Loan Blends and Coinages as Conversational Strategies in Nigerian Novels

Abstract: Research on Nigerian novels has shown the excellent interplay between linguistic choices and social reality. Although there have been many studies on the use of language in Nigerian novels, critics have paid trifling attention to how loan blends
and coinages/neologisms are employed by Nigerian novelists to explore social reality in their writings. In an attempt to fill this gap in scholarship, this study examines the use of Loan blends and coinages/neologism as linguistic strategies deployed by Nigerian novelists to drive home their thematic concerns. The study adopts Braj Kachru's concentric theory as its theoretical anchor which explains the relationship between language norms and cultural patterns. The data for the research is from four purposively selected novels, Things Fall Apart (shortened to Apart), Anthills of the Savannah (shortened to Anthills)written by Chinua Achebe, Purple Hibiscus (shortened to Hibiscus)and Half of a Yellow Sun (shortened to Yellow Sun) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The study shows that loan blends and coinages/neologism as used by Achebe and Adichie are conversational strategies adopted to portray the Igbo socio-linguistic environment. These linguistic features achieve special effects in the oeuvres in such a way that they give the use of English a local flavour that creates an Igbo/ Nigerian identity. The study concludes that Achebe and Adichie use a combination of linguistic features which include loan blends, and coinages, among others to portray the rich and robust cultural splendour of their L1 mode which did not only succeed in portraying the themes of their novels but also performed excellently in representing the ways of life of the Nigerian people.