dialect, interaction by means of speech, a given range of varieties and rules for using them, and a given range of attitudes to varieties and items.” From the foregoing, it is clear that Nsukka urban area can be considered as a speech community in the light of its identifiable sociolinguistic peculiarities in this regard. For one, Nsukka urban has a multilingual setting with an appreciable number of languages used as L1 and/or L2 in the home and outside home domains. Prominent among these languages are Igbo and English. There equally exists a sprinkling of other such languages as Hausa, Igala, Yoruba, Idoma, French, Tiv, Efik, etc. used either as L1 by the native speakers or L2 by non-native speakers. Therefore, bilingualism is rather the norm than an exception in Nsukka whereby most residents command relative communicative competence in at least two languages, that is, Nigerian Local Languages (NLL) and English. As regards NLL, the dominant language is Igbo, the different dialects of which the native speakers deploy in
accordance with the requirements of any given communicative event. Generally, the Nsukka dialect clusters are the dominant channel of communication in the speech community while the more mutually intelligible dialects usually provide the convenient alternative for thinning down the thick wall of mutual unintelligibility that often characterizes intra-ethnolinguistic interactions.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Language, communication modes and materials used by development agents in development projects in Nsukka province are not only incomprehensible, but also foreign to the target community. This leads to misunderstanding, misrepresentation and misinterpretation of development messages which in turn cause delay in project implementation, withdrawals of planned projects, shifts in development goals and lack of development in the area. Attempts to transform the texts in the foreign language into a local language for common meaning making are not successful due to lack of translation experts. This study investigates language use and modes of communication that are commonly used by development agencies in the target area. The focus of this investigation is to identify the challenges experienced by the communicators and to suggest a locally appropriate communication model that can be applied to bridge the gaps
1.3 OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study is to critically examine language use and modes of communication in community development projects in Nsukka urban society.
To pursue Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) especially as it has to do with poverty alleviation.
To promote African languages.
1.4 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
1. To critically examine language use and modes of communication in Nsukka Urban development projects and the role language plays in development by analyzing the discourse in development communication.
2. To suggest a locally appropriate communication model for interaction and information dissemination in community development.
3. To identify various development agents, their activities and modes of communication used in disseminating development information and evaluating their impacts on development information dissemination in the target area.
4. To identify and describing linguistic and communication gaps in the modes of communication, thus analyzing solutions applied to address the gaps.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1 What role does language use and modes of communication play in developing Nsukka region?
2 What are the appropriate communication model and the role of effective communication in the area?
3 What are the problems and prospects of community development and their activities in the area.
4 What are the modes of communication and their implications on community development?
1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
1. That language plays an important role in communicating development information.
2. Effective communication can enhance the grasp of development concepts.
3. Linguistic and communication disparity hamper effective dissemination of information in development projects in communities in Nsukka urban.
4. There are no Nsukka translated versions of the information materials used in disseminating development messages and attempts to translate material have not been fruitful because development agents are not compound bilinguals thus lack expert knowledge in translation and the target community cannot comprehend the spoken and written English language used in disseminating development information.
1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
In the recent years, there has emerged a belated recognition that language issues can no longer be ignored in the development equation. This study is important because it will highlight the problem of language use when it is wrongly applied. It will serve as a resource material to the government, world organizations and development agencies by exposing them to the importance of effective communication and the need to encourage individuals to attain competence in language usage. Knowing full well that language as a tool can bring about crisis as well as promote unity. All this will add to knowledge and serve as reference material to Federal government and religious organization because community development project is inevitable in any society.
Furthermore, the advent of Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) is new to this part of the world (third world countries and precisely the Nsukka region), this research work is carried out to find answers to existing problems in the mode of communication as it does not see it as a medium of propaganda as it is generally believed but it discusses social, economic and cultural
matters that shape the society, sustain and maintain it. This study appreciates the importance of using language analysis as a method of studying social and economic phenomenon such as development. It will provoke the need to engage linguistic expertise in community development by highlighting the best discourse practices applicable to development practice and will provide best practices to achieving development by properly researched experiences and contribute towards having proper and appropriate tools that can be used to disseminate development information.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Language use: Christie, (2005:11) Says that “any language use serves simultaneously to construct some aspect of experience, to negotiate relationships and to organize the language successfully so that it realizes a satisfactory message”
Communication: Mercado (1992), defines communication as a process of sharing messages between source and receiver either directly or through a channel. The study finds Mercado’s thoughts applicable to the analysis of modes of communication in the target area. This is because the treatment of communication underscores the premise of mutual understanding and linguistic comprehensibility between interlocutors.
Community development: Community development can be defined as a form of civic education. This is a process whereby members of the communities are encouraged to think about their problems and to formulate and embark upon action programmes to solve them (Michael Ezimah 2004).
Development communication: The application of the process of communication to the development process has been referred to variously as development communication (Moemeka,
1996), or communication for development (Burton, 2001). It is also a participatory approach to development where communication creates an enhanced atmosphere for the exchange of ideas that are aimed at producing an accepted balance between physical outputs and human relationships in social and economic advancement.
1.9 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
The study is designed to be carried out in Nsukka urban where there are ongoing development projects. The study examined two forms of communication, the oral communication and the mediated communication hence focusing on three modes of communication: The phonic (spoken), the graphic (written) and the visual semiotic texts (multimodal texts) as used within the cultural context of the communities in the study area. The study specifically analyzes language use at the level of ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions. The biggest limitation in this study is finances that will be used for exhaustive and sound undertaking of the details of anticipated data. However, not minding the finances involve sufficient data will be gathered within the time and used to advance the arguments in this study.
This study is further limited by the fact that there is no network of development agents in the area and many of the social development agents are not registered with the community development department of the local Government therefore accurate numbers of those carrying out development projects were not obtained.
This material content is developed to serve as a GUIDE for students to conduct academic research
LANGUAGE USE AND MODES OF COMMUNICATION IN NSUKKA URBAN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
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