OKORO OKO

    PERSONAL STATEMENT

        My area of teaching and research spans Classical English Syntax; Applied Linguistics; and Educational Sociolinguistics. I have over 40 years of university teaching and research experience from May 1985. Much of my interest has been in Nigerian English – one of the New Englishes – and I have extensively investigated it at all levels of usage: phonetics and phonology; morphology; syntax; semantics; pragmatics; and others.  My current focus is on faulty analogy – an insidious and hardly acknowledged offshoot of behaviourism that is forever at work, accounting for a large proportion of the language errors occurring on all levels in Nigerian English. 

To link up town and gown, I regularly deploy my wealth of experience in manuscript-correction; editing; and facilitating at Use of English/Business Communication Skills workshops/seminars in Nigeria for banks; newspaper houses; credit ratings and risk management firms; the National Pension Commission (PENCOM); audit, tax and advisory services firms; accounting firms; law chambers; churches; the Teachers’ Service Commission (TESCOM), Lagos State; a host of secondary schools; other organizations; and as far afield as Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone.

   POSITIONS, APPOINTMENTS, AND HONOURS

Resource person at various times for:

–   The Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPMN)

–   The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN)

–   The West African Examinations Council (WAEC)

–   The British Council

   RECENT PUBLICATIONS

    1.Okoro, Oko. “Nigerian English Usage and the Tyranny of Fault I: the Morphological/Lexical Level.” Nigerian English in Sociolinguistic Perspectives:      Linguistic and Literary Paradigms – a Festschrift Ed. Oko Okoro. Saarbrucken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller GmbH & Co.  KG, 2011. 434 – 448. Online/Print

     2. Okoro, Oko.  “Nigerian English Usage and the Tyranny of Faulty Analogy II: Spelling.” The Social Educator. Volume 5, Issue 1, 2015,  a Journal of the Department of Social Studies Education, University of Education,Winneba Ghana.

     3. Okoro, Oko. “Nigerian English Usage and the Tyranny of Faulty Analogy III: Pronunciation.” California Linguistic Notes. Vol. 41 (1), Spring 2017, a Journal of  the Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics, California State University, Fullerton, USA.

     4.Okoro, Oko. Selected Journal Articles on Nigerian English Usage, 1986 Saarbrucken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller GmbH & Co. KG, 2011. Online/Print.

5. Okoro, Oko. Exploring Nigerian English – A Guide to Usage 1 (A – L). Pedro,Palmgrove, Lagos, Nigeria: Olucouger Prints Limited, 2022. (328 pages)   
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7. COLLABORATORS/NETWORKS                                                                 
8. Prof. Adeleke Fakoya, Dept.of English, Lagos State University, Nigeria
9. Prof. Taiwo Soneye, Dept. of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
10. Prof. David Jowitt, Dept. of English, University of Jos, Nigeria
11. Prof. John Wiredu, Dept. of English, University of Ghana, Accra, Legon
12. Prof. Douglason Omotor, the West African Institute for Financial & Economic                                     Management (WAIFEM), Nigeria