SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR IN NIGERIAN MULTILINGUAL CONTEXTS: MEANING-MAKING AND SOCIOCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN NIGERIAN ENGLISH AND INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES

This study investigates the universality of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) within Nigerian multilingual contexts, analyzing its capacity to account for meaningmaking in Nigerian English (NigE) and indigenous languages. Grounded in Halliday's SFG framework and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the research employs a tripartite analysis of 45 linguistic expressions (15 NigE,15 indigenous, 15 SFG interpretations) and interviews with 5 Nigerian linguists to evaluate SFG's three meta-functions—ideational (representation of experience), interpersonal (social negotiation), and textual (discourse coherence). Findings reveal that while SFG's interpersonal and textual dimensions seamlessly explain NigE's functional innovations (e.g., "abi?" for consensus) and indigenous discourse strategies (e.g., Yoruba "ó ?e é ?ùgb?nì " for thematic contrast), its ideational function struggles with culture-bound concepts (e.g., Igbo proverbs like "Egbe bere, ugo bere"). This tension underscores the need to adapt SFG's universality claim by integrating cultural-semantic parameters for non-Western contexts. The study concludes that SFG's functional flexibility makes it a robust framework for analyzing multilingual communication, but its ideational meta-function requires culture-sensitive expansion to fully capture Nigeria's linguistic diversity. These insights advocate for a negotiated universality in SFG, balancing theoretical rigor with contextual responsiveness in postcolonial and indigenous language studies.