DUAL LANGUAGE DISORDERS IN ESL SITUATIONS: A CASE STUDY OF SELECTED CHURCH SERMON INTERPRETATIONS FROM ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO HAUSA LANGUAGE

Abstract

The coexistence of the English language alongside the indigenous Nigerian languages in the cognition of a bilingual who lacks executive control often culminates into various language disorders. However, literature on bilingualism and multilingualism studies are mainly fraught with studies on interference and transfer   paucity of studies on the effects of L2 on L1 in ESL situations. The objective of this study, therefore, was to investigate the linguistic evidences of backlash in the interpretations of selected church sermons in an ESL situation. The study adopted the case study research design, and qualitative method of data analysis. Hence, a sample of twenty purposively selected, recorded and transcribed sermons from five Seventh- day Adventist churches served as the data, the analysis also involved random selection of interpretations from the sermons. The sociolinguistic theory of translation was adopted as the theoretical framework. The findings revealed that the interpreters used borrowing, adaptation, discursive creation, amplification and common equivalence translation techniques. The total percentages of the translation techniques found are as follows: Adaptation 11.8%, Amplification 14%, Borrowing 16.3%, Discursive Creation 14.3%, Common Equivalence 13.5%, and Backlash 17.3%.  The study concludes that apart from interference and transfer which have been identified as dual language disorders, as evident in the data of this study, backlash is another fundamental dual language disorder that does not only impede meaning in the religious context but contributes to language death in ESL situations. Further research on backlash as a dual language disorder should be carried out subsequently.