Nnadiebube Journal of Education

This study sought to examine Igbo abusive words and their meaning: Insight from Nimo speech community. The researchers motivation is born out of the indiscriminate use of abusive expressions in recent times, their volume of difference in meaning which leads to the displeasure of people towards it. The objectives of this study were to explore the existence and meaning of abusive expressions in Nimo speech community, describe their reasons for using them. The study also texts their attitudes towards abusive expressions especially in mixed groups context. The research design for this study was descriptive design approach. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 80 respondents for this investigation. The researcher used focus group, questionnaires and interviews as instruments for data collection. The data collected were analysed using qualitative and quantitative analysis method. The Firth’s 1967 contextual theory of meaning formed the theoretical foundation for this research. The findings of this study indicate that abusive expressions exist is in Nimo speech community with relative contextual and associative features. The study also revealed that abusive expressions emanates from unpleasant attitude attributes of individuals and animals and well as ailments. People’s reaction to abusive expression depends on mostly their psychology and context. The researcher recommends that people should be conscious of the psychological disposition of others while meting out abusive expression. Again, individuals should learn not to take some meaningless abusive expressions seriously. Above all, the less abusive expressions individuals use the safer and more relaxed people will feel around each other thereby reducing behavioural psychology insinuations on the wider perspecti

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