Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Language Choice in Nigerian Social Media Activism: A Study of Twitter Campaigns

This study investigates the sociolinguistic dimensions of language choice in Nigerian social media activism, focusing on Twitter-based campaigns between 2021 and 2024. Social media has become a primary arena for civic mobilisation in Nigeria, and the language strategies of digital activists reflect complex negotiations of audience reach, identity expression, and political positioning, yet these have received limited formal sociolinguistic attention. The study adopts a corpus-assisted discourse analysis methodology informed by the sociology of language and digital communication theory. A purposive sample of 1,000 tweets from five significant Nigerian activist campaigns was compiled and analysed for language variety, code-switching patterns, hashtag language choice, and discursive strategies. The analysis examines how activists navigate the competing demands of local ethnic audience solidarity, national reach through Pidgin or English, and international visibility through English-only registers. Findings reveal a tripartite pattern of language layering, with English tweets targeting international and elite national audiences, Pidgin tweets addressing cross-ethnic Nigerian audiences, and indigenous language tweets functioning as ethnic mobilisation and authenticity signals. The study contributes to the sociolinguistics of digital activism in Africa and recommends further longitudinal investigation of language strategy evolution across Nigerian activist campaigns. Keywords: social media activism, language choice, Twitter, Nigerian Pidgin, digital sociolinguistics.