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Contextual slanguage as linguistic performance among female youth in Nigeria

Abstract The article explores the use of contextual slang as linguistic performance by three all-female friendship groups in Calabar metropolis, Cross River State, south-eastern Nigeria. I argue that slang constitutes critical components of the discursive practices of young urban Nigerian women in maintaining friendship and deviating from stereotyped cultural and linguistic norms. Drawing insights from the analytical tools of African feminism and linguistic ideology, the article discusses recurrent themes in young women’s contextual slanguage and the motivations for the use of these creative linguistic and cultural resources in defining participants’ authentic social selves and in enacting their different modes of belonging. Qualitative ethnographic data for the study were sourced from participant observations, semi-structured interviews and informal conversations with 30 participants. The study concludes that young urban women utilise contextual slang as indexical tools in their everyday narratives to negotiate meaning in relation to the experience of their social lives, to acculturate to male linguistic norms and to affiliate with ideologies that represent gendered identity.