ABSTRACT

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          Translation is a special type of language use  -  involving two and only two languages.  As such, it falls squarely within the purview of the subject matter of Pragmatics, broadly and somewhat non-controversially defined as ‘the study of language use in general’. In this study, we use the translation operation as a heuristic methodological tool for showing the semantic similarity between Nigerian Pidgin English (hereinafter, NPE) and indigenous Nigerian languages  {hereinafter, INLs) on the one hand, as well as the semantic dissimilarity between NPE and English on the other hand.

 

          Traditionally, Professional Translators tend to view Linguistics with deep suspicion:  for them, Linguistics as an academic discipline is quite alright for describing a number of purely structural particularities of translation; but it is purportedly useless for explaining the true nature of translation as a language use.  Traditionally, too, Professional Linguists themselves in Linguistics tend to view Translation Studies with considerable skepticism:  for them, Translation Studies are only of marginal interest for the restricted ends of the specialisation sub-discipline of Applied Linguistics; but it is purportedly useless for the Linguist’s essential task of elucidating the nature of Language. In this paper, we shew the importance of translation as an intrinsic pragmatic concern for Linguistics, and as a critical pragmatic tool for contrastive semantics.

 

          Our hypothesis is that NPE is closer to INLs semantically than to English, which it does resemble to a large extent, both in name and in form. In our key investigative methodology, we present a corpus of relevant NPE expressions  -  such as  ‘Belle dey bit my woman’,  ‘You hear di smell’,  ‘Dat Pastor too dey carry woman’, ‘I no dey hear him language’,  etc.; then, we use the Performative Translatology translation study paradigm according to UWAJEH (1994 & 2007 especially, among many pertinent works) to translate to English  these expressions and their equivalents of Igbo, an INL, at the  applicable levels of ‘UWAJEH’S Four-Level Model of Translation’. It is these translations which reveal a most striking similarity between the semantic particularities of NPE and INLs, as demonstrated with Igbo representatively on the one hand, as opposed to the semantic particularities  of English,  on the other hand, contrasted with those of NPE.in fact

 

            Our study advances three main contributions to existing knowledge. First, it underscores the pragmatic credentials of translation theory as an integral goal of Pragmatics. Second,   it proves the usefulness of sound translation practice in pragmatic studies. Third, it purveys the linguistic theory that semantic criteria are critical for treating English Pidgins in general intrinsically like foreign languages vis-à-vis English, that they do resemble to a large extent, both in name and in form.