Globalization and Minority Language Loss in Public Tertiary Institutions in Cross River State, Nigeria

This paper argues that minority language and cultural loss in Nigeria did not begin with globalization, as it was, but traceable to a creeping process where colonial attrition and annexation of indigenous cultures began. The heightened perspective of cultural language loss emerged in the wake of the globalization wind which ushered in a new social milieu characterized by unlimited access to all people, all places and all situations, a condition of global inter-connectivity. The paper aims at unravelling the overall perspectives of minority language loss among students' categories in public tertiary institutions in Cross River State, Nigeria. The problem of identification is pronged on the recognition that most youths in the society are placing less value on their indigenous cultural values including their mother tongue. This trend is obviously viewed as the possible reason for arrant behavioural patterns among the younger generations of our society and is seen as a malady that should be curbed or controlled for the essence of a better tomorrow. The background explored the various paraphernalia of the overt expression of this cultural alienation by the youths particularly at the tertiary institutions level when they exercise maximum levels of independence. The review was carried out based on such thematic headings as general view of issues pertaining to linguistic loss or extinction, content of linguistic loss by minority groups, the basis of globalization and linguistics loss and the inherent issues/perspectives of linguistics extinction in historical contexts. Under methodology, field enquiry design was adopted, a multistage sampling scheme was used to draw a sample of 300, Indigenous Language Proficiency Test (ILPT) using local guides and a well-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. This data was then analyzed using the Chi–square statistical technique at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed the values of x2calulated=103.058, x2tabulated=32.6705, at (r-1)*(c-1)=(4-1)*(8-1)=21 Degree of Freedom (DF) and 0.05 level of significance. Since x2calulated (103.058) is greater than x2tabulated (32.6705), we therefore reject the null hypothesis Ho in favour of the alternative hypothesis H1. Impliedly, the data provided sufficient evidence to adjudged that there is significant variation in the impact of globalization on the minority language loss of students in tertiary institution in Cross River State, Nigeria.