Eunice Omolara Olarewaju

Nigerian journalists often use generic pronouns and nouns like he, mankind, chairman for female and male sexes in their writings. However, it seems Nigerian scholars have not done a systematic study on how the use of these gender-bias expressions is linked to power play, inequality and class struggle in our society. This study, therefore, aims to investigate gendered-English usage in the Nigerian print media and the ideology that surrounds it. The data for the study are gathered from eight randomly selected English-medium Nigerian newspapers and also from interviews with thirty Nigerian journalists. Through a critical reading of ten randomly selected editions of each of the newspapers, texts from news reports, editorials and features in the newspapers are compiled and analyzed for the occurrences of gender-bias expressions. It is expected that the study will reveal the patterns of gender-bias expressions and the attitudes of journalists towards the use of these expressions.