English in West Africa

The paper opens with an enumeration of the countries making up West Africa and their classification into Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone countries. The origins of the English language in the subregion are briefly examined, followed by a consideration of some distinctive features of the area as between second-language (or outer circle sensu Kachru) andforeign language (expanding circle/' sensu Kachru) in terms of the Status of English. Some data on the francophone countries were obtained through a pilot study offive francophone countries in the area. Generally speaking, English is taught throughout the educational System in the anglophone countries, where there is now a growing demandfor an endonormative model, whereas the language is introduced at the secondary level in francophone countries, where the model, with the possible exception of Cameroon, is likely to remain exonormative.