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Browsing School of Languages by Author "Amfo, N.A."
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Item “Let me get my stuffs.” Pluralization, mass and countability in African varieties of English(2016-04-21) Mohr, S.; Amfo, N.A.This lecture explores a phenomenon that has not only been controversially discussed in linguistics, but also in philosophy and psychology. A semantic-ontological mass-count distinction seems to be universal in all humans (Massam 2012), distinguishing between non-individuated mass entities such as liquids, and individuated objects such as cars or chairs. Further, psycholinguistic research has recently emphasized the importance of yet another category called “object-mass” items or “collectives” (Barner & Snedeker 2005; Li et al. 2009; Inagaki 2014). These are also central in the current project. While the semantic mass-count distinction seems to be universal, its linguistic representation varies considerably across different languages. This causes difficulties in the acquisition and use of mass nouns in English by non-native speakers. In standard usage, English mass nouns cannot be pluralized (*furnitures), combined with indefinite determiners (*a furniture), or with numerals (*three furnitures). However, in many L2 Englishes of Asia and Africa these forms have been reported to be abundant (Baskaran 2008; Schmied 2006, 2008; Mesthrie & Bhatt 2008; Kortmann & Lunkenheimer 2013). Huber (2012) even suggests “plural mass nouns” to be a typically African English feature. Drawing on the electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English, corpus data and psycholinguistic experiments, results from the current project show that the feature is not diagnostic of African Englishes and generally less frequent than anticipated (Mohr 2015 a, b; 2016). Moreover, certain (semantic) patterns can be found in the corpus data, although the use of plural mass nouns had generally been attributed to overgeneralization and simplification strategies in acquisition (Mesthrie & Bhatt 2008; Sharma 2012). Further, important differences between the African varieties under scrutiny (Kenyan, Tanzanian, Nigerian, Ghanaian and Tswana English) can be observed. In the lecture, the results from the corpus study will be presented, and an outlook on most recent results from fieldwork in spring 2016 will be provided.Item Publish and Perish: Exploring Issues of Predatory Outlets among African Researchers(2016-04-28) Andoh, H.; Amfo, N.A.The dependence of academic evaluation on one’s publications has resulted in the popularity of the expression “Publish or Perish” in academic institutions, over the decades. The expression is, in some sense, intended to serve as an impetus for young researchers to publish the findings of their research, and thus increase the research outputs of their respective institutions. In addition, the policy of most major universities in Africa and world is to increase their publications for a number of reasons, including the possibility of gaining favourable world university rankings. However, in most researchers’ quest to increase their publications, especially after their doctoral studies, they look for journals and other outlets with quicker and easier review processes than the traditional publishers. This has caused the emergence of predatory publishers. The number of “Predatory Publishers” increased from just five (5) in 2009 to over nine hundred in 2016. Their activities possess a great danger to young researchers and the research systems of African universities. In this presentation, I will report on my recent study which highlighted the extent of predatory publishing among Ghanaian researchers. Out of a total number of 600 publications by 30 Ghanaian researchers, over 60 articles were published in predatory journals. Also, of the 30 researchers only 7 had no publications from a predatory publisher in their list of articles and other research outputs. The outcome of this study provides the basis for informing researchers that, in spite of the need to publish to avoid perishing, one can actually publish and still perish if care is not taken to ensure that the processes and consequent outputs are credible. Thus the presentation will create awareness on the emergency of predatory publishers, how they can be identified and why their activities possess a great danger to the overall research system in African universities.Item Who is this ignorant soldier boy?: A postcolonial reading of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy(2016-03-17) Awelewa, A.; Amfo, N.A.This paper is an attempt at a postcolonial reading of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s novel, Sozaboy, which in the author’s words is written in “’rotten English’, a mixture of Nigerian pidgin English, broken English and occasional flashes of good, even idiomatic English” (Author’s Note, Sozaboy, 1994). In this piece, I identify Saro-Wiwa’s novel as an indifferent account of the historical happening in Nigeria between 1967 and 1970. I also consider the characterization of Mene (herein referred to as Sozaboy) as a deliberate attempt to re-create history from the point of view of a partisan judge, the author. My reason for these strong views is foregrounded in the inherent and perennial struggle for relevance by perceived minority ethnic groups of Nigeria brought under the control of three main or dominant groups by a colonial fiat through Lord Lugard in 1914. The three major groups identified by their languages are: Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo. Nigeria, being a country of as many as two hundred and fifty ethnic groups, is currently credited with a population of about 170 million people and regarded as the most populous black nation on earth. This paper also considers the role of colonization and the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta area of the country towards the end of colonial rule as major factors that contributed to the struggle for supremacy among the people of Nigeria in the early years of independence. It also examines the incursion of the military into governance of the newly-independent state as a catalyst for internal struggle, political instability, corruption, mutual hatred and wanton destruction of life and property that the new country witnessed in the early years, leading unavoidably to the civil war, otherwise known as Nigeria-Biafra War. I conclude that Sozaboy is not a true canon for the postcolonial rendition of Nigeria’s history, and if it must be considered for its “anti-war” flavours, there is need to make it walk alongside other ‘reliable’ fictional accounts of events of that era.