Department of English
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Item The complex sentence across written genres from native and nonnative contexts; a corpus-based study(Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 2020) Frimpong, G.K.This is a corpus-based study which sought to investigate the use of the complex sentence and its immediate internal clause combining mechanisms across three genres from the written components of the Ghanaian and British versions of the International Corpus of English. The study is based on the theoretical argumentation from the functional register the perspective that the distribution of linguistic elements across genres is functionally motivated. Texts examined were sampled from Academic Natural Science, Academic Social Science and Administrative Writing. The complex sentence received the attention of this study because it was the dominant structural sentence type across the three genres from these two native and nonnative contexts, a phenomenon we have argued in this study to be functionally motivated. An investigation of two internal clauses combined dynamics among the three genres reveals that whereas the Academic Natural Science genres across Ghanaian and British corpora rely a lot on adverbial clauses, the Ghanaian and British academic social and administrative genres vary in their clause combining preferences, a phenomenon we have associated with genre-internal variability.Item The colonising effect: Marketisation and the discursive enactment of institutional identity on Ghanaian universities’ website(International Journal of Marketing Semiotics & Discourse Studies, 2021) Ayaawan, A. E.The relationship between discourses of marketization and the institutional discourses of higher education has been widely explored. The focus has been on discerning the ways whereby discourses of marketization have come to colonize institutional discourses, and shape the identities, as well as the purposes of higher education institutions. A major research trend on the relationship between marketization and higher education has been the reliance on promotional discourse genres. The literature on how marketization has come to shape online institutional discourses in Ghana is scant. This study explores how the discourses of marketization have shaped the types of identities that are enacted through the international students’ section on the websites of two leading institutions. The study draws on the dialectical relational approach to CDA (Fairclough, 2013), as the principal methodological and analytical framework. The findings show that the discourses of marketization have colonized institutional discourses, thus greatly affecting institutions’ construal of instrumental, entrepreneurial, and globalized identities. In addition, the paper explores how the verbal and visual modes were used in complementarity, in the performance of institutional discourses. The study concludes by arguing that higher education institutions in Ghana will have to construe identities that are more academically oriented.Item The Liberation Of The African Female Mind: A Study Of Mabel Dove-Danquah’s Short Stories(University of Ghana, 2022-02) Wiafe, V.This thesis investigates four short stories and other non-narrative texts of Mabel Dove-Danquah in light of her contribution as a feminist liberationist and her attempt to liberate the African female through her works as a writer, journalist and legislator. The main aim of the project is to critically examine the stylistic choices the writer makes in the selected short stories, and how these reflect her radical commitment and agency to the cause of the African female. The Study concludes that using character, theme, narrative perspective and motif, Mabel Dove-Danquah advocates, in a radical way, freedom for women in general and the Ghanaian woman in particular.Item Metaphor In Political Cartoons: The Case Of Ghana’s Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy(University Of Ghana, 2020-10) Boakye-Yiadom, G.Every political party presents policies that appeal to the masses and believe to be people-centred. The media further explain these policies through various means. The media are very diplomatic in employing succinct, trouble-free, but comprehensive means to present political news. Since metaphorical language is known to provide such affordances, this study examined how the media (journalists) use metaphor in political cartoons to present the message of the introduction and implementation of Ghana’s Free Senior High School Policy. Thirteen political cartoons related to Free SHS Policy were collected from August 2017 to November 2019 for analysis using Critical Metaphor Analysis as a framework. The data were grouped under different sub-themes and analyzed qualitatively. The data analysis revealed that the cartoonists (journalists) used different conceptual source domains to present the Free SHS policy message visually. These source domains included cooking, child delivery, seriously sick person, agriculture, sports, feeding children, pasturing cattle, religious confession, and climbing a ladder to enter a container. The findings suggest that the use of these source domains could promote a better understanding of the policy among the Ghanaian people. The analysis again showed the Ghanaian linguistic landscape as very diverse (multilingualism) is a reality in the Ghanaian linguistic society (as demonstrated in the cartoons' bubble speeches).Item The Compound House In Ghanaian Film And Fiction(University Of Ghana, 2022-09) Adu-Gyamfi, B.The compound house is one of the most popular urban and traditional types of housing in Ghana. The house is a prominent setting in many locally produced films in Ghana. However, due to its rich features, other literary texts have adopted it to tell their stories. This essay will be spatial analysis of the house and its representation in Amma Darko’s Faceless, Samuel Nyamekye’s Asoreba, and Paul Gee’s Boasiako. The compound house has a memorable presence in the two films and novels. Faceless, a novel, addresses the social issues of poverty, streetism, bad parenting, rape, and defilement. Asoreba is concerned with domestic violence, and Boasiako is woven around spiritual issues bedeviling an extended family. The three texts have the compound house as the main set. The study will focus on the different roles it plays in contributing to the lives of the characters and the development of the plot. By doing an in-depth analysis, I argue that beyond its functions as a shelter, it is a Bakhtinian chronotope that takes center stage in narratives while being responsible for the security and memories of its inhabitants. Thus, by using Giddens’ ontological security theory and Bachelard’s topoanalysis to read the house, the research will delve into the connection between physical spaces and the psychology of its inhabitants, bringing out psycho-social issues in the texts. These two concepts have an intrinsic relationship with the house chronotope that automatically pops up. Keywords: compound house, chronotope, ontological security, topoanalysis, Kumawood.Item Experiential Meaning In T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land(University Of Ghana, 2021-09) Affum, G.M.This study examines The Waste Land, a seminal poem by Thomas Stearne Eliot, from the Systemic Functional Grammar perspective. Using transitivity as a tool from the Experiential metafunction of the Systemic Functional Grammar, this work explores how Eliot’s grammatical choices construe his experience of the world around and within him in order to unpack the meanings encoded in the poem. To do this, the study used all the three grammatical components that the framework proposes: the processes, participants and circumstances. The work combined both the qualitative and quantitative research methodology. The analysis was done by using Burton’s (1982) steps in text analysis: parsing the clauses in the poem and determining what types of processes exist, what participants are engaged in which type of process and verifying who or what is being affected by each process, and the message that the circumstantial elements presents about the background of the poem. The analysis of the work revealed that all the three major process types: material, relational and mental processes were present in the overall transitivity analysis. Eliot uses these processes and its attendant participants and circumstances to reveal a world characterized by chaos, degeneration, desolation, sexual sterility, decay, transience, horror, lifelessness and a faint hope for regeneration. The study adds a new dimension to the study of Eliot’s poems.Item Misspellings On Signage: Are Learners Of The English Language In The New Juaben Municipality Of The Eastern Region Of Ghana Safe?(University Of Ghana, 2020-09) Duah, B.The purpose of the study was to carry out an experiment to determine whether or not misspellings (in the English language) on signage (the Linguistic Landscape) has a potential effect on the spelling competence of Senior High School learners of the English Language in the New Juaben Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana. A quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study. Fifty (50) learners out of a population of eighty-nine (89) learners from two Senior High Schools in the New Juaben Municipality were purposively selected for the study. The researcher selected some words which had been misspelt on selected signage in the Municipality and gave the learners spelling dictation on those words. The researcher then displayed the pictures of the selected signage with misspellings on them in the classrooms of the selected schools for a month. At the end of the period the researcher went back to the schools to take a second spelling dictation of the same words that were used in the first dictation. After this exercise, students’ attention was drawn to those words which had been misspelt on the signage and they were taught the correct spellings of those words. The results of the data collected from students’ (that is results on the dictation and questionnaire) were analyzed in both percentage and pie chart forms. The analysis of the results revealed that majority of learners read inscriptions on signage but the spelling competence of a minority of them were affected by spellings on signage however the minority’s (and by extension most learners’) spelling competence could be improved if their linguistic landscape was used as one of the tools in teaching spelling in class. The study recommended that educators prompt students to be conscious of their linguistic landscape, with the former guiding the latter in critiquing and appreciating signage in their linguistic landscape. It was also recommended that Metropolitan authorities in the various Regions in Ghana could institute measures that will censor signage before they are put up in the public space.Item Language Policy In Education, Practice And Attitude In Ghanaian Classrooms, A Case Study Of Three Selected Schools In The Ningo Prampram District(University Of Ghana, 2023-01) Anim, C.A.In Ghana, most teachers find it difficult to teach at lower primary schools due to the challenge of dealing with diverse linguistic backgrounds of the pupils. This study examines Ghana’s language – in – education policy vis-à-vis the linguistic practices in the classrooms and the attitudes of parents toward these practices. Three schools in the Ningo - Prampram District are selected for the study – Old Ningo Presby ‘A’, Old Ningo D/A ‘A’, and Old Ningo D/A ‘B’. In all, 12 participants are used in the study. They consist of six pupils (2 pupils from each school) and six parents respectively. Teaching in the classrooms is observed and audio recorded. Interviews (semi-structured) are conducted with both parents and pupils. The results show that there is a high level of linguistic diversity among both teachers and pupils in the selected schools. In many instances, some pupils and teachers do not understand the L1 of the locality which is expected to be used as the medium of instruction at that level, according to the language – in – education policy. In view of this, teachers use other languages that are available in their lesson deliveries. As a result of diverse linguistic backgrounds of pupils, English is becoming the major medium of instruction. The findings also reveal that parents are oblivious to the language – in – education policy vis-à-vis the practices in the classrooms. Again, most parents prefer English to be used for lessons in schools more than the dominant language. The research therefore, advocates for the use of translanguaging pedagogical strategies as a solution to augment the language - in - education policy in multilingual classrooms, especially, at the lower primary. Again, teachers posted to the lower primary must have the capacity to use the L1 of the area. Educational policy planners should take a second look at language in education policy to suit and address the multilingual situations in the classrooms.Item The Compound House In Ghanaian Film And Fiction(University Of Ghana, 2022-09) Adu-Gyamfi, B.The compound house is one of the most popular urban and traditional types of housing in Ghana. The house is a prominent setting in many locally produced films in Ghana. However, due to its rich features, other literary texts have adopted it to tell their stories. This essay will be spatial analysis of the house and its representation in Amma Darko’s Faceless, Samuel Nyamekye’s Asoreba, and Paul Gee’s Boasiako. The compound house has a memorable presence in the two films and novels. Faceless, a novel, addresses the social issues of poverty, streetism, bad parenting, rape, and defilement. Asoreba is concerned with domestic violence, and Boasiako is woven around spiritual issues bedeviling an extended family. The three texts have the compound house as the main set. The study will focus on the different roles it plays in contributing to the lives of the characters and the development of the plot. By doing an in-depth analysis, I argue that beyond its functions as a shelter, it is a Bakhtinian chronotope that takes center stage in narratives while being responsible for the security and memories of its inhabitants. Thus, by using Giddens’ ontological security theory and Bachelard’s topoanalysis to read the house, the research will delve into the connection between physical spaces and the psychology of its inhabitants, bringing out psycho-social issues in the texts. These two concepts have an intrinsic relationship with the house chronotope that automatically pops up. Keywords: compound house, chronotope, ontological security, topoanalysis, Kumawood.Item Misspellings On Signage: Are Learners Of The English Language In The New Juaben Municipality Of The Eastern Region Of Ghana Safe(University Of Ghana, 2020-09) Duah, B.The purpose of the study was to carry out an experiment to determine whether or not misspellings (in the English language) on signage (the Linguistic Landscape) has a potential effect on the spelling competence of Senior High School learners of the English Language in the New Juaben Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana. A quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study. Fifty (50) learners out of a population of eighty-nine (89) learners from two Senior High Schools in the New Juaben Municipality were purposively selected for the study. The researcher selected some words which had been misspelt on selected signage in the Municipality and gave the learners spelling dictation on those words. The researcher then displayed the pictures of the selected signage with misspellings on them in the classrooms of the selected schools for a month. At the end of the period the researcher went back to the schools to take a second spelling dictation of the same words that were used in the first dictation. After this exercise, students’ attention was drawn to those words which had been misspelt on the signage and they were taught the correct spellings of those words. The results of the data collected from students’ (that is results on the dictation and questionnaire) were analyzed in both percentage and pie chart forms. The analysis of the results revealed that majority of learners read inscriptions on signage but the spelling competence of a minority of them were affected by spellings on signage however the minority’s (and by extension most learners’) spelling competence could be improved if their linguistic landscape was used as one of the tools in teaching spelling in class. The study recommended that educators prompt students to be conscious of their linguistic landscape, with the former guiding the latter in critiquing and appreciating signage in their linguistic landscape. It was also recommended that Metropolitan authorities in the various Regions in Ghana could institute measures that will censor signage before they are put up in the public space.