A CORPUS-BASED INVESTIGATION OF NIGERIAN ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS ACCEPTED BY THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY IN 2020 AND 2025

This corpus-based study investigates the usage of forty-nine Nigerian English expressions accepted by the Oxford English dictionary in 2020 and 2025. By Using the Nigerian component of international corpus of English as a source of data for the research. This study aim to examines the percentage of usage of the accepted Nigerian English expressions in the ICE-Nigeria. The method of data analysis for this study is a quantitative method. This study is grounded in descriptive linguistics theory as it theoritical framework to investigate of how the Nigerian English expressions are used in the ICE-Nigeria. The findings of the research shows that 21 Nigerian English expressions are found out of 49 expressions in the ICE-Nigeria while the other 28 expressions were not found in the ICE-Nigeria and also the study shows that some expressions have the high percentages, some expressions have the low percentages and some have zero percentages in the ICE-Nigeria.The research recommends Scholars who are interested in studying Nigerian English should use the Nigerian Component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-Nigeria) to investigate the various aspects of the Nigerian variety of English. Teachers and materials developers of English language in Nigeria should focus their attention more on the teaching of Nigerian English expressions were added in Oxford English dictionary in 2020 and 2025.