Department of Modern Languages
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Rendition of Proper Names in Translation: Transcription or Transliteration?(2018-11-01) Ekotto, F.; Frehiwot, M.All human languages have complex history with individual words. Speakers of any given language will often have occasion to self-consciously utilize another language’s terms within their speech. The paper deals with rendition of proper names in the process of translation. Our examples include personal first names, surnames, as well as general words which cause difficulties in the process of translation. In fact, the incorporation of foreign words into a language, has significant differences in terms of the different types of words, and different languages in different socio-political circumstances. We analyze this phenomenon in order to find out whether transliteration or transcription should be used in the process of translation. The transliteration system must be able to indicate graphical peculiarities that occur in translation process. It should be noted that many languages don’t have traditions of using their own script to represent foreign language words, but rather only represent these words phonetically. An international standard has evolved for precise phonetic transcription that goes by the abbreviation IPA, or International Phonetic Alphabet. Representing sound with scripts leaves room for disagreement as to the best representation in any given context. Each language is characterized by diverse spoken practices based upon regional location and social class. Thus, any phonetic scheme must be capable of representing the full spectrum of sounds possible in all variations. Any transcription scheme cannot possibly represent the language in general, but rather can only represent a specific dialect of the language at a specific time period. We came to conclusion that written sources are overall inconsistent in the degree to which they employ systematic transliteration or transcription schemes. With this regard, we consider three broad tendencies: inconsistency, term-based consistency, systematic consistency.Item My lecturer is my teacher(2018-09-26) Oladosu, A.A.; Kuto, E.This presentation sources inspiration from the extremely shifting topoi of learning in the so-called universities of the 21st century, where knowledge production and consumption are fraught with slippages. It problematizes the categorization of the men responsible for imparting knowledge into ‘lecturer’ and ‘teacher’, even as it raises questions on the whole idea of the academy. The politics behind the discourse is to cast a fresh look at the essentials of teaching in contradistinction to the essentials of lecturing, and through that prevent the whole notion of lectureship in the university from — in the manner of the postmodern — being conclusive or teleological.Item Motherhood, The Model of Beauty in a Woman in The Ancient Arab Society: An Analytical Study.(2018-09-19) Abdulmumin, M.Z.; Oladuso, A.A.The usual depiction of a beautiful woman in ancient Arab literature is that she is tall, fat, and fair, with thick and long black hair. The size in particular is considered as a sign of fertility. The ancient Arabs looked at the woman as the source of life. She was therefore regarded as the human symbol of the god sun, worshipped and revered. This study seeks to establish the role of thoughts or ideas in describing women. It highlights the divine attributes of ladies such as motherhood, young age, virginity and modesty which are considered as the hallmark of chastity. They are sometimes compared with dulls, and their saliva compared with wine, which were key items used in the pagan religious rituals.Item From Timbuktu to Salaga: A Critical Study of Intellectual Works of Ahmed Baba al-Timbukti and Umar Krache.(2018-03-14) Hafiz, M.; Quarshie, D.This paper explores the similarities between Timbuktu and Salaga as robust centers of Arabic and Islamic learning at different epochs in West African Arabic-Islamic intellectual history focusing on two eminent scholars of these cities. Timbuktu had flourished mainly between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, evolving to become the favorite destination of traders who sought to grow their business and multiply their returns, as well as students who aspired to acquire profound insight into the Arabic and Islamic disciplines. Likewise, Salaga became the ultimate and preferred destination of traders and students in Ghana in the nineteenth century. It was soon referred to as the Timbuktu of the South (Morris Johnson, 1965). There is no gainsaying Ahmed Baba al-Timbuktī stands tall among several distinguished luminaries who propelled Timbuktu into prominence and recognition. Through his teaching and intellectual productions within and beyond Timbuktu, he earned himself the accolade al-Timbukti. On the other hand, despite his late affiliation to Kete Krache, Umar b. Abu-Bakr earned his fame as an unrivalled Muslim scholar of the Gold Coast in Salaga, where he had a very rewarding and memorable academic career — which manifested in his active teaching and extensive scholarly writings. It is against this background that this paper highlights the close similarities between Timbuktu and Salaga through the intellectual lives and writings of these scholars. It will be established that notwithstanding the geographic stretch between Timbuktu and Salaga, and the nearly two centuries gap between these two illustrious scholars, there are some notable similarities in their lives and intellectual endeavors that ultimately reflect on their respective cities as well.Item Language practices of francophone students in the University of Ghana(2017-04-27) Chachu, S.; Csajbok-Twerefou, I.Several middle class francophones have migrated to Ghana for economic, political and social educational reasons. This research project aims at exploring how these category of francophone migrants in Accra, the capital city, manage their language repertoire and the reasons underlying their choices. Most studies in migration have focused on migration outside the African continent (Billiez, 1985; Dustmann, 1999; Haque, 2011). These have mainly been carried out within the domains of sociology, geography and economics with little attention given to the linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of migration. However, research shows that language plays an important role in the migration process as it contributes to identity, adapting to a new linguistic space, and modifying ones verbal repertoire and even the economic success of the immigrants. This presentation, which is part of a wider study will focus on the language practices of students from francophone countries who are here for their tertiary education. We explore their language choices in relation to school, work, family, and friends and their perceptions and rating of the French and English languages in relation to the local languages that they speak.Item Language Etiquette and Culture in Teaching of Foreign Languages(2017-04-19) Csajbok-Twerefou, I.; Dzahene-Quarshie, J.People learn foreign languages for communication - to be able to speak and understand. In the early stages of the teaching of any foreign language, teachers introduce language etiquette of the studied language for better understanding and appreciation of aspects of the culture. This is partly due to the fact that in many cases language learning starts from “Hello”, or “My name is…” etc., and also there are major differences between the studied and native languages which describe these languages and their speakers. This indicates that language etiquette should be a part of any language teaching and learning process. The learning of foreign languages at any level is characterized by the interplay of many factors such as mother tongue, culture, educational background, psychological factors, among others. A difficult task that faces an instructor is the development of the socio-cultural competence in teaching a foreign language. In the University of Ghana, students have the opportunity to study Russian language and literature as part of the course content. This paper discusses some challenges in the teaching Russian language in the University of Ghana. Analysis shows that irrespective of the fact, that many Ghanaians speak one other Ghanaian language in addition to their mother tongue, and English which is the official language, and some people also speak French, there is a major challenge in teaching Russian in Ghana as a foreign language. Thus, multilingualism is a useful but not sufficient condition for the effective learning of a language. The paper argues that one reason that makes it difficult to teach Russian as a foreign language is the social and cultural differences and the wide geographical distance between Ghana and Russia.Item The Demands of Academic Writings(2016-09-15) Anika, K.; Boampong, J.Whilst language standardization and standard languages are common knowledge, at least, amongst those who have experienced some formal education, the notion of a standard language being a necessary evil, that the processes involved in creating one invariably entail embarrassing decisions, and that it has negative effects on behaviour, might not necessarily be so common. It is that disparity in the conceptualization of standard languages that this paper sets out to discuss. It opens with a brief orientation towards sociolinguistics, the linguistics branch that is best equipped to deal with languages as complex social phenomena. The paper will present the classic model of the processes of language standardization and proceed to discuss some of their inevitable social effects – the stigmatization of most varieties of a language and the subsequent creation of a culture whereby constant moral and aesthetic sociolinguistic value judgements become the norm. It will be reiterated that language is primarily speech and that the notion of a standard language is a myth, an imposed ideological construct. The conclusion takes up the main ideas discussed and ends on the note that standard languages are a necessary evil, but that understanding the issues surrounding them has the potential to enhance social tolerance and harmony.Item Umar krachi's poetry between imitation and originality: a close study of two poetic works(2017-02-15) Gabid, J.A.; Umar, M.A.Readers of West African Arabic poetry usually discover several features that are similar to Pre-Islamic and Islamic era poetry. This is due primarily to the fact that they unconsciously or otherwise imitate the Pre-Islamic mode of poetic composition by copying themes, tropes, and topoi, just as Abdul-Samad (2009) notes, an avid reader may spot a “deliberate, well-planned open intertextuality in both lexical and artistic terms.” Notwithstanding, West African Arabic poetry cannot be completely robbed of its unique features. This paper discusses the concepts of imitation and originality with a focus on two poems by ʿUmar Krachi. The main purpose is to explore the various ways in which the author imitates the classical mode of poetic composition, and at the same time maintains a considerable level of originality as far as West African Arabic poetry is concerned. The first poem, was written in praise of Malam Sallaw in 1928 who was Kumasi Zongo Chief, while the second poem lampoons an intruder who objected Umar’s manner of pronunciation of ‘al-hamdu lillah’. It will be shown that although Umar used the bipartite structure of the nasīb/ghazal (amatory prelude) and the theme of madīḥ (panegyric) in the panegyric poem, and monothematic structure in the lampoon poem, both poems have their unique local flavour, despite his imitation of classical Arabic poetry in style and theme.Item Incorporating the Literary Re-makes of the Classics into Today’s Literature Classroom: Some Experiential Reflections(2016-10-19) Afatsawo, D.; Boampong, J.In his Plagiat et créativité (treize enquêtes sur l’auteur et son autre) (2008), Jean-Louis Corneille traces creativity and plagiarism in several French authors who have incorporated slices of literary masterpieces into their creative works, and wonders whether it is possible to draw a clear line in literature between creativity and plagiarism and, if so, whether the literary enterprise is not missing out on the burst of creative energy that re-makes bring to other artistic realms like films and music. As an extension to Corneille’s thesis, my presentation discusses the efforts of a new and relatively obscure Spanish publishing house, Editores 451, to bring the classics to a new generation of readers through re-makes that it had commissioned a group of young Spanish writers to make of such Spanish classics as El Mío Cid, Lazarillo de Tormes, Bécquer’s Leyendas as well as of other European and American writers. In my presentation, I will address five fundamental questions, namely: a) What do we understand by a classic literary work, b) How has its meaning changed in and through time, c) What value system underpins the changes, d) In what ways is literary value added, and e) as teachers of language, how can we harness the potentialities of the literary re-makes to gain a new readership for the classics in the college literature classroom. Finally, I will suggest two novel ideas that I believe are worthy of our exploration for their potential benefits to both postgraduate students and faculty.Item From Negritude to “migritude”: the Janus-faced discourse on identity and integration in the African diaspora literature(2016-09-22) Adebowale, M.S.; Afatsawo, D.The concern of the new generation of African writers in the diaspora today is different from that of their predecessors of Negritude. The latter’s concern was to make black cultural heritage visible and to reclaim a place in the exchange among cultures and in so doing show pride in their Black African cultural values. In contrast, most of the new African writers in the diaspora are struggling to dissociate themselves somehow partially or completely from their African heritage thereby creating for themselves a new abstract place that Leonora Miano a writer from Cameroon called Afropea, which she defines as a place which is immaterial and internal for those who do not have the French root. The times of the Negritude have been replaced by those of the “migritude”, given that immigration and the problems of identity and integration are at the center of the concerns of most of those writers. The discourse of these African writers on identity and integration are often contradictory: sometimes they struggle to be recognized as French writers (as considered part of the French Literature) or at least cosmopolitan writers i.e. citizens of the world or even Francophone and other times they categorize themselves as writers and nothing more in order to avoid being classified as African writers. The objective of this paper is to analyze the “identity crisis” of these writers which makes them continuously live in an identity limbo.Item ‘Embarrassing Decisions’ about a Necessary Evil: The Nature and Effects of Language Standardization(2016-09-14) Anika, K.; Boampong, J.Whilst language standardization and standard languages are common knowledge, at least, amongst those who have experienced some formal education, the notion of a standard language being a necessary evil, that the processes involved in creating one invariably entail embarrassing decisions, and that it has negative effects on behaviour, might not necessarily be so common. It is that disparity in the conceptualization of standard languages that this paper sets out to discuss. It opens with a brief orientation towards sociolinguistics, the linguistics branch that is best equipped to deal with languages as complex social phenomena. The paper will present the classic model of the processes of language standardization and proceed to discuss some of their inevitable social effects – the stigmatization of most varieties of a language and the subsequent creation of a culture whereby constant moral and aesthetic sociolinguistic value judgements become the norm. It will be reiterated that language is primarily speech and that the notion of a standard language is a myth, an imposed ideological construct. The conclusion takes up the main ideas discussed and ends on the note that standard languages are a necessary evil, but that understanding the issues surrounding them has the potential to enhance social tolerance and harmony.Item Affectivity and Metaphors in Kiswahili(2016-04-20) Quarshie, J.D.; Twerefou, I.C.This paper revisits the syntax of inalienable possessions in Swahili. It further interrogates the internal relationships between the constituents of affective (intimate possession) constructions in Swahili. The privileged treatment of constructions of inalienable possession is a relatively cross linguistic phenomenon. In Swahili, several construction types in which inalienability is grammatically represented have been identified. In a particular construction type which involves “a person affected (patient) and a part of the body or other thing intimately connected with them (property), featuring as two independent arguments of the verb rather than components of a single noun phrase” (Dzahene-Quarshie 2010) such as Akili imemruka ‘He is out of his mind’ the intimate possession often occurs as the subject of a typically intransitive verb and its owner as a direct object of the verb marked in the verb by an object prefix. Often the intimate possession and the verb constitute collocations. That is there is a concomitant co-occurrence of certain intimate possessions with certain verbs. Contextually, these constructions often occur in the narrative continuum and express abstract phenomena such as emotions and various states of mind. Using data drawn from various sources and a descriptive approach, the paper aims to establish that some affective constructions are metaphoric in that, often there is no direct correlation between the intimate possession and the corresponding verb in terms of semantic mapping. This demonstrates that beyond the established characteristics of affective constructions in the literature, they are also often metaphoric in terms of meaning.Item The problems of translation from english into arabic: lexical and syntactic issues(2015-03-23) Hidir, M.M.; Boasiako, A.A.It is an undeniable fact that translation is a necessity in our lives. It has become a viable venture with the emergence of international trade, increased migration and globalization. The translator therefore plays a pivotal role as a bilingual or multi-lingual transmitter of cultures, concepts, and literary works by attempting to convey meaning from one language to another as accurately as possible. There is no doubt that, there are some problems in any translation process. Linguistic problems such as problems of ambiguity; problems that originate from structural and lexical differences between languages make it difficult for the student of translation. The differences in the syntax of Arabic and English are typical case regarding the problems in translating from Arabic to English. For example, in translating “the boy wrote a letter” into Arabic, it becomes كتب الولد رسالة "kataba al-waladu risaalatan" kataba is the verb, al-waladu is the subject and risaalatan is the object. Thus, the word order in Arabic normally is VSO contrary to English, the source language. Again, the cultural difference that exists between the two languages is another area which causes problems. This study however, will be limited to the lexical and syntactic difficulties that the students of Arabic at the Department of Modern Languages of the University of Ghana face in translating English texts into Arabic. The paper discusses the problems and offers some recommendations and solutions to the problems in translating from English into Arabic.Item Arabic Manuscripts Production and Distribution in Ghana: A Close Study of Jumucat's al-Lāmiyyat al-Ṣughrā(2016-02-16) Hafiz, M.; Asunka, J.This study focuses on a manuscript entitled 'al-Lāmiyyat al-Ṣughra' composed by Malam Jumu'at in 1939 on the occasion of the death of his teacher and brother, 'Ustādh Muḥammad Bāko, who was then the Chief Imam of Accra. The manuscript appears to be an original one, with no accession number, albeit, it is not clear whether it was handwritten by Jumu'at himself or by another scribe. It was found accidentally among the manuscripts photocopied and preserved at Herskovits library in Northwestern from the collection of Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ghana, and therefore was sent back to IAS in 2007 by Dr. Andrea Brigaglia. In terms of content, the manuscript is quite similar to IAS/AR 195, but the hand-writings differ appreciably: IAS/AR 195 was collected from 'Ustādh Adam b. Uthman in Amakom Kumasi on October 5, 1963, while the manuscript under consideration was acquired from 'Ustādh Sacd 'Itan in Zango, Accra on July 7, 1971. The manuscript is written in thin central Sudanic script on a brownish white semi-thick paper with two sets of inks: local black ink and artificial blue ink. The black ink was used for writing the lines of the poem, while the blue ink was used for writing names of persons, places and dates cited in the poem, including the numerous marginal notes across the five folios. Overall, this manuscripts is by far more legible than IAS/AR/ 195. IAS/AR/ 195 has already been a subject of study by K.O. Odoom (1971) who sought to demonstrate the historical value of this manuscript, insisting it is unique in the sense that it is the only document by a Muslim scholar on pioneering Muslim communities in Accra. Far from this, this particular study seeks to explore this manuscript in order underscore some of the intricacies connected to manuscripts production in Ghana, ranging from the occasions that inspire the authorship of Arabic manuscripts, the choice of appropriate titles, mode and format of writing, the relevance of accompanying marginal notes, alterations in manuscripts by scribes, mode of distribution, and interconnectedness of manuscripts in terms of the subject matter they addressItem Altered Kiswahili Proverbs: The Role of Literary Writers and Blog Users(2016-03-09) Omari, S; Dzahene-Quarshie, J.Proverb is one of the important folklore genres in many parts of the world. In many societies proverbs are associated with certain characteristics: they are regarded as succinct fixed artistic forms, that are authoritative, encapsulating some general truth, wisdom and experience of the society and their creators are elders or anonymous. However, these characteristics are increasingly challenged today as the proverbs themselves get altered for various reasons. This paper, therefore, examines how Tanzania’s Kiswahili literary writers and blog users participate in the alteration and spread of Kiswahili proverbs. Data for this study were collected from literary works and websites. It is found that literary writers and blog users play significant role in the alteration and spread of altered proverbs. The paper reveals that the need to cope with today’s environment, change of worldview, political, economic and social phenomena are important factors in the alteration of proverbs. Other factors include the transition from socialism to a free economy, a shift from a single party to multi-party system, technological and scientific advancement, increasing neo-colonialism, globalization, and actions of political leaders, etc. It is also noted that altered proverbs are an important aspect of everyday conversation and are used in various media such as means of transport and mobile phones.