Mɔfɔ-sentatek ne sohyiɔ-pragmatek mpɛnsɛmpɛnsɛnmu fa radio ne TV so mmɛ bi ho: “akɔmfo bɔne sɛ kuro mmɔ a,..”

Nhwehwɛmu da no adi sɛ, ɛnnɛ yi nso, wɔde mmɛ di dwuma pa ara wɔ Akan radio ne TV so dwumadie ahodoɔ no mu, titire ne anɔpa dawubɔ nkrataa mpɛnsɛmpɛnsɛnmu ne kaseɛbɔ. Ɛso akasafoɔ dodoɔ no taa yɛ amanyɔfoɔ ne amanyɔkuo akyitaafoɔ. Dwumadie yi mu nsɛm nso taa fa asetena-amanyɔ ho. Nsɛm no bi ka yɛ den; ɛtumi dane abufuo anaa ɛde ɔtan ba. Ɛno na ama yɛahwɛ sɛdeɛ wɔde mmɛ di dwuma wɔ dwumadie no mu. Yɛhwɛɛ mmɛ pɔtee a wɔtaa fa no mu nsɛm ne botaeɛ nti a wɔfa saa mmɛ no. Yɛahwɛ mmɛ no nhyehyɛeɛ ne ne sohyiɔ-pragmatek dwumadie. Yɛgyee mmɛ no ne ɛho nsɛm kakra firii Peace F.M.; Kookrokoo ne Adom F.M.; Edwaso Nsɛm, UTV ne Adom TV. Yɛhwɛɛ berɛ ne nnipa pɔtee a nsɛm no fa wɔn ho. Anɔpa dawubɔ nkrataa mpɛnsɛmpɛnsɛnmu taa wɔ anɔpa firi nnɔnsia kɔpem nnɔndu. Wei nso boa maa yɛhunuu botaeɛ pɔtee a ɛma akasafoɔ no de saa mmɛ pɔtee no di dwuma. Yɛgyinaa Fairclough (1995 ne 2012) ne Fairclough ne Wodak (1997) adwenemusɛm CDA so na ɛyɛɛ mpɛnsɛmpɛnsɛnmu no. Ɛdaa adi sɛ, mmɛ a amanyɔfoɔ taa de di dwuma no gu mmusuakuo mmeɛnsa; mmɛ dada, nsesamu anaa mframu ne abɛɛfo mmɛ. Nsesamu no nso nhyehyɛeɛ gu; nsɛmfua nsiananmu ne nyifirimu. Yɛhunuu sɛ, sɛdeɛ kaseɛbɔfoɔ nwene wɔn ankasa mmɛ no, amanyɔfoɔ ntaa nnwene mmɛ foforɔ. Sohyiɔ-pragmateks dwumadiemu nso, ɛbɛdaa adi sɛ, wɔmfa mmɛ no nni dwuma sɛ kwatikwan turodoo nko, wɔde bi yɛ sabuakwan (anidaho). The morpho-syntactic and socio-pragmatic analysis of proverbs use on radio and T.V.: “Traditional priests of doom, if you wish for the destruction of a town, …” Agyekum (2000) and Wiafe-Akenten (2015) have observed an extensive use of proverbs in the media since the establishment of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in 1954. This paper therefore examines how these proverbs are used in radio and television programmes, especially in the Morning Shows and News broadcast in Akan. These programmes are socio-political, in which some of the issues discussed are very sensitive, delicate and inflammatory. The paper focuses on investigating how participants of these programmes employ proverbs in handling such difficult issues in their interactions, especially within this highly formal setting. Data for this study was sourced from Peace F.M., Adom F.M, GTV, UTV, (all in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana) Kessben F.M. (in the Ashanti Region of Ghana) and Ɔboɔba F.M. (in the Eastern Region of Ghana). Recordings of 6:00a.m, 12 noon and 6:00p.m. News from the radio stations and Television stations, and those of the Morning Shows from 6am-10am constituted the data for the study. Also, follow-up interviews were conducted after the recordings were transcribed for further analysis. The text and their context were discussed using Fairclough’s (1995 and 2012) and Fairclough & Wodak’s (1997) approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The study specifically looked at the structural and lexical content of the proverbs, the motivation behind choice of certain proverbs and socio-pragmatic functions of the selected proverbs. Findings from the study showed that, some presenters and hosts of the programmes utilized proverbs as facesaving, mitigating and softening strategies. It was also concluded that majority of the politicians also employed the proverbs as indirectional strategies, escape routes, and evasive tools. They either removed or added their own words to strategically manipulate the proverbs to carry out and/or suit their intended message.

Editorial Book Critique: A Grammar of Kusaal

In this paper, we review Musah’s (2018) Grammar of Kusaal – a modern, carefully researched study of Kusaal, a Central-East Mabia language spoken in the Bawku Municipality and surrounding towns, and in parts of Burkina Faso and Togo. The review covers major topics in the book such as phonology, morphological affixes, syntax of nouns, verbs and modifiers, temporal and aspectual marking, argument structure and grammatical relations, serialization, and focus constructions. The author makes an effort to situate the Kusaal language in the larger Mabia cluster in the analysis of the data. More importantly, he provides fresh data and analysis of Kusaal that incorporates ethnolinguistic knowledge. The book is written in a clear language and effort is made to limit theoretical labeling and jargon to a minimum thus, making it accessible to those with limited background in linguistics.

Definiteness in Chiyao

The aim of this paper is to examine the linguistic devices used to express definiteness in Chiyao, a Bantu language of Southern Tanzania, Southern Malawi, and north-western Mozambique. The analysis is guided by the familiarity theory of definiteness, and is based on the data collected through audio-recording of traditional narratives which were later transcribed to identify utterances with definite NPs. Findings establish three main strategies of signalling definiteness in the language, which include morphological, morphosyntactic, and use of bare nouns. The morphological indicators of definiteness include subject and object markers while the morphosyntactic indicators include demonstratives, locative particles, possessive determiners, genitive expressions, and relative clauses. Bare definiteness is mainly expressed by nouns of inalienable possession, including those denoting body parts and family relations. These findings enrich the existing literature on definiteness in Bantu languages and inform future typological and comparative studies on this subject.

Aurelia Mallya: Locative-subject alternation constructions in Kiwoso

Locative subject alternation constructions show variation within and across languages in terms of subject agreement pattern and the type of predicates involved. In Kiwoso, the preverbal locative DPs with and without locative morphology are best analysed as canonical subjects, as evidenced by the subject diagnostics, such as subject-verb agreement and its occurrence as a subject of passive verb and relative verb clauses. The examined examples demonstrate that the postverbal subject neither behaves like canonical subject nor shows features of canonical object in that it cannot passivize in alternation constructions or appear on the verb as an object marker (i.e., cannot be object marked). However, there is strong evidence to suggest that the preverbal locative (subject) DP in Kiwoso locative-subject alternation constructions is a grammatical subject. As in most languages, locative-subject constructions in Kiwoso serve a pragmatic-discourse function of presentational focus. The locative subject argument of the locative-subject alternation constructions is interpreted as a topic, whereas the postverbal thematic subject of these sentences is understood as focus. The postverbal subject provides information which is usually discourse new in relation to preverbal locative DPs. The data examined from Kiwoso challenges the view that formal and semantic locative inversions cannot co-exist in a single language.

Elision in Esahie

One of the syllable structure changes that occur in rapid speech because of sounds influencing each other is elision. This paper provides an account of elision in Esahie, also known as Sehwi, a Kwa language spoken in the Western North region of Ghana. The paper discusses the processes involved in elision, and the context within which elision occurs in the language. The paper shows that sound segments, syllables and tones are affected by the elision process. It demonstrates that elision, though purely a phonological process, is influenced by morphological factors such as vowel juxtapositioning during compounding, and at word boundary. The evidence in this paper show that there is an interface between phonology and morphology when accounting for elision in Esahie. Data for this study were gathered from primary sources using ethnographic and stimuli methods.

Supporting the speaking development of students in a Swahili-as-a-foreign-language (SFL) classroom

Till date, the development of students’ language skills in a Swahili-as-a-foreign-language (SFL) context has not been thoroughly investigated. Rather, a majority of work has focused on grammar. This paper examines the activities that are used in an elementary SFL classroom at an American University to support the speaking development of students. Observation and in-depth interviews reveal that there are four main speaking activities used to support students’ speaking development. The findings highlight the importance of purposefully selecting speaking activities to support the speaking development of students in a SFL classroom.

Therapeutic Communication Competencies for Nurses and Midwives - Amfo et al 2018

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Ideological discursive formations in an emerging democracy

The inaugural address has received a fair bit of scholarly attention due to the strength in the argument that it occupies an important position amongst discourses that can be termed political; and of course, the recognition that it performs an important political function within the state. The primary interest in the inaugural address has mainly been from the field of rhetoric and composition. This study approaches the inaugural from a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective that allows for an examination of the discourse of governance as it is ideologically expressed in the inaugural address. Four (4) inaugural addresses of four (4) presidents within Ghana’s Fourth Republican tradition were purposefully selected to create a mini corpus for the study. Using the dialectical relational approach and drawing specifically on the concepts of subject positioning, agency in discourse and intertextuality, the analysis examines the ideological discursive formations of governance expressed in the inaugurals as discourse types as well as looks at the issues of subject positioning and agency and their ideological implications in the inaugural addresses. The analysis reveals that though there is an extent to which the ideological discursive formation of collectivism has been naturalised in the addresses, there exist differences in terms of how the subject is characterised within this collectivism. It also reveals that there are differences in how the principals of the two political traditions express agency within the addresses. We argue that these differences do construct and are constrained by the different ideological discursive formations of the two political traditions that have dominated Ghana’s political space.

Editorial Book Critique: The Origin of the Word Amen

The Origin of the Word Amen: Ancient Knowledge the Bible has Never Told is a book that promises to excite the interest of any reader interested in classical Kmt ‘Black Nation/Land of the Blacks’, mdw nTr ‘Hieroglyphs,’ the Akan language, and historical/linguistic connections between the three. Specifically, the book promises to deliver information about how the word imn ‘Amen,’ as attested in classical Kmt ‘Black Nation/Land of the Blacks,’ persists in the contemporary Akan language. While, under a steady hand this should be a simple enough thesis to substantiate, unfortunately, the authors’ obvious lack of grounding in historical linguistics, their lack of knowledge of mdw nTr ‘Hieroglyphs’ as well as their lack of understanding the morphology (word structure) of the Akan language all mar the analyses presented in the book.