Department of French

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    Subject-verb agreement marking by Ghanaian learners of French
    (Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2023) Kpoglu, P.D.
    In learning French as a foreign language, mastery of agreement marking is indicative of learner progression. In this article, I focus on how subject-verb agreement markers are acquired by Ghanaian learners of French. Based on written data collected from examination scripts, I attempt to present a coherent explanation for the trends noted. The results show that allomorphy characterises the verb stem and influences the production of agreement markers. While verbs with a single stems are strongly associated with first-person singular marking; verbs without an identifiable stem are more strongly associated with third-person singular marking. Interpreting this within the In the item-learning/rule-learning dichotomy, it is argued that both strategies are simultaneously deployed. Consequently, it is suggested that the dichotomy between rule-based versus item-based learning can be impacted by the modality of language.
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    Towards reconstructing Africa: Recuperation and responsibility in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Healers
    (Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 2022) Asaah, A.H.; Zou, T.
    A product of Africa’s pre-colonial and colonial history, Ayi Kwei Armah’s fifth novel, The Healers (1978), is steeped in an African communalistic worldview and the functional conception of art. In this article, we examine the multiple dimensions to recuperation within the context of the reconstruction of Africa, the continental search for utopia, and the responsibility that this places on Africans. Using Armah’s communitarian perspectives on health as As a guide, we identify six interlocking subsets of recuperation: healing, re-creation, renascence, repossession, recall, and Sankofa (return). Informed by Molefi Kete Asante’s construct of agency and Armah’s communalistic injunctions to readers, we establish that permeating each of these building blocks is the responsibility of Africans to operationalize the reconstruction of Africa, the leitmotif of the novel. As helpers, visionaries, and custodians of vital traditional knowledge and skills, the healers facilitate the sharing of information on Africa’s past and future against the background of British colonial domination. We also show that Armah deliberately gives the novel this polysemic title to transcend the spatial, cultural, and epistemic limitations imposed on the continent by the colonial order. We conclude that the social orientation and creative configuration of health in the work are consistent with the diverse and intermingling meanings of recuperation
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    Language Ideology and Practice on the Aflao-Lome Borderland: The Case of Two Border Schools
    (Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2020) Chachu, S.; Omoniyi, T.
    This paper explores language practices in the school domain in Aflao-Lome on the Ghana/Togo border. Here, the boundary line bisects the Ewe, thus creating two contrasting communities: French-speaking Ewe and English-speaking Ewe. Our study investigates language practices in two schools located on either side of the border since the school, as a sociolinguistic domain, is a contested site of language practice where tensions abound between medium of instruction policy and home language practices and cultural routines. The data analyzed comprised reports and observations of adherence to state medium of instruction policy in the classroom by teachers and pupils, and language in activities outside the classroom when formal “language policing” is negligible or, in fact, non-existent. It was discovered that the English and French languages were viewed differently on either side of the border and that school policies on language had to make room, in some cases, for the local language.
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    Étude Écocritique De En Compagnie Des Hommes De Veronique Tadjo
    (Collection Recherches & Regards D’afrique, 2023) Sallah, C.A.
    Nature and environment are two major entities which influence human lives, but the import of their influence depend on the relationship men establish between themselves and their constituent elements such as earth, trees, animals and water bodies. As a result, literary critics develop ecocriticism in order to establish a legitimate relationship between men and their environment. In In the Company of Men, Véronicque Tadjo tries to establish the relationship that exists between Africans and nature and the repercussions of their activities on the environment. Human activities 109 ISBN : 978-2- 493659- 04- 0 COLLECTION RECHERCHES & REGARDS D’AFRIQUE VOL 2 N 0 4 / JUIN 2023 provokes characters like the Baobab, Bat and Ebola to lament about African’s behaviour toward the environment. Our study therefore aims at studying, by means of ecocriticism, the relationship between human being and nature, the connection between men and the environment, the causes of lamentation by natural entities about men and their reciprocal reactions against mankind.
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    Plurilingualism and the learning of French as a foreign language in Ghana
    (Routledge, 2023) Kaiza, E. K.; Chachu, S.
    ABSTRACT The current article studies the competencies of plurilingual students and how these competencies are exploited in the learning of French as a Foreign Language. Adopting a translanguaging theoretical approach, we argue that learners of foreign languages who already speak at least one other language have some linguistic competencies which manifest during their learning of the French language. Through observation of learners of French at the University of Ghana Business School and analysis of their written production, we confirm that some of these plurilingual competencies in students are demonstrated in the nature of the errors identified. The paper therefore recommends that learners’ existing competencies be taken into account and built upon when developing lessons for the foreign language classroom and during classroom delivery
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    Plurilingualism and the learning of French as a foreign language in Ghana
    (Routledge, 2023) Kaiza, E.K.; Chachu, S.
    ABSTRACT The current article studies the competencies of plurilingual students and how these competencies are exploited in the learning of French as a Foreign Language. Adopting a translanguaging theoretical approach, we argue that learners of foreign languages who already speak at least one other language have some linguistic competencies which manifest during their learning of the French language. Through observation of learners of French at the University of Ghana Business School and analysis of their written production, we confirm that some of these plurilingual competencies in students are demonstrated in the nature of the errors identified. The paper therefore recommends that learners’ existing competencies be taken into account and built upon when developing lessons for the foreign language classroom and during classroom delivery.
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    Étude comparative des constructions à verbe support en français et en éwé
    (Research Gate, 2017) Chachu, S.
    The main purpose of this article is to undertake a comparative study of support verbs in French and Ewe to discover the features which are common to them and those which are different. The comparative study shows that support verb constructions in French share the features of the reduction of the support verb and its reconstructibility even though the reduction is manifested differently depending on the language. One of the differences observed is the fact that the determination of the noun plays an important role in support verb constructions in French while it is not a pertinent feature in these constructions in Ewe. Other differences observed include the differences in the interdependency relations of elements in the constructions studied in the two languages.
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    Gender ideologies and power relations in proverbs: A cross-cultural study
    (Journal of Pragmatics, 2020) Lomotey, B.A.; Chachu, S.
    The current study attempts to explore gender ideologies and sexism taking into account the representation of women and men in European Spanish and French proverbs. Basing their research on an interdisciplinary approach, the authors aim at critically reviewing the construction and representation of gender identities in proverbs using Glick and Fiske's Ambivalent Sexism Theory and Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of proverbs culled from published collections and Internet sources. The study focuses among other things on how men are represented in proverbs as opposed to women when it comes to physical, emotional, intellectual, financial, and leadership qualities. Amongst other things, this study shows how discourses of biological essentialism are used to justify what is presented as a natural gender order and the effects of these perceptions on the social order.
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    “I am Speaking French but I am thinking in English”: An Analysis of Errors by Students of the French Language at the University of Ghana
    (Ghana Journal of Linguistics, 2016) Chachu, S.
    This paper is in the domain of language acquisition and more particularly foreign language learning using the theoretical framework of Error Analysis but also taking into account the concept of the development of Interlanguage during the learning of a foreign language. We consider how learners of French as a Foreign Language in the University of Ghana seem to fall, either consciously or unconsciously, on the English Language during their oral and written productions. For this study, first and second year students of French from the University of Ghana were given a series of images and asked either to describe what they saw and/or to use the images to tell a story or form a dialogue. It was observed that there was evidence of English structures, transpositions, transliterations, etc. in their productions. We consider that these interferences are part of the development of the Interlanguage of the learners and we examine some of the types of errors identified in the production of the students. We conclude that this is a natural process for the learner of a foreign language in a multilingual context and we consider how the teacher of a foreign language class can take advantage of these productions to improve his teaching and also improve learning by his/her students.
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    Les pratiques langagières des familles d’origine francophone à Accra
    (2020) Chachu, S.
    This paper reveals the language practices of families in which the parents are francophone migrants who have settled in Accra, Ghana. We observe the interplay of languages in four selected families and the linguistic choices made by the parents, as well as the effects of these linguistic choices on the children. Beyond the language practices in the home, we consider the effects of the other linguistic spaces that the members of the family have to deal with on a daily basis. This study is not one to be generalised but the aim is to present a conscientious observation of the particularity of each family concerning linguistic convictions, language and identity and the perception of the importance of pre-migratory and post-migratory languages. We observe that the families act differently with regards to maintaining pre-migratory languages and often the ‘Mother Tongue’ is sacrificed for the English and French languages which are considered to have economic value, while the local languages are rather seen to have an emotive value.