Empirical Analysis of Pragmatic Transfer in the Written English of Hausa-English Bilinguals in Nigerian Universities

This study empirically investigates pragmatic transfer in the written English of Hausa-English bilinguals enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at universities in North West Nigeria, filling a significant research gap on how Hausa pragmatic norms influence English language use in formal academic writing. Pragmatic transfer, the application of pragmatic rules and expectations from one language to another, is a well-documented phenomenon in second language acquisition research but has received limited systematic empirical attention in the Nigerian context despite the country's rich bilingual landscape. The study adopts a cross-sectional design, collecting written discourse completion task responses and formal argumentative essays from 150 Hausa-dominant bilingual university students at Bayero University Kano and Usman Danfodiyo University Sokoto. A matched comparison group of 50 students from non-Hausa-dominant backgrounds at the same institutions provides a reference point. Pragmatic features analysed include request formulation strategies, apologetic routines, discourse marker use, and the management of disagreement in academic argumentation. Data are analysed using contrastive pragmatic analysis and quantitative frequency comparison. Findings reveal consistent patterns of Hausa pragmatic transfer, particularly in the indirect encoding of requests, the omission of face-saving apology markers, and the avoidance of explicit disagreement markers in academic argument. The study identifies these not as errors but as pragmatic variety features that warrant explicit pedagogical attention in university English language instruction. Keywords: pragmatic transfer, Hausa-English bilinguals, written English, academic writing, North West Nigeria.