Language, Power, and Resistance in Nigerian Prison Discourse: A Critical Ethnographic Study

Total institutions such as prisons generate distinctive discourse regimes through which power is exercised, identity is managed, and resistance is expressed, and the linguistics of prison discourse in Nigeria offers a largely unexplored site for the study of language, power, and institutional subjectivity. This dissertation develops an original critical ethnographic analysis of language use in three Nigerian correctional facilities, two in the South South and one in the North Central zone, conducting extended fieldwork of twelve months across the three sites. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, Foucauldian discourse theory, and ethnography of communication, the study develops an original analytical framework termed institutional language regime analysis that maps the distribution of discursive entitlements, the mechanisms of discourse normalization, and the forms of discursive resistance across the prisoner-officer-administration hierarchy. Empirical data sources include extended participant observation field notes, audio-recorded interaction samples from permitted contexts including rehabilitation workshops and court preparation sessions, documentary analysis of institutional communication texts, and in-depth interviews with forty-eight serving prisoners and twenty-three correctional officers. Findings document an institutional language regime that deploys formal English as a technology of authority differentiation, uses Nigerian Pidgin as a de facto prisoner solidarity medium, and maintains silence as a disciplinary instrument in specific spatial contexts. Prisoner resistance discourse strategies are documented including the development of facility-specific argot, the use of paralinguistic performance in officer-directed communication, and strategic code alternation in semi-public hearings. The dissertation makes original theoretical contributions to the critical linguistics of total institutions in postcolonial African contexts. Keywords: prison discourse, power and language, critical ethnography, institutional language, Nigeria.