Application of Citation Analysis in the Development of Core Nigerian Languages Texts in Nigeria University Libraries

IntroductionLanguage plays very critical roles in national, regional and international relations. All human activities in all fields of studies hinge on the use of languages. Language therefore is the catalyst of socio-political, economic and scientific development of the human race. This is because communication processes are usually rendered in languages. For this reason, language research has always taken centre stage among linguists. The issue of indigenous language research in Africa has been of great interest to linguists resulting in a number of national and international conferences. According to Emenanjo 2006), these conferences propelled the formation of Pan African Linguistic Association that was mandated to implement the language plan that was earlier adopted by 44th ordinary session of OAU Council of Ministers in Addis-Ababa in July 1986. Furthermore, the use of indigenous languages in national development was the major theme of the 1998 Johannesburg Conference where discussions focused on Thabo Mbeki's heralded African Renaissance initiative. Perhaps it is because of this that Chumbow (2005) remarked that development of human resources is essential for African socio-economic and technological growth. Chumbow blamed the failure of education policies in Africa on the neglect of indigenous language in pedagogy. Such neglect is contrary to UNESCO's 1953 findings that learning process is more effective using the mother tongue at an early stage (Bamgbose 1991). Nigeria with over four hundred and fifty indigenous language, (Adegbija, 2004) require serious research for the development of these languages.A study by King'ei (1999) posited that research in African languages is critical in propelling other kinds of research because it is mainly through the use of languages that vital information relevant for the conduct of research could be obtained. According to him, "given that most of Africa remains rural and illiterate, the issue of which language is to be a medium of research is especially crucial. Verbal communication is often the only option that trained researchers obtain information and attain their research goals. " As a result it is basic that the need to speak to people in their own native language cannot be ignored if this necessary information for research must be obtained. Bamgbose (2006) remarks that some of the research conducted in Nigerian languages often have to do with languages that have not been written at all. This is because the foundation of research in any language has to do with the development of orthography of the language. He equally identified several factors that impede language research in Nigeria. Such factors include funding and paucity of research materials in libraries, such as books, relevant and current journals and lack of publication outlets.However, the prominence of books and monographs over journals in humanities research has also been elaborated by East (2006) in his ranking of journals in humanities. He argued that since journals do not have much influence in humanities scholarship, evaluation of humanists through journal ranking is improper. Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (2005:9) strengthened this argument when it remarked that the "standard bibliometric practices do not capture the variety of research outputs (for instance books, documentaries, policy reports) in the humanities and social sciences and are clearly absurd in the creative arts. "The relevance of books in language research has been underscored by several bibliometric studies (Heinzkill, 1980; Thomson, 2002; Georgas and Cullars, 2005; Knievel and Kellsey 2005). It is therefore very important to ascertain the relevant core text books for Nigerian language research.Objectives of the StudThe purpose of this paper is to apply citation analysis in the development of core text books for the study of Nigerian languages using theses and dissertations submitted to Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Language in six Nigerian universities. …