This study deals with the linguistic repertoire of undergraduates in Ekiti State tertiary institutions. This study also takes a specific interest in examining the linguistic status of the undergraduates in terms of monolingualism, bilingualism and multilingualism. The descriptive design was used for the study. The population for the study were undergraduates’ students from three tertiary institutions in Ekiti State; College of Education, Ikere Ekiti, University of Nsukka, Ikere campus and Crown Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti. The data was collected by administering a structured questionnaire on the selected sample. 180 questionnaires were administered, while 153 questionnaires were returned by the respondent. Five research questions were raised and analysed with SPSS 20. Results of the study revealed that the extent of undergraduates being multilingual was insignificant; about 98% undergraduates were bilingual while a significant number of the undergraduates were not multilingual. Hence, about 1% speak more than two languages, including English as a second language. Furthermore, the extent of code switching and code mixing among the bilingual undergraduates was significant at .038 level of significance. Also, undergraduates tend to code switch from the L1 to the L2 during communication at home as shown by the level of significance being 0.05. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations were made which included, proper implementation of the Language Policy on Education at all levels of education, the administrative resurrection of acculturation programmes in tertiary institutions with emphasis on undergraduates studying Language Education and governments’ intervention in the increase of admission quota of applicants intending studying Nigerian Languages in Nigerian Universities and Colleges of Education.
Keywords: Acculturation, Dialect, Multilingualism, Undergraduates, code-switch, linguistic repertoire
