Substrate Influence and Syntactic Calquing in Gendered Nigerian English Pragmatics

This study examined how substrate influence manifests as syntactic calquing in Nigerian English and how such calques function as pragmatic resources for expressing gendered identities rooted in indigenous sociocultural norms. Anchored in Schneider’s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes, Thomason and Kaufman’s Contact Linguistics theory, and Holmes’ Social Constructionist theory of Gender and Language, the study adopted a qualitative discourse pragmatic design. Data were drawn from recorded conversations, semi structured interviews, and written texts produced by 80 bilingual Nigerian English users (40 males and 40 females) in semi-formal academic and social settings in Owerri, Imo State. Analysis identified recurrent syntactic calques, including topic fronting, serial verb constructions, reduplication, interrogative requests, mitigated imperatives, and tag like confirmations. These structures were traced to indigenous syntactic patterns and interpreted as pragmatic strategies for politeness, deference, solidarity, emotional expression, and authority management. The findings showed clear gender tendencies in that female participants more frequently employed calqued structures associated with indirectness, relational harmony, and politeness, while male participants used similar structures primarily to soften authority or encourage cooperation. The study demonstrated that syntactic calquing in Nigerian English is not merely a result of bilingual interference but a culturally meaningful adaptation that enables English to encode indigenous gender norms. It concluded that Nigerian English grammar carries sociocultural meaning and should be interpreted within its local pragmatic ecology rather than measured solely against inner circle standards. The study recommended culturally responsive approaches to ELT, greater socio-pragmatic awareness in scholarship, and further empirical study on sociocultural variables in Nigerian English.