Talk held at the Workshop on Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in Postcolonial English Contexts (DVPEC), 6.-7.2.2025 at the UA Ruhr, College for Social Sciences and Humanities, Essen.

From a speech act perspective, the study of language use in Nigerian English is a recent and expanding endeavour (cf. Mustapha, 2011; Dozie and Otagburuagu, 2019; Dozie et al., 2022; Gut and Unuabonah, 2022; Gut et al., 2024). For the case of offers, scholarship suggests cross-varietal variation relative to Inner Circle varieties of English (Gut et al., 2024; cf. also Barron, 2005, 2017). Current descriptions of offers in Nigerian English, however, focus on hospitable, service, gift and assistance offers. Payment offers and payment offer sequences represent a research gap in the Nigerian context, as also in many (postcolonial) contexts. In a Western dating context, payment offer sequences have been shown to reveal cultural variation across a British and German context on a sociopragmatic and discoursal level in speech act choices and sequencing patterns, and on a pragmalinguistic level in the directness of payment offers (Barron, under review b). In addition, gender-specific patterns are reported for both the UK and German context, reflecting a strong breadwinner role for
men in a heterosexual context (Barron, under review a). The present paper addresses this research gap for scholarship on payment offers and payment offer sequences in Nigerian English, by exploring heterosexual payment negotiation interactions as depicted by Nigerian speakers of English. Data were elicited using a free discourse completion task. Informants were 46 Yoruba speakers of Nigerian English.
Examining in particular the speech acts of offers to settle the bill and suggestions to share expenses, the analysis focuses on how interactants negotiate the wider payment event. Findings highlight sociopragmatic and discursive gender variation within Nigerian English in the uses of both speech acts. In addition, comparisons of findings with previous research on payment offers (Barron, under review b) also reveal cross-cultural variation on the pragmalinguistic level in payment offer realisations and on the discursive level in speech act sequencing patterns. Such gender and cross-cultural variation is suggested to have implications for gender awareness pedagogy and for cross-cultural understanding.