A Corpus-Assisted Sociopragmatic Study of Access, Ideology, and the Making of "Educated" Speech in Nigerian English-Pidgin Discourse

Educated Nigerian English functions as a prestige variety, often contrasted with Nigerian Pidgin. Although sociopragmatic research views this distinction as interactionally constructed, cross-status discourse remains underexamined. This study investigates how “educated speech” is negotiated in real time through an analysis of the Corpus of English and Nigerian Pidgin Code-switching (CENCOS). Adopting a sociopragmatic orientation, the study uses Teun A. van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of discourse and applies the ideological square as its principal analytical construct. Purposive total-population sampling identified all eight non-graduate traders and mechanics represented in CENCOS. These speakers occurred in four conversation files and produced 269 turns. The findings reveal a marked interactional asymmetry. In the car-repair exchanges, the educated speaker questions the mechanic’s competence and dismisses his work, while neither mitigating her own conduct nor acknowledging his expertise. The mechanic, by contrast, manages his position through apology and deference, including an unsuccessful shift into English to reinforce an apology. The study argues that “educated speech” is not a fixed demographic attribute but a relational status constructed through interaction. It demonstrates the value of van Dijk’s ideological square for analysing micro-interactional manifestations of status and power in Nigerian English- Pidgin discourse.