Okeworo Stephen Nwali (Ph.D.) Department of Primary Education Ebonyi State College of Education, Ikwo 07037363883 Okeworostephen1958@gmail.com
Abstract.
Language in any form it is spoken, be it at the international, national, ethnic or local levels, remains a veritable tool for communication and also a vessel for carrying people’s culture. However, despite this vital role, language is usually abused by a lot of people even including the owners of the language. A situation like that is not encouraging because of the attendant consequences on people’s cultural heritage. It is against that back drop that this study is carried out to investigate the negative effects of abuse of mother tongue on the cultural life of the people of Ebonyi State. Survey design was used to elicit information from a population of 144 autonomous community leaders in Ebonyi State who invariably constituted the sample of study being a small population. A 23 item questionnaire was the instrument used to collect relevant data needed for the study. The four research questions formulated was answered using mean and standard deviation. The lone hypothesis that also guided the study was tested at 0.05 level of significance using t-test. The results of the study showed that there is no significant difference in the mean ratings of Urban and Rural community leaders on the negative effects of abuse of mother tongue in promoting the cultural heritage of the people of Ebonyi State. Based on the findings, conclusion was made followed by recommendations among which are that parents should stop the habit of discouraging their children from speaking their mother tongue, relevant authorities in Ebonyi State should formulate policies regulating abuse of mother tongue in the area.
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