Dr. Evershed Kwasi Amuzu studied Linguistics at the University of Ghana (BA, MA), University of Oslo (MPhil), and the Australian National University (Ph.D). He is a senior lecturer and, currently, the Head of the Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana. His areas of specialization include sociolinguistics, language contact (with special interest in cross-linguistic analyses of aspects of grammatical structure of codeswitching in West Africa; and pidgin and creole languages), discourse analysis, and linguistics of Ewe and English. Address: Ghana
Contemporary journal of African studies, Nov 27, 2018
The use of discourse markers (DMs) in written conversations has long been seen as features of ora... more The use of discourse markers (DMs) in written conversations has long been seen as features of oral conversations that chatters transfer into their written conversations when they wish to activate the informal relationships they developed in oral conversational contexts (see e.g. Landone 2012 and Ramón 2015). This paper shows this conclusion to be true of the use of seven DMs (o, wai, saa, paa, waa, koraa and la) by Ghanaians in their in-group English-based WhatsApp conversations. The DMs are from some Ghanaian languages, and using the Markedness Model of Myers-Scotton (1993, 1998, 1999) it is shown that they occur as marked codeswitches in the otherwise English texts where, in addition to informalising interactions, serve as exhibits of chatters’ Ghanaian identity and in-group solidarity; it is unlikely that such forms as wai, saa, paa, waa, koraa and la will appear in chats of non-Ghanaians. Data analysed for the study were extracts from WhatsApp platforms with only Ghanaian participants.
This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe languag... more This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe language cluster Ewe and Gengbe each with a Germanic and a Romance language. The focus is on a comparison of verb phrases in Ewe-English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana, and Gengbe-French codeswitching, spoken in Togo. It is the first qualitative comparative study of this kind although quite a number of local (West African) languages are in contact with English and French. It finds that because the two varieties of Gbe are morphosyntactically similar, there are remarkable morphosyntactic similarities between bilingual clauses containing English verbs and those containing French verbs. English/French verbs with the same transitivity value which assign the same set of thematic roles to their arguments occur in slots in Ewe/Gengbe-based clauses where Ewe/Gengbe verbs with those subcategorization features also occur. The explanation for this pattern, from the perspective of the Matrix Language Frame model, is that during codeswitching English and French verbs are treated as if they belong to the class of Ewe and Gengbe verbs which share their subcategorization features. Assuming language production to be modular (in the sense of Myers-Scotton 1993, 2002), it is argued that the pattern is illustrative of a kind of composite codeswitching (Amuzu 2005a, 2010, and in print) by which abstract grammatical information from one language about verbs from that language-here English or French-is consistently mapped onto surface structure through the grammatical resources of another language, here Ewe or Gengbe.
This thesis is a detailed investigation of grammatical structures in Ewe-English Codeswitching (C... more This thesis is a detailed investigation of grammatical structures in Ewe-English Codeswitching (CS). It assumes Myers-Scotton’s ideas of Matrix Language (ML) and confronts the question What is the ML in mixed constructions in Ewe-English CS? In an attempt to answer this question, in relation to various types of mixed constructions, the study explores two types of ML hypothesis: the Ewe-only ML hypothesis and a composite ML hypothesis. The two hypotheses share common assumptions and subtle similarities but differ with regard to a few crucial theoretical considerations that by and large determine which of the two adequately and satisfactorily answers the research question. The Ewe-only ML hypothesis says that Ewe-English CS is a case of Classic CS: Ewe lexemes project slots in Ewe grammatical frames into which English counterparts selected for CS are inserted. The composite ML hypothesis, on the other hand, says that Ewe-English CS is a case of Composite CS: English lexemes project th...
Our paper seeks to honor John Singler’s longstanding contribution to the field of Pidgin and Creo... more Our paper seeks to honor John Singler’s longstanding contribution to the field of Pidgin and Creole studies by doing a comparison of outcomes of language contact under different social circumstances in the past and the present, in order to contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between sociohistorical and linguistic factors and language contact outcomes, a central topic in John Singler’s work. Our in-depth comparison of adjectivization strategies in the Surinamese Creoles and the Akan and Gbe languages of Ghana and Togo shows that adjectivization strategies in the Surinamese Creoles not only include traces of the European and African languages that contributed to their emergence via substratum influence, but also traces of innovative strategies that are typically found in contemporary multilingual discourse. Keywords: adjectivization, Akan, Gbe, Sranantongo, creole formation, codeswitching
This work assesses the effects of family background of second language learners on their academic... more This work assesses the effects of family background of second language learners on their academic writing competence in English. A cursory study of some examination scripts of first-year students reveals some poor writing skills of students in areas such as concord, spelling, capitalization, and fragmentation errors.30 participants were selected from a class of 121 students from the Ghana Baptist University College, a private institution in Kumasi, Ghana. Initially, the class of 121 was sorted out into three groups-those who said they used only English at home, those who said they used only Ghanaian language(s) at home, and those who said they used both English and Ghanaian language(s) at home. Each group was further divided along gender lines and 5 students from each of the 6 subgroups were picked randomly. The participants were then made to write a sit-in assessment on a topic and were graded by an independent assessor. The findings of the study reveal that the performance of the bilingual English and Ghanaian language learners outweighed those of their contemporaries. The study also revealed a positive correlation between attitudes of parents about English and learners' academic writing skills. These have pedagogical and theoretical implications for the teaching and learning of English as a second language in Ghana. Language proficiency involves the development of skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. All these four aspects of language development are equally vital in the language learning process, but the current paper focuses on the development of writing skills by second language learners of English in Ghana.
Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Dec 1, 2014
Ghana is a linguistically diverse country where the alternate use of multiple languages in conver... more Ghana is a linguistically diverse country where the alternate use of multiple languages in conversations (i.e. codeswitching / CS) is an everyday phenomenon. However, CS in the popular music industry has been rare, a situation that is changing, with the emergence of bilingual hiplife songs. Unlike CS in spontaneous speech which is largely unconscious, the CS in Ghanaian hiplife music is usually premeditated, designed to elicit certain audience reactions. This paper explores the motivations for the use of CS in three hiplife songs: Praye's Angelina, Ɔkyeame Kwame's Medo Mmaa and Eduwoji's Yenko Nkoaa. We show that these artistes do more with CS in their songs than to merely use it to reach out to clients in their multilingual country and beyond. They use it (i) as a means to achieve aesthetic effects, which make their songs memorable and danceable, and (ii) as a message on various social issues, including love and social harmony. It is argued that in using CS for these purposes the artistes are simply reflecting what has long been a widespread communicative praxis, especially among fellow (urban) youths. Le Ghana est un pays presentant une diversite linguistique ou l'alternance codique est un phenomene quotidien. Cependant, dans l'industrie de la musique populaire, l'alternance codique a jusque-la ete rare; et ceci represente une situation qui est en train de changer du a l'emergence de chansons hiplife bilingues. Contrairement a l'alternance codique tenue lors du langage courant qui est en grande partie spontanee et inconsciente, l'alternance codique dans le hiplife ghaneen est generalement intentionnelle, voulant faire reagir son audience. Cet article examine les raisons de l'utilisation de l'alternance codique dans trois chansons hiplife: Angelina de Praye, Medo Mmaa de Ɔkyeame Kwame, et Yenko Nkoaa de Eduwoji. Nous demontrons que ces artistes usent de l'alternance codique pour plus que la simple intention d'atteindre une audience venant de pays multilingues. Ils l'utilisent (i) afin d'obtenir des effets esthetiques qui feront de leurs chansons des tubes memorables et dansables, et (ii) comme message portant sur des sujets sociaux tels que l'amour et l'harmonie sociale. L'article fait valoir qu'en utilisant l'alternance codique pour ces raisons citees, les artistes refletent simplement ce qui a longtemps ete une pratique de communication courante, surtout parmi les jeunes urbains.
The paper compares serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Ewe-English and Ewe-French codeswitching (... more The paper compares serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Ewe-English and Ewe-French codeswitching (CS) spoken in Ghana and Togo respectively. It argues that Ewe, the Matrix Language (ML) in both cases, sets the morphosyntactic frames of bilingual SVCs and, thus, determines their structural possibilities. It demonstrates this by looking at the various properties of SVCs in monolingual Ewe (including monoclausality and the expression of aspect and modality categories) and comparing them to the ones found in Ewe-English and Ewe-French CS structures. It also demonstrates this by looking at the expression of complex motion using Talmy's (2000) typology. Although English and French belong to different types with English being satellite-framed and French being verb-framed, and, although neither language has SVCs, complex motion is expressed in CS with SVCs. The facts are accounted for by using Myers-Scotton's (1993, 2002) Matrix Language Frame model. One major significance of the paper is that it is the first cross-linguistic study of bilingual SVCs. It predicts that for bilingual SVCs to be characteristic of CS, the ML has to have SVCs even if the other language, the embedded language, does not have them.
This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe languag... more This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe language cluster Ewe and Gengbe each with a Germanic and a Romance language. The focus is on a comparison of verb phrases in Ewe-English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana, and Gengbe-French codeswitching, spoken in Togo. It is the first qualitative comparative study of this kind although quite a number of local (West African) languages are in contact with English and French. It finds that because the two varieties of Gbe are morphosyntactically similar, there are remarkable morphosyntactic similarities between bilingual clauses containing English verbs and those containing French verbs. English/French verbs with the same transitivity value which assign the same set of thematic roles to their arguments occur in slots in Ewe/Gengbe-based clauses where Ewe/Gengbe verbs with those subcategorization features also occur. The explanation for this pattern, from the perspective of the Matrix Language Frame...
The basic characteristic of composite codeswitching is that the languages involved share responsi... more The basic characteristic of composite codeswitching is that the languages involved share responsibility for framing bilingual constituents. This paper points to evidence of this characteristic in the nature of morpheme distribution in mixed possessive constructions in Ewe–English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana. An Ewe semantic distinction between two types of possessive constructions is consistently neutralized when English possessum nominals are used instead of their Ewe counterparts, and the paper demonstrates that the neutralization of this distinction results from direct mapping of English-origin grammatical information about English nominals onto Ewe grammar. It explains that this mapping of information from one grammar onto another one is characteristic of composite codeswitching and that it is facilitated by the fact that language production is modular in the sense of Levelt ((1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) and Myers-Scotton ((1993). Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; (2002). Contact linguistics: Bilingual encounters and grammatical outcomes. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press).
... possessivewhen the copula's complement is a possessor nominal expression (eg This b... more ... possessivewhen the copula's complement is a possessor nominal expression (eg This bicycle is John's). Lyons (197715. ... View all references). However, in Amuzu (2005) I outline reasons why le is better seen as a copulative verbal element. ...
The purpose of this paper is to deepen insight into the socio-pragmatics of conversational codesw... more The purpose of this paper is to deepen insight into the socio-pragmatics of conversational codeswitching in Ghana. It presents detailed textual analyses of the codeswitching that Ewe-English and Akan-English bilinguals employ in various social contexts, including informal interactions at home, semi-formal discussions in study group meetings at school, and interactions on talk-radio. We find that codeswitching appears to be predominantly unmarked (i.e. that it appears to fulfil little or no pragmatic and discursive functions in interactions beyond indexing speakers’ solidarity). But upon closer look we realize that many codeswitching instances that could pass as unmarked are in fact illustrations of marked codeswitching, which bilinguals employ stylistically to convey specifiable social and discourse intentions. The paper situates the discussion within an ongoing debate about the future of indigenous Ghanaian languages in intensive codeswitching contact with English. It specifically ...
This paper deals with the phenomenon of double plurality in codeswitching, with illustrations fro... more This paper deals with the phenomenon of double plurality in codeswitching, with illustrations from Ewe-English Codeswitching (CS). It shows that English nouns (but never Ewe ones) may take two plurals, the English -s and its Ewe counterpart w o . -s always occurs on the stem of the noun while w o occurs either immediately after -s or a few slots away. The paper demonstrates that.the English noun-and-plural units are consistently embedded in Ewe-based NPs in which Ewe modifiers of the English nouns occur in slots associated with them in monolingual Ewe NPs. While -s may be dropped from mixed NPs that already show double plurality, the dropping of w o from such NPs makes them unacceptable. Three theoretical questions are asked in our quest to explain this plural doubling phenomenon. One is why it involves only English noun heads. The second relates to why the two forms emerge as plurals even though -s is redundant. The third one is about the nature of language production involved: w...
This study investigates the extent to which mostly untrained interpreters render accurately the v... more This study investigates the extent to which mostly untrained interpreters render accurately the voices of participants in Ghanaian district courts, and how the participants orient to shortcomings in the interpretations. Based on 7.5 hours of audio-recordings, we found that 91% of interpretations were accurate. The 9% of interpretations that were inaccurate were of five types: non-equivalence in propositional content, omissions, elaborations, incorrect grammatical forms and literal translations. We also found that on some occasions, inaccurate interpretations are corrected by other court participants, making the interpreting activity a collaborative effort. Judges were the most likely to intervene when an interpretation went wrong, perhaps a reflection of the sense of responsibility felt by them for anything that happens in their courtroom.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Abstract The article examines the sociolinguistic variations of the alveolar tap [ɾ] in Dagbani f... more Abstract The article examines the sociolinguistic variations of the alveolar tap [ɾ] in Dagbani female names, a Gur language spoken in the northern part of Ghana. It focuses on how the language is losing the pronunciation of the alveolar lateral /l/ in some female names through sound substitution. The sound [ɾ] does not occur in word-initial position in Dagbani, but it is currently prominent in the pronunciation of some Dagbani female names. The article shows that the pronunciation of the alveolar tap [ɾ] in Dagbani speech communities provides the complexity of linguistic variation and language change. It also reveals that while the alveolar lateral /l/ variety is the prestigious form in Dagbani, the alveolar tap [ɾ] variety is spreading due to the Arabic education in the area. The article supports the Labovian paradigm and presents quantitative analysis of the data. The article suggests that the alveolar tap [ɾ] is frequent in the speech of the younger generation, while the alveolar lateral /l/ is frequent in the speech of the older generation.
Contemporary journal of African studies, Nov 27, 2018
The use of discourse markers (DMs) in written conversations has long been seen as features of ora... more The use of discourse markers (DMs) in written conversations has long been seen as features of oral conversations that chatters transfer into their written conversations when they wish to activate the informal relationships they developed in oral conversational contexts (see e.g. Landone 2012 and Ramón 2015). This paper shows this conclusion to be true of the use of seven DMs (o, wai, saa, paa, waa, koraa and la) by Ghanaians in their in-group English-based WhatsApp conversations. The DMs are from some Ghanaian languages, and using the Markedness Model of Myers-Scotton (1993, 1998, 1999) it is shown that they occur as marked codeswitches in the otherwise English texts where, in addition to informalising interactions, serve as exhibits of chatters’ Ghanaian identity and in-group solidarity; it is unlikely that such forms as wai, saa, paa, waa, koraa and la will appear in chats of non-Ghanaians. Data analysed for the study were extracts from WhatsApp platforms with only Ghanaian participants.
This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe languag... more This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe language cluster Ewe and Gengbe each with a Germanic and a Romance language. The focus is on a comparison of verb phrases in Ewe-English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana, and Gengbe-French codeswitching, spoken in Togo. It is the first qualitative comparative study of this kind although quite a number of local (West African) languages are in contact with English and French. It finds that because the two varieties of Gbe are morphosyntactically similar, there are remarkable morphosyntactic similarities between bilingual clauses containing English verbs and those containing French verbs. English/French verbs with the same transitivity value which assign the same set of thematic roles to their arguments occur in slots in Ewe/Gengbe-based clauses where Ewe/Gengbe verbs with those subcategorization features also occur. The explanation for this pattern, from the perspective of the Matrix Language Frame model, is that during codeswitching English and French verbs are treated as if they belong to the class of Ewe and Gengbe verbs which share their subcategorization features. Assuming language production to be modular (in the sense of Myers-Scotton 1993, 2002), it is argued that the pattern is illustrative of a kind of composite codeswitching (Amuzu 2005a, 2010, and in print) by which abstract grammatical information from one language about verbs from that language-here English or French-is consistently mapped onto surface structure through the grammatical resources of another language, here Ewe or Gengbe.
This thesis is a detailed investigation of grammatical structures in Ewe-English Codeswitching (C... more This thesis is a detailed investigation of grammatical structures in Ewe-English Codeswitching (CS). It assumes Myers-Scotton’s ideas of Matrix Language (ML) and confronts the question What is the ML in mixed constructions in Ewe-English CS? In an attempt to answer this question, in relation to various types of mixed constructions, the study explores two types of ML hypothesis: the Ewe-only ML hypothesis and a composite ML hypothesis. The two hypotheses share common assumptions and subtle similarities but differ with regard to a few crucial theoretical considerations that by and large determine which of the two adequately and satisfactorily answers the research question. The Ewe-only ML hypothesis says that Ewe-English CS is a case of Classic CS: Ewe lexemes project slots in Ewe grammatical frames into which English counterparts selected for CS are inserted. The composite ML hypothesis, on the other hand, says that Ewe-English CS is a case of Composite CS: English lexemes project th...
Our paper seeks to honor John Singler’s longstanding contribution to the field of Pidgin and Creo... more Our paper seeks to honor John Singler’s longstanding contribution to the field of Pidgin and Creole studies by doing a comparison of outcomes of language contact under different social circumstances in the past and the present, in order to contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between sociohistorical and linguistic factors and language contact outcomes, a central topic in John Singler’s work. Our in-depth comparison of adjectivization strategies in the Surinamese Creoles and the Akan and Gbe languages of Ghana and Togo shows that adjectivization strategies in the Surinamese Creoles not only include traces of the European and African languages that contributed to their emergence via substratum influence, but also traces of innovative strategies that are typically found in contemporary multilingual discourse. Keywords: adjectivization, Akan, Gbe, Sranantongo, creole formation, codeswitching
This work assesses the effects of family background of second language learners on their academic... more This work assesses the effects of family background of second language learners on their academic writing competence in English. A cursory study of some examination scripts of first-year students reveals some poor writing skills of students in areas such as concord, spelling, capitalization, and fragmentation errors.30 participants were selected from a class of 121 students from the Ghana Baptist University College, a private institution in Kumasi, Ghana. Initially, the class of 121 was sorted out into three groups-those who said they used only English at home, those who said they used only Ghanaian language(s) at home, and those who said they used both English and Ghanaian language(s) at home. Each group was further divided along gender lines and 5 students from each of the 6 subgroups were picked randomly. The participants were then made to write a sit-in assessment on a topic and were graded by an independent assessor. The findings of the study reveal that the performance of the bilingual English and Ghanaian language learners outweighed those of their contemporaries. The study also revealed a positive correlation between attitudes of parents about English and learners' academic writing skills. These have pedagogical and theoretical implications for the teaching and learning of English as a second language in Ghana. Language proficiency involves the development of skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. All these four aspects of language development are equally vital in the language learning process, but the current paper focuses on the development of writing skills by second language learners of English in Ghana.
Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Dec 1, 2014
Ghana is a linguistically diverse country where the alternate use of multiple languages in conver... more Ghana is a linguistically diverse country where the alternate use of multiple languages in conversations (i.e. codeswitching / CS) is an everyday phenomenon. However, CS in the popular music industry has been rare, a situation that is changing, with the emergence of bilingual hiplife songs. Unlike CS in spontaneous speech which is largely unconscious, the CS in Ghanaian hiplife music is usually premeditated, designed to elicit certain audience reactions. This paper explores the motivations for the use of CS in three hiplife songs: Praye's Angelina, Ɔkyeame Kwame's Medo Mmaa and Eduwoji's Yenko Nkoaa. We show that these artistes do more with CS in their songs than to merely use it to reach out to clients in their multilingual country and beyond. They use it (i) as a means to achieve aesthetic effects, which make their songs memorable and danceable, and (ii) as a message on various social issues, including love and social harmony. It is argued that in using CS for these purposes the artistes are simply reflecting what has long been a widespread communicative praxis, especially among fellow (urban) youths. Le Ghana est un pays presentant une diversite linguistique ou l'alternance codique est un phenomene quotidien. Cependant, dans l'industrie de la musique populaire, l'alternance codique a jusque-la ete rare; et ceci represente une situation qui est en train de changer du a l'emergence de chansons hiplife bilingues. Contrairement a l'alternance codique tenue lors du langage courant qui est en grande partie spontanee et inconsciente, l'alternance codique dans le hiplife ghaneen est generalement intentionnelle, voulant faire reagir son audience. Cet article examine les raisons de l'utilisation de l'alternance codique dans trois chansons hiplife: Angelina de Praye, Medo Mmaa de Ɔkyeame Kwame, et Yenko Nkoaa de Eduwoji. Nous demontrons que ces artistes usent de l'alternance codique pour plus que la simple intention d'atteindre une audience venant de pays multilingues. Ils l'utilisent (i) afin d'obtenir des effets esthetiques qui feront de leurs chansons des tubes memorables et dansables, et (ii) comme message portant sur des sujets sociaux tels que l'amour et l'harmonie sociale. L'article fait valoir qu'en utilisant l'alternance codique pour ces raisons citees, les artistes refletent simplement ce qui a longtemps ete une pratique de communication courante, surtout parmi les jeunes urbains.
The paper compares serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Ewe-English and Ewe-French codeswitching (... more The paper compares serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Ewe-English and Ewe-French codeswitching (CS) spoken in Ghana and Togo respectively. It argues that Ewe, the Matrix Language (ML) in both cases, sets the morphosyntactic frames of bilingual SVCs and, thus, determines their structural possibilities. It demonstrates this by looking at the various properties of SVCs in monolingual Ewe (including monoclausality and the expression of aspect and modality categories) and comparing them to the ones found in Ewe-English and Ewe-French CS structures. It also demonstrates this by looking at the expression of complex motion using Talmy's (2000) typology. Although English and French belong to different types with English being satellite-framed and French being verb-framed, and, although neither language has SVCs, complex motion is expressed in CS with SVCs. The facts are accounted for by using Myers-Scotton's (1993, 2002) Matrix Language Frame model. One major significance of the paper is that it is the first cross-linguistic study of bilingual SVCs. It predicts that for bilingual SVCs to be characteristic of CS, the ML has to have SVCs even if the other language, the embedded language, does not have them.
This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe languag... more This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe language cluster Ewe and Gengbe each with a Germanic and a Romance language. The focus is on a comparison of verb phrases in Ewe-English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana, and Gengbe-French codeswitching, spoken in Togo. It is the first qualitative comparative study of this kind although quite a number of local (West African) languages are in contact with English and French. It finds that because the two varieties of Gbe are morphosyntactically similar, there are remarkable morphosyntactic similarities between bilingual clauses containing English verbs and those containing French verbs. English/French verbs with the same transitivity value which assign the same set of thematic roles to their arguments occur in slots in Ewe/Gengbe-based clauses where Ewe/Gengbe verbs with those subcategorization features also occur. The explanation for this pattern, from the perspective of the Matrix Language Frame...
The basic characteristic of composite codeswitching is that the languages involved share responsi... more The basic characteristic of composite codeswitching is that the languages involved share responsibility for framing bilingual constituents. This paper points to evidence of this characteristic in the nature of morpheme distribution in mixed possessive constructions in Ewe–English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana. An Ewe semantic distinction between two types of possessive constructions is consistently neutralized when English possessum nominals are used instead of their Ewe counterparts, and the paper demonstrates that the neutralization of this distinction results from direct mapping of English-origin grammatical information about English nominals onto Ewe grammar. It explains that this mapping of information from one grammar onto another one is characteristic of composite codeswitching and that it is facilitated by the fact that language production is modular in the sense of Levelt ((1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) and Myers-Scotton ((1993). Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; (2002). Contact linguistics: Bilingual encounters and grammatical outcomes. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press).
... possessivewhen the copula's complement is a possessor nominal expression (eg This b... more ... possessivewhen the copula's complement is a possessor nominal expression (eg This bicycle is John's). Lyons (197715. ... View all references). However, in Amuzu (2005) I outline reasons why le is better seen as a copulative verbal element. ...
The purpose of this paper is to deepen insight into the socio-pragmatics of conversational codesw... more The purpose of this paper is to deepen insight into the socio-pragmatics of conversational codeswitching in Ghana. It presents detailed textual analyses of the codeswitching that Ewe-English and Akan-English bilinguals employ in various social contexts, including informal interactions at home, semi-formal discussions in study group meetings at school, and interactions on talk-radio. We find that codeswitching appears to be predominantly unmarked (i.e. that it appears to fulfil little or no pragmatic and discursive functions in interactions beyond indexing speakers’ solidarity). But upon closer look we realize that many codeswitching instances that could pass as unmarked are in fact illustrations of marked codeswitching, which bilinguals employ stylistically to convey specifiable social and discourse intentions. The paper situates the discussion within an ongoing debate about the future of indigenous Ghanaian languages in intensive codeswitching contact with English. It specifically ...
This paper deals with the phenomenon of double plurality in codeswitching, with illustrations fro... more This paper deals with the phenomenon of double plurality in codeswitching, with illustrations from Ewe-English Codeswitching (CS). It shows that English nouns (but never Ewe ones) may take two plurals, the English -s and its Ewe counterpart w o . -s always occurs on the stem of the noun while w o occurs either immediately after -s or a few slots away. The paper demonstrates that.the English noun-and-plural units are consistently embedded in Ewe-based NPs in which Ewe modifiers of the English nouns occur in slots associated with them in monolingual Ewe NPs. While -s may be dropped from mixed NPs that already show double plurality, the dropping of w o from such NPs makes them unacceptable. Three theoretical questions are asked in our quest to explain this plural doubling phenomenon. One is why it involves only English noun heads. The second relates to why the two forms emerge as plurals even though -s is redundant. The third one is about the nature of language production involved: w...
This study investigates the extent to which mostly untrained interpreters render accurately the v... more This study investigates the extent to which mostly untrained interpreters render accurately the voices of participants in Ghanaian district courts, and how the participants orient to shortcomings in the interpretations. Based on 7.5 hours of audio-recordings, we found that 91% of interpretations were accurate. The 9% of interpretations that were inaccurate were of five types: non-equivalence in propositional content, omissions, elaborations, incorrect grammatical forms and literal translations. We also found that on some occasions, inaccurate interpretations are corrected by other court participants, making the interpreting activity a collaborative effort. Judges were the most likely to intervene when an interpretation went wrong, perhaps a reflection of the sense of responsibility felt by them for anything that happens in their courtroom.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Abstract The article examines the sociolinguistic variations of the alveolar tap [ɾ] in Dagbani f... more Abstract The article examines the sociolinguistic variations of the alveolar tap [ɾ] in Dagbani female names, a Gur language spoken in the northern part of Ghana. It focuses on how the language is losing the pronunciation of the alveolar lateral /l/ in some female names through sound substitution. The sound [ɾ] does not occur in word-initial position in Dagbani, but it is currently prominent in the pronunciation of some Dagbani female names. The article shows that the pronunciation of the alveolar tap [ɾ] in Dagbani speech communities provides the complexity of linguistic variation and language change. It also reveals that while the alveolar lateral /l/ variety is the prestigious form in Dagbani, the alveolar tap [ɾ] variety is spreading due to the Arabic education in the area. The article supports the Labovian paradigm and presents quantitative analysis of the data. The article suggests that the alveolar tap [ɾ] is frequent in the speech of the younger generation, while the alveolar lateral /l/ is frequent in the speech of the older generation.
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Papers by Evershed Kwasi Amuzu