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9                  Onebunne & Akujobi 

STUDENTS’ SLANGUAGE IN NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY (UNIZIK) AWKA, 

NIGERIA: ANY POSITIVITY? 

 

L.A. Onebunne  

Department of English Language and Literature, 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. 

Email: la.onebunne@unizik.edu.ng 

& 

Dr. O.S. Akujobi 

Department of English Language and Literature, 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. 

Email:os.akujobi@unizik.edu.ng 

 

Abstract 

The use of ‘’slangs’’ as a language of communication among students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, 

Awka, Nigeria was investigated to ascertain the communicative pertinence of slang among 

undergraduates and the extent to which slang positively affects communicative performance of the 

students.The survey research design was adopted for the study and the sample population comprised 

of 278 undergraduates from three faculties of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Nigeria: Faculty of 

Arts, Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Management Sciences. Questionnaires were dispensed to 

participants who were drawn from the faculties through a purposive sampling technique. Among other 

things, the study showed that among different text types in which slang is used, almost all the 

respondents use slang in spoken language, in chat and messenger and in emails to friends, some of 

them in email, and some also in private letters. One hundred and eighty-nine (189) respondents are 

Igbos while 58 respondents are Yorubas and Hausas. All the respondents use slang in English, 169 

respondents use it in Igbo while 143 respondents use it in other languages other than Igbo, Yoruba or 

Hausa. Slang positively affects the communicative competence of undergraduates of Nnamdi Azikiwe 

University, Awka, Nigeria. 

Keywords: Slanguage, positivity, Unizik, undergraduates, Nigeria 

 

Introduction 

It becomes obvious that no human society can exist without language. Wallwork summarised the uses 

of language below: 

i. For Phatic communication i.e. as a social regulator; 

ii. For ceremonial purposes; 

iii. To keep records; 

iv. As an instrument of action; 

v. To convey orders and information; 

vi. To influence people; 

vii. To enable self-expression; and 

viii. To embody and enable thought (12). 

Language has been broadly categorised into formal and informal usage. Emenanjo (5) categorised 

language into formal usage which consists of the standard expressions not restricted to any 

register, and informal usage which comprises colloquialisms, slang and pidgins. 

 

Standard language refers to a prestige variety of language used within a speech community (Crystal 

450), and is perhaps the most difficult to “denaturalise” (Roth-Gordon 4). It conforms to an 

institutionalised norm which can be used in the mass media, in teaching the language to foreigners 

and so on (Crystal 450). 

 

Under informal usage, we have colloquialism, which is used in everyday informal conversation. There 

is also pidgin, which is normally not the native language of any of its speakers, but emerges from 

people of different linguistic backgrounds who have come together for one purpose or the other. 

Lastly, slang is an informal language because it uses informal words and expressions that are not 

mailto:os.akujobi@unizik.edu.ng


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10                Onebunne & Akujobi 

considered standard in the speaker’s language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when 

used socially (“Wikipedia”). 

 

Students at universities often develop their own in-group vocabulary which only members can 

understand. A number of such students’ slang expressions and the degree of their use vary from 

university to university.  

 

As in any language, slang reflects the experiences, beliefs and values of its speakers. Yet 

college/university slang is not a complete language (“Slang in College” 1). College/university slang is 

also descriptive and contains many symbols for food or eating, effective or ineffective performance, 

money, intoxication and college places. 

 

College/university slang has its share of criticism due to its effects on the English language. Writers 

and language experts have come out against the use of slang saying it is “wrecking the language” and 

have called its users “vandals” (Humphrys 1). Linguistic traditionalist worry that slang will reduce 

users’ ability to write correct English sentences, and will harm their spelling and vocabulary 

(Holloway 1). Others say that slang (including texting or internet slang) simplifies and abbreviates 

language, thereby robbing language of its subtlety and complexity (Trevett and Houlahan 2). 

 

In contrast, in an unscientific pool conducted by Edutopia.org, some educators feel that slang has 

positive effect on the students (Russell 6). They feel that anytime you can get students to write, it is 

positive (Russell 6). They believe that students are writing more than ever before because of slang 

(especially internet slang) (Russell 6). Educational researchers discovered that students are writing 

more and revising more (“NY Times”).   

 

One of the features of slang is that it is only intelligible to those people associated with the group or 

groups who use it. New students (even the smartest and most communicative competent “freshmen”) 

find it difficult to understand the language used on campus. This is due to the fact that slang “provides 

different symbols from which communicated messages can be constructed “ (“Slang in colleges” 1). 

Slang is more than just words. Like communication in general, slang is a process that characterises a 

communication environment as casual and familiar. Students use it when they talk with their friends 

and in informal situations like when chatting in social networks. 

 

This paper intends to study slang usage among the undergraduates of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, 

Awka, Nigeria with the view to know its communicative pertinence among the students. A lot of 

studies have been directed towards reiterating the negative influence of slang on a second language 

learner’s communicative competence. Very few studies have been directed towards finding out if 

slang could actually help a second language learner in achieving communicative competence in the 

target language. Can slang among undergraduates be just another sign that their communicative 

competence is deteriorating? Or can slang help to enrich their vocabulary or language experience? 

This paper aims to find out the communicative pertinence of slang among undergraduates, the extent 

to which slang positively affects performance of the students. The study intends to answer the 

following questions: to what degree do the undergraduates use slang for communication in the 

university? to what degree does slang positively affect the academic performance of students in the 

university?, to what extent do students use slang expression to enrich their vocabulary? 

 

Defining Slang 

Slang might not be beyond definition, but it is “incapable of precise definition” (Partridge 69). An 

early definition of slang is found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: 

...in what is now the usual sense a general name for the class of words, more or less 

artificial or affected in origin or use, which are not recognised as belonging to the 

standard vocabulary of the language into which they have been introduced, but have 

an extensive currency in some section of society either as a means of concealing 

secrets or as intentionally undignified substitutes for those modes of expression that 

are employed by persons who value themselves on properties of speech. (207) 



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11                Onebunne & Akujobi 

 

The above definition mentions four major points. Firstly, it says that slang is in the “words” or the 

“vocabulary”. A linguist may describe this as belonging to the lexicon (as opposed to the grammar). 

Secondly, it states that the word “slang” does not belong to the standard variety of language spoken in 

the larger society. Later on in the same page it is claimed that “...slang is a conscious offence against 

some conventional standard of propriety” (207). This statement clearly shows a general prescriptive 

view towards language which was common at the beginning of the 20th century, but this part of the 

definition also expresses that a speaker who uses slang does so intentionally. Thirdly, the quote refers 

to “some section of society” – a speech community - which, fourthly, has something to conceal or 

wants to be secretive. The notion of secretiveness is a function of slang that is unique in its nature.  

 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica also mentions another feature of slang that is not included in any of the 

later definitions, namely “that slang is neither a part of ordinary language nor an attempt to supply its 

deficiencies” (207). Productivity is a well-known feature of language. However, newly coined 

expressions are usually only needed when there is a lack of words for a certain concept or invention or 

otherwise only lengthy descriptions for the concepts exist. In contrast to that, slang is not absolutely 

necessary. Nevertheless, slang continuously produces and uses new words. 

An eminent authority in the field of slang and the author of A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional 

English is Eric Partridge, who dedicated many years of his life to the collection of slang expressions. 

However, when he wrote the entry for the term slang in Collier’s Encyclopaedia, he did not attempt to 

write his own definition for it. He refers to, and seems to favour, the definition in Webster’s Third 

(New) International Dictionary which describes slang as: 

... a non-standard vocabulary composed of words and senses characterised primarily 

by connotations of extreme informality... composed typically of coinages or 

arbitrarily changed words, chapped or shortened forms, extravagant, forced or 

facetious figures of speech, or verbal novelties, usually experiencing quick popularity 

and relatively rapid declines into disuse. (Gove 2137) 

 

This definition raises the notion of informality as a feature of slang. Slang is not used in formal speech 

or writing. In fact, in his list of functions of slang, Partridge even goes as far as claiming that slang is 

intentionally used to decrease the formality of spoken, as well as written discourse (70). 

 

The Webster definition also hints at two points that are related to each other: the creativity of slang 

and its rapid change. Some slang expressions which were frequently used by UNIZIK students five 

years ago are only known to a few students today or sometimes to nobody anymore. Normally, 

language change is a very slow process, but – maybe due to its restriction to a relatively small speech 

community or to its creativity – slang alters more quickly. The creativity of slang can have many 

reasons, for example, the fact that slang is often used to be secretive or to portray wit. There are more 

reasons or rather functions of slang enumerated by Partridge and later referred to by Andersson and 

Trudgill (87) and Crystal (53). 

For this paper, we shall examine student slang.  

 

Theoretical Framework 

The theoretical framework on which this research is based is the Communication Accommodation 

Theory which states that a person seeks either to emphasise or to minimise the social differences 

between himself/herself and the other person in conversation. According to Giles and Coupland, 

accommodation is to be seen as a multiple-organised and contextually complex set of 

alternatives, regularly available to communicators in face-to-face talk. It can function 

to index and achieve solidarity with or dissociation from a conversational partner, 

reciprocally and dynamically. (61)               

 

There are two basic accommodation strategies - convergence and divergence – which are deployed by 

individuals to signal identification with, or dissociation from, the communication patterns of others 

(Thanasoulas 1). Divergence “refers to the way in which speakers accentuate speech and non-verbal 

differences between themselves and others” (Giles and Coupland 36), and convergence is “a strategy 



AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2021 
 

12                Onebunne & Akujobi 

whereby individuals adapt to each other’s communicative behaviour in terms of a wide range of 

linguistic/prosodic/non-vocal features, in other to reduce social differences” (Giles and Coupland 35).  

According to Miller, “convergence and divergence may be upward, by means of a shift toward a 

prestige variety, or downward by means of a shift away from it” (169). For instance, consider a 

student (possible a fresher) who wants to make new friends when chatting in social network like 

Facebook may converge upwards towards his intended friends by using slang; or when a 

communicative competent student converges downwards towards his friend when asking him to lend 

him some money in order to win his approval. 

 

This paper fits into this theory because slang is seen as an alternative to standard language by the 

students as they understand the language due to the impression that the form of the language is not 

considered important. Slang is regularly available to students when they interact face-to-face or when 

they chat in any of the social networks. Also, it is an exercise either of wit, ingenuity or humour. 

Students coin words and phrases to describe their special experiences and beliefs.   

 

Methodology 

This paper is a survey research. The design is considered suitable since it seeks information on the 

positive effect of slang among undergraduates of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. 

 

The population of this paper covers the undergraduates from three faculties: faculty of Arts, faculty of 

Engineering and faculty of the Management Sciences. Participants are drawn from the faculties 

through purposive sampling technique. The reason for this is that the researchers believe that these 

faculties have vast number of students that resort to informal use of language. From the investigated 

area, 278 students were selected for the study.  

 

A structured questionnaire was used to elicit responses from the studied population. The questionnaire 

contains 17 items sub-divided into two (2) sections “A” and “B”. Section “A” contains four (4) items 

designed to obtain personal information of the respondents. The items have options and blank spaces 

to enable the respondents to tick or complete as appropriate. Section “B” comprises 13 items to 

determine the frequency of the slanguage among the undergraduates of UNIZIK. 105 copies of the 

questionnaire were distributed to each of the selected faculties. 

 

The research instrument was administered to the respondents by the researchers and some of their 

friends. Returned copies were analysed and used for the presentation of data. A frequency of 

occurrence was established from the copies of the questionnaire returned and the data collected were 

organised into various statistical representations. The formula for the analysis was: 

Number of respondents         X    100 

Total number of students         1 

Therefore, the percentage method was used as a statistical tool. The data collected and analysed were 

used in answering the research questions. 

 

Presentation and Analysis of Data 

Below are responses of students from the different faculties as obtained from the questionnaire. 

 

Name of Faculty Total Number of 

Distributed 

Total Number 

Returned 

Faculty of Arts 105 102 

Faculty of the Management 

Sciences 

105 88 

Faculty of Engineering  105 88 

Total  315 278 

 



AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2021 
 

13                Onebunne & Akujobi 

Out of three hundred and fifteen (315) copies of the questionnaire distributed to the students, a total of 

two hundred and seventy-eight (278) was duly completed and returned, and the percentage of the 

questionnaire returned is as follows: 

%= 278/315 x 100/1 = 88% 

Therefore, the percentage returned is 88%. 

 

Discussion 

The percentage of the respondents within the age range of 17-20 is 27%; 21-23 is 33%; 24-26 is 30%; 

and 27-30 is 10%. This indicates that respondents within the age range of 21-23 are more in the 

university followed by those within the age range of 24-26. This supports the assertion that teenagers 

and youths or young adults use slang more and thus the population is appropriate for this study. 

Eighty eight percent (88%) of the respondents said that they use slang. for those who don’t use slang, 

21 out of 34 respondents gave the reason that they don’t know how to use slang terms properly 

denoting they have some interest in it. Those who chose others specified that they were not brought 

up with it.  

 

Concerning the different text types in which slang is used, almost all the respondents use slang in 

spoken language, in chat and messenger and in emails to friends, some of them in any email, and 

some also in private letters. The number of people who use it in private letters might be so small 

because hardly anybody writes letters anymore in the age of email and messenger. Eighteen (18) 

respondents admit that they use slang during presentations in class while 17 respondents also admit 

that they use slang in exams. In contrast to this, when asked in which types of communication they 

have heard or seen their fellow students use slang, 63 respondents stated that fellow students use slang 

in presentations in class. Some even read it in papers (54) and exams (12). 

 

Regarding the answer for why the respondents use slang and why they think their fellow students use 

slang, the response shows that to some extent slang is used for all the functions listed in my answer 

options. Nevertheless, some choices were given priority over others. The first choice, saying that 

slang is used for the fun of it, received the highest quantum of agreement. 189 respondents said that 

they and others use slang because it is fun.  

 

The main point “to change the situation towards informality” and its sub-point “to be 

informal/colloquial” were the choices with the second highest agreement. When a person uses slang, 

the entire situation becomes informal or even colloquial depending on the quantity and quality of 

slang use. Of course, among fellow students slang use is almost necessary or unavoidable if the 

person does not want to be ridiculed for speaking too formally. The choice “to reduce seriousness” 

was also seen as sub-point to changing the situation towards informality and it was regarded as 

important by 135 respondents when asked about their own reason why they use slang and by 117 

respondents with regards to other people’s reason for slang use. 

 

From the responses “for the fun of it”, “to change the situation towards informality”, “to be 

informal/colloquial” and “to reduce seriousness” had high frequencies showing that slang positively 

affects the students’ communicative competence as they use it to adapt in informal circumstances 

when there is need. 

 

The mother tongue of the respondents and in what languages slang is used was analysed. 189 

respondents said they are Igbos while 58 respondents said they are from other tribes of the country 

other than Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa. Coming to what language in which they respondent use slang, 

definitely all of them use it in English. 169 respondents use it in Igbo while 143 respondents use it in 

other languages other than Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa. This increases the respondents’ choice of words 

when speaking or relating with other students in campus. 

 

Also, the frequency of the respondents’ slang use according to their own opinion was elicited. 26 

respondents admitted to using slang in almost every sentence. 125 respondents say they use it 

frequently but not excessively. 82 respondents admitted to slip in a slang expression from time to 



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14                Onebunne & Akujobi 

time. All the answers are almost normally distributed around the maximum of the choice “frequently, 

but not excessively”. This maximum can be interpreted as a statement that slang is used frequently 

among UNIZIK students and that it may go as far to become a general part of the students’ 

vocabulary, which is difficult to avoid in formal situations. 

 

Again, the respondents seem to agree that slang belongs to the informal or colloquial register of 

language. According to the data collected, 103 respondents said it is informal, 90 stated it is 

colloquial. One feature of informal language is that it is used more in everyday speech (especially 

conversations) than in writing. The vocabulary use of informal register of language is somewhat 

liberal. Also words that express rapport and familiarity are often used in informal speech. So, as the 

students relate with other students in the university, we hear more of words that expresses rapport and 

familiarity. The data also shows that 71 respondents classified slang as poetic. This becomes 

reasonable for the functions of slang according to Crystal (53) to be taken into consideration. For 

these respondents to see slang as being poetic shows that their vocabulary (both active and passive) is 

enriched with slang, and the use it for creative purposes e.g. to be more picturesque. 

 

The analysis showed that a greater number of those who use slang or associate with it have filled in 

the questionnaire. Also, the analysis of those who do not use slang showed that the respondents use 

slang occasionally which would support the notion that almost every student speaks slang at UNIZIK. 

 

The analysis has shown that students use slang not only amongst themselves but also in classroom 

situations (Alimi and Arua 20). This I believe is not just an exceptional case but a general tendency. 

This tendency can be explained from three points of view: first, English is the medium of instruction 

at UNIZIK, Awka but the mother tongue or primary language of only a very small minority of the 

students and not all students have been educated at schools where English is the medium of 

instruction before entering UNIZIK. Second, poor mastery of the English language could be a reason; 

and last, carelessness or laziness on the part of the student to proof read their work or paper. 

 

It also made it clear that when a person starts learning how to use the slang term, it soon becomes a 

habit to use the slang with friends for mere enjoyment. Since communication is “a social interaction 

through messages” (Fiske 58), it must take place in a social context involving transmitting not only 

information but also in communicating social values and interpretational relationships (Thompson 

38). As clearly pointed out by Hymes (281), a competent language user needs to know more than just 

a set of rules for forming grammatical sentences; he/she also needs to know how to use language in a 

contextually appropriate way. 

 

From the analysis, most of the respondents agreed that they use slang frequently but not excessively, 

and this was interpreted as a statement that slang is used frequently among UNIZIK students. It also 

showed that this may go as far as to becoming a general part of the students’ vocabulary. Thus, as the 

students use slang expression, it inadvertently helps in their social adaptation of their speech 

community. 

 

Recommendations 

Slang has been observed to have communicative pertinence among the undergraduates of UNIZIK 

owing to the fact it is taken as a convenient language of communication among students. Since it is 

vital for university student’s communication needs, the following recommendations were made by the 

researcher: 

1. Slang is a style of its own. Since the students resort to it frequently, it can be studied by 

linguists. This is to know its total or holistic features in helping the students in their 

communicative competence. 

2. Users of slang who use slang in very formal situations can strive for mastery in the English 

language first before using the slang terms. This can be achieved by students’ consciousness 

in the use of the English language. 

3. The second language learner cannot be discouraged from using slang as this research has 

shown that young adults/youths/teenagers’ preferences in their speech with their peers result 



AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2021 
 

15                Onebunne & Akujobi 

in rich variation in language use and to a large extent, the development of their 

communicative competence. 

 

Conclusion 

This paper discovered how slang positively affects the students’ communicative competence. Man 

needs language to control his environment; the more he uses it, the better his control. Therefore, the 

students should note that language is the basis of any society they find themselves in life. 

 

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