INFLUENCE OF MOTHER TONGUE ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION IN NIGERIAN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

Language is essentially a characteristic of human being. Language is used, among other human tools, to communicate, in essence to make meaning. Communication or miscommunication, whichever use a language is put to a large extent, has an impact on the society. The form and status of English as a second language in Nigeria have attracted the interest of scholars both in Nigeria and in other parts of the world. Though. there are many areas of disagreement among scholars on the issue of form and status of English in Nigeria, it is generally held that English as it is in Nigeria today, is the product of an interplay of factors, ranging from socio-cultural to linguistic arising from the contact between English and the Nigeria languages in Nigeria's multilingual environment. It is now an established fact that English which initially was introduced to the Nigeria environment as a foreign language was later shaped and transformed by subsequent developments into a second language with an official status. In essence, interlingual transfer is what is foregrounded in the extract where elements are carried from one language into another. This work therefore examines the influence of mother tongue on English language, the endless conflict this has generated on the Nigeria sociolinguistic terrain of learning in. tertiary institutions with possible recommendations