Language Attitudes of Yoruba-Speaking Secondary School Students Toward Nigerian Pidgin in Ibadan

Language attitudes shape language use choices, intergenerational transmission patterns, and responses to language policy, making their study among young people in multilingual contexts an important area of applied linguistic inquiry. This study investigates the language attitudes of Yoruba-speaking secondary school students in Ibadan toward Nigerian Pidgin, examining dimensions of prestige, solidarity, utility, and identity affiliation. A matched-guise experiment adapted for the Nigerian context was administered to three hundred and sixty students across six secondary schools in Ibadan, complemented by a language attitude questionnaire and focus group discussions with twenty selected participants. Findings from the matched-guise experiment indicate that Yoruba receives the highest ratings on prestige and cultural identity dimensions, while Nigerian Pidgin receives the highest ratings on solidarity and informality dimensions, and English retains dominance on academic utility ratings. Focus group discussion data reveal that students draw a consistent distinction between their private positive affect for Pidgin and their publicly stated preference for English in formal contexts, a divergence that reflects the covert prestige of Pidgin in peer culture. Male students show significantly more positive Pidgin solidarity ratings than female students, a finding consistent with gendered patterns of Pidgin use documented in recent West African sociolinguistic literature. The study recommends that language policy discussions in Oyo State acknowledge this covert prestige dynamic in designing realistic language education strategies. Keywords: language attitudes, Nigerian Pidgin, secondary students, Ibadan, matched-guise experiment.