“Ethnicity, conflict and language choice: the sociolinguistics of development communication in Ghana’s Northern Region”

Abstract

This talk will illustrate the kinds of latent ethnic conflicts that exist in many societies by taking the case of two Ghanaian villages, both located in the Northern Region and both highly multilingual. They differ in the relationships between the ethnolinguistic groups residing within them. In one, Daboya, the land is held by the Gonja following invasions in the eighteenth century, and members of other local groups generally assimilate by showing allegiance to the local Gonja chief and by becoming proficient in the Gonja language. In the other, Pong-Tamale, the land belongs to the Dagomba, a situation which is undisputed. Other groups are not expected to switch to Dagbani or to change allegiances. Ethnic conflicts in the Northern Region in the 1980s and 90s, both between and within several different ethnolinguistic groups, led to many deaths followed by a sharpening of the ethnic divides. This situation exists today. Our case study is a questionnaire-based and ethnographic investigation of language use in the two villages (Mahama 2005). The study thus deals with language choices on two levels, between local people and between members of external elites and local people. The study found that language choices varied between the two villages in ways which uncovered the latent conflicts, and that preferences for communication with development agencies differed considerably, too