ABSTRACT
This study examines the current state of Ghanaian Student Pidgin English (henceforth GSPE), 1 a variety of Ghanaian Pidgin English, spoken predominantly by male students in Senior High Schools and Tertiary Institutions as well as male products of both institutions. This variety of Ghanaian Pidgin English is to a large extent considered an in-group or solidarity language used in informal contexts in and outside classroom settings. Basing our analysis on data collected from five Senior High Schools, two tertiary institutions and 16 non-student participants, we discuss both the linguistic and sociolinguistic features of GSPE as currently used by its speakers. We pay particular attention to the lexical idiosyncrasies that exist in this youth code. We further investigate how sociolinguistic variables such as age, gender and the institution one attends/attended are used to construct the identities of GSPE speakers. Critically, we show that GSPE as a code is presently not confined to schools and institutions. This code has broken boundaries in terms of its domains of usage and is being used in official spaces between colleagues and in religious settings.
