Fr o m t h e C h a ir :

J ubi le e

Volume 1, Issue 1

Business Name

Fe l ic it at ions !

A triannual newsletter by
the University of Ghana
Department of Linguistics
Volume 2,
Number 2
August 2014

Welcome to this issue of our newsletterthe L-cube. In this

issue, we update you on events in the Department since April
this year and bring to you information that would be of benefit
to members in the near future. I would like to use this opportuP rof. Nana A . A mfo

nity to welcome faculty, staff and students back to campus to

commence the 2014/15 academic year. My expectation is for our teaching, re-

In this issue
From the Chair

From the Chair:

search and extension activities to be even more vibrant this year. I particularly look

forward to our vivacious weekly research seminar series.

As a department, we are grateful to you all for an awesome start to our anniversary

Faculty News

Students News

3-4

Department News

5-9

year. We will climax it with an international conference from 28 October to 1 November, 2014. The conference is organized in conjunction with the Department of
Modern Languages and French which are fifty and sixty-four years old respectively.
This will be preceded by a student week in September. I look forward to the participation of all.

Up-coming Events

10

We welcome two new faculty members: Dr Reginald Duah and Dr Seth Ofori. We
also welcome back Dr. Grace Diabah from her ACLS African Humanities Program
leave. I expect our teaching, learning and research to be strengthened with these
additional hands. We acknowledge two of our faculty members who retired at the

Editorial Team

end of July: Rev Dr. Alex Dzameshie and Professor Kofi Agyekum after 30 and 18
years of service respectively to the Department. Rev. Dr. Dzameshie retires into full

Dr. Mercy Bobuafor

Abdul-Razak Sulemana
Esther Desiedenyo Dogbe
Obed Nii Kwei Broohm
Rachel Thompson
Your contributions, comments
and suggestions are welcome
at:
lcube@. ug.edu.gh

time ministration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Professor Agyekum will continue
with us on post-retirement contract. We appreciate their dedicated service to the
Department and wish them well in their respective endeavors.
Our sandwich program (MA Teaching of English as a Second Language) has just
ended. This year, we had seventy-three (73) new students registering for the program. Also ten (10) and eight (8) students have been admitted to our Masters and
PhD programs respectively.
Finally, I am happy to announce that two of our national service persons, Ms. Rita
Yayra Nyavor and Ms. Bernice Mary Ansaa Aidoo have won full scholarships for
masters programs in universities in Norway. Congratulation to both of them!
I wish you all a wonderful and fruitful semester.
Nana Aba Appiah Amfo

08/2014

Fa c u lt y New s

New Faculty appointment-Dr. Duah and Dr. Ofori

The Department welcomes two new faculty members
Dr. Duah and Dr. Ofori. who have been appointed lecturers starting 1st August 2014.
Dr. Reginald Akuoko Duah
had his Bachelor and PhD degrees from the University of
Ghana, Legon. His PhD dissertation is entitled: Force Dynamics and Causation in Akan.
He specializes in the syntax of
complex language structures
in Akan in particular and Kwa in general. He is also interested in Cognitive and Logical Semantics in African
languages. Dr. Duah assumes work this semester and
he will be co-teaching Syntax II and Theories in Syntax
with Prof. K .K. Saah.
Dr. Seth Ofori joins the Department from the University
of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr. Ofori studied at Indiana University, Bloomington where he received his PhD in Linguistics and African Languages in 2006. His PhD dissertation, Topics in Akan Grammar, considers three aspects of Akan grammar: the apparent affixal irregularities of the recent-past and remote-past marking, reduplication and the functions of the particle de in desentences.

He taught several courses on the structure of African

languages, and language and society in Africa at the University of Madison. He also coordinates the Akan (Twi)
program, which he founded in 2007. Dr. Ofori has written
extensively on Akan pedagogy and linguistics.
He assumes work this semester and will be co-teaching
Theory of Phonology and Issues in Phonological Theory
with Dr. Akanlig-Pare. In addition he will handle the Syntax of a Ghanaian Language, Akan.
We welcome them and we wish them the best.

Welcome Back!!: Dr. Grace Diabah

The department welcomes back Dr. Grace Diabah who
was on research leave for the past academic year. Dr.
Diabah is a winner of a Post-doctoral fellowship award
from the American Council of Learned societies (ACLS)
under the African Humanities Program (AHP). This award
has kept her away from Departmental duties last academic year. She spent the 2013/2014 academic year investigating Representation of Gender identities in Ghanaian Commercial Adverts: Sustaining or Challenging
Stereotypes?. Welcome Back!!

Faculty publications
Congratulations to faculty and students who had their papers published in various journals this and last academic
year. They include Dr E. K. Amuzu who has published three papers in Lingua, JWAL and Journal of Language Contact; Dr. F. Hudu who published in Lingua and a Legon reader in Ghanaian linguistics; Dr Grace Diabah and Prof.
Nana Aba. A. Amfo whose paper is published online in the journal Discourse & Society; and Levina Abunya (PhD
student) and Prof. Nana Aba A. Amfo whose paper appeared in Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. Detailed information
about the publications are as follows:

Abunya, Levina N. & Nana Aba Appiah Amfo (2013). Grammaticalization in Kaakyi: From a temporal
marker to a future tense marker. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, vol 45 (1): 126 -139.
Amuzu, Evershed Kwasi. (2013). Bilingual serial verb constructions: A comparative study
of Ewe-English and Ewe-French codeswitching. Lingua 137, 1937.
Amuzu, Evershed Kwasi. (2013). A cross-linguistic study of double plurality
in bilingual codeswitching in West Africa. Journal of West African Languages
Amuzu, Evershed Kwasi. (2014). A Comparative Study of Bilingual Verb Phrases in EweEnglish and Gengbe-French Codeswitching. Journal of Language Contact. Vol. 7.2: 250-287.
Cont. on Page 8.

08/2014

S tude nts New s Gr a duat e

New TESL Students admitted

Scholarships: Master Program

This year, a total of seventy-three (73) registered for

the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) program ran by the Department. The program, since its
introduction ten years ago, has made tremendous
strides as far as training English teachers is concerned.
This is evident in the interest shown in the program by
students from all over the country. The students have
started lectures and the courses taught this semester
to the first year class include: Syntax of English, Morphology of English, Phonetics and Phonology of English, Varieties of English, Theory of Second Language
Learning and Research Methods.
Feedback from the students indicates that the classes
have been interactive. The semester is expected to end
in August just before the regular students begin registration for the 2014/2015 academic year.

The Department is once again proud to announce that two former students, currently National Service Persons with the department
have won full scholarships under the Quota
Schemea financing scheme offered by the
Norwegian government to aid students from
developing countries, to pursue masters programs. They are Ms. Rita Yayra Nyavor and Ms.
Bernice Mary Ansaa Aidoo.

Ms. Nyavor graduated

with a first class honours degree majoring
in Linguistics. She has
been offered a place
at the Norwegian University of Science and
First Year Masters students submit Research Topics
Ms. Rita Yayra Nyavor Technology (NTNU)
As part of the Departments mission to ensure the
beginning
August
timely completion of research work by its graduate stu- 2014 for a 2-year full time Masters program in
dents, it asked its first year students to submit a preEnglish Linguistics and Language Acquisition.
liminary thesis title before leaving for the break. The
research title is submitted together with a 2-page justi- Ms. Aidoo also graduated with a first class in
fication statement. Included in the statement is reLinguistics and Posearch backgroundwhy the choice of that title, research questions, hypotheses, methods, theoretical
litical Science. She is
framework/approach, and significance of study.
the winner of the
This is a move to help the students adequately prepare
for their proposal defence in September.
The Department celebrates Homecoming!
The Department, as part of its 50th anniversary, to-

Vice

Chancellors

Award for the Best

Ms. Bernice M. A.Aidoo. Graduating Female
Student

admitted

gether with the Departments of Modern Languages and under the University of Ghana Admissions PolFrench organized a homecoming event to honour the icy for Less-Endowed Schools. Ms. Aidoo will be
Faculty, Alumni, and Students for their contributions pursuing a 2-year program in Public Administraover the years. The event held on 1st May, 2014, was tion at the University of Bergen, Norway,
packed with several indoor and outdoor games includ- funded by the Quota Scheme.
ing; ludo, cards, oware, lime and spoon, sack race, tag We say ayekoo to them!!!!
of peace, musical chairs, dancing competition and football gala. Prizes ranging from t-shirts to mobile phones
were given to deserving winners.

08/2014

S tude nt New s U nder gr a dua te

LINGSA Handover

LINGSA donates a Notice Board

Following a successful election held on 23rd April

2014, the former executive committee of the Linguistic Students Association of the University of
Ghana (LINGSA) passed on the baton of leadership
to the newly elected executive in a ceremony held
at the forecourt of the Department on 9th May
2014. Present at the handing over ceremony were
faculty, staff, students and invited guests.
The outgoing president Mr. McDonalds Sogah in
his farewell address thanked the students and faculty for their support during his tenure. He was very
much pleased to have served the Association, he
said. Among the achievements of his administration, he cited a drafting of a clear-cut objectives
and a mission statement for the Association and
the notice board. He ended his speech with advice
to members of the incoming executive committee
to work harder to win more laurels for the Department and the Association.
Mr. Gladstone Deklu, the electoral commissioner
inducted the new executive committee members.
They include: the new President, Mr. Elliott Tawiah
Abernorsuom Narh; Vice President, Miss Antwi Osei
Dufie; Treasurer Mr. David Cobbinah; Financial Secretary, Mr. Jerry John; Secretary, Miss Comfort
Owusu-Boadi; Organizer, Mr. Israel Kwami and
Deputy Organizer Mr. Stephen Noye.
The President elect, Mr. Elliott T.A Narh, in his
speech, expressed his gratitude to the student body
for choosing him. He promised to serve the interest
of all within the Department and the University at
large. He noted that he is a man of few words but
many deeds therefore students should expect
nothing but the best and enviable leadership.
Among the things his administration plans to do is
to provide a waiting area by way of erecting temporary canopies at the fore court of the department.
The Chairman of the occasion, Dr. C.K Appah, was
very delighted to be part of the occasion and advised that the executive committee should work
hard to generate funds for the Association and not
to run round seeking sponsorships they will not get.
In line with this he suggested to them that they
could procure a photocopier to be manned by the
association in order to raise their own funds.

The outgone LINGSA executive committee led by Mr.

McDonalds Sogah has donated a notice board to the
Department. The notice board which costs approximately, one thousand, two hundred and forty Ghana
cedis has six-sections that will cater for students of
the different levels as well as official and general information. The Head of Department, Prof. Nana Aba
Appiah Amfo, was present to inaugurate the project.
Also, present were the executive committee members of LINGSA, faculty members and the entire student body.

Know your LINGSA Executives

Prez Mr. Narh

Gen. Sec. Miss Owusu-Boadi

Org. Mr. Kwame

08/2014

Vice-Prez. Miss Dufie

Fin.Sec. Mr. Gyasi Mensah

Dep. Org. Mr. Noye

D e pa r t me n t News

The Department Launches its 50th Anniversary

The Department formally launched its yearlong 50th
Anniversary celebration at the British Council Hall,
Accra, in April 2014. Present at the launch were
special guests, alumni, faculty, staff, students and
well wishers.
In her welcome address, the Head of Department,
Professor Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, acknowledged and appreciated
the presence of everyone. Especially, the
founding parents of the
Department. Prof. Boadi,
Prof. Dolphyne and
Emerita Prof. Dakubu
were acknowledged for their role in the establishment of the Department. She noted that the Department of Linguistics since its creation has gone
through several challenges but was able to overcome these and thus emerged as one of the most
vibrant departments in the University. The department has contributed immensely to teaching, research and administration of the University. Testimony to these are: it was voted the most student
friendly Department in the Faculty of Arts in the
1990s, it organizes semester long weekly seminars
for faculty and students, three of its faculty have
won the coveted best teacher award, it is the only
Department in the Faculty of Arts to have produced three Deans for the faculty who eventually
became Pro-Vice Chancellors of the University. In
her concluding remarks, she urged all present to
help continue to build on the solid foundation the
founding parents have laid.
The Chairman for the occasion, Prof Kweku Osam
the Pro-Vice Chancellor for
Academic and Students
Affairs and member of faculty from the Department,
acknowledged the immense contribution the
Department has made
over the years in the areas
of teaching, research and language studies to the
overall success of the University. He highlighted
the history and achievements of the Department,
how it kept up with the quality of teaching and research. He then inaugurated the Departments new
website and electronic newsletterthe Legon Linguistics Letters (L-Cube).
08/2014

Three former students of the Department, Mrs.

Margaret Takyi-Micah, Mrs Comfort Ocran and Mr.
George Addo Jr. recounted some of the interesting
moments they had with the Department. One thing
they all had in common is the role the department
played in moulding them for the various career
paths they have chosen.
A keynote speech was delivered by Prof. Kwesi
Yankah, a former ProVice Chancellor of the
University and faculty
member of the Department. He is currently the President
of Central University
College. In his speech
titled: Tweaa: meaning and the social power of
little words he spoke on how the interjection
twea had taken over the social discourse in the
country. The various domains the word is being
used in the scenes and settings and the crop of
people who are now using it as well as the international platforms it occurred in were all highlighted
by him. One advantage he noted with twea is the
fact that it has been able to usher the country into
the global market. On the negative side, he noted
that the word has lost its original content. He concluded Lets count on the capacity to discover
creative outlets that can be more potent and resilient than tweaa
The 50th anniversary of the Department was delaunched by Prof. Florence A. Dolphyne also a
former Pro-vice chancellor and faculty member of
the Department. In his
closing remarks Prof.
Osam congratulated the
Department for its vibrancy and for achieving
this great milestone and also for the leadership materials it had provided for the University. On behalf
of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Osam presented the
Department with an amount of Fifty thousand
Ghana cedis as a birthday present from the University.
The launch was made possible by the 50th Anniversary committee led by Dr. Clement Appah.

D e pa r t me n t News

Corpus Linguistics Training

Two Lecturers retire from the Department

As part of the 50th and 40th Two lecturers: Prof. Kofi Agyekum and Rev. (Dr.) Alex
anniversary celebrations of the Dzameshie retire from the Department. Speaking at a
Department of Linguistics, Uni- farewell party held in honour of their dedicated service
versity of Ghana and the De- to the Department on 24th July 2014, Dr. Dzameshie
partment of Linguistics and recounted some of the interesting moments he had in
English Language, Lancaster University respectively, the the Department. He was particularly thankful to Prof.
University of Ghana in collaboration with Lancaster Uni- Florence Dolphyne and Prof. Allan Duthie for their
versity, UK held a corpus linguistics workshop on 26th consistent support and mentorship. He was very happy
June, 2014 at the Lancaster University, Ghana. This was to have lectured in the Department. Dr. Dzameshie
preceded by lectures on Corpus Linguistics at University of thanked God for bringing him this far and indicated
Ghana on 25th June. Participants were mainly from Uni- that he will be retiring into fulltime ministry.
versity of Ghana, University of Cape Coast and Kwame Prof. Agyekum also talked about his years as a student
Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

and a lecturer at the Department. He was grateful to

Corpus linguistics is an ap- Prof. Boadi for his encouragement. He thanked God
proach to the study of lan- for sustaining him and for bringing him this far. He was
guage that relies on large col- thankful to all his colleagues for their support during
lections of spontaneously oc- his stay at the Department. Both retirees were precurring speech and language. sented with hampers.
Some topics that were discussed during the workshop Present at the farewell party were Prof. Florence Dolwere corpora in language teaching, and corpus linguis- phyne, Emerita Professor Esther Mary Kropp Dakubu,
tics and discourse analysis. Participants were also intro- Prof. L. Boadi, Prof. S. Obeng-Gyasi (Indiana Univerduced to one of the corpus search tools known as the sity), Prof. Ozo-mekuri Ndimely (University of Port HarCQPweb which they could log on court), Dr. Badasu, (Acting Dean, Faculty of Arts), Dr.
to at any time and access differ- Yennah (Head of French Department), Prof. Helen Yient corpora.

tah (Head of English Department) and faculty mem-

The participants were given the bers and staff of the Department.
opportunity to create an account
on the CQP web via https://cqpweb.lancs.ac.uk.
The facilitators involved in this workshop were Prof. Tony
McEnery, Dr. Vaclav Brezina,
Prof. Paul Baker, and Dr. Andrew Hardie, all, of Lancaster
University, UK.

08/2014

D e pa r t me n t News

Voices from the past...

as a student in the English department, I did the history of the

English language, and having done phonetics too, I knew quite
a bit about that. At the time, people thought that the study of
Ghanaian languages was not academic. I remember because of
the London University scholarship, the British Council took me

As part of the
Departments
Golden
Jubilee
celebration, the L-cube will feature a series of
short interviews with selected pioneering members of the Legon Linguistics community. The second person we feature in this series is Prof. Florence Abena Dolphyne. The following are excepts
from our chat with her at her residence:

round the various stations and I was speaking to groups. On

two occasions, I was interviewed on BBC, Africa service. The
study of Twi, back then sounded so awkward, that friends and
a lot of people thought we were wasting much time on the
language, the worst offenders were the lecturers of English
who felt there was no need to study a Ghanaian language. But
now I think we have really made an impact. The respect that

people have for the teachers in the Department attests to this

L-Cube: When and how did you become associated
fact. People have realised that every language is worthy of
with the department?
study. Many educated and not so well educated Ghanaians are
Prof. Dolphyne: My first degree was in English- speaking to their children in English and they think that it is
language and literature and my special programme the sophisticated thing to do but I think people should realise
for the paper was in phonetics. When I finished my that being able to speak your language well does not eliminate
first degree, the Head of Department wanted me to your ability to speak English well.
do a masters programme but for financial reasons,
I decided to go and work for a year before I took
the offer. I therefore taught at Labone Secondary

L-cube: What are some of the specific roles you played during
your active days at the department?

School for one year and during that year, a profes- Prof. Dolphyne: Teaching, research work, supervising long essor from London University came here and I think in says. After the 1981 coup, things became so hard and everyconversation with the Head of Department, they body literally left, that was when we had so many of our peorealized its possible for them to sponsor somebody ple going to Nigeria and so the lecturers left. It was just left
to go to London University to do Phonetics and Lin- with me and Prof Duthie. At the time, Prof. Saah, Prof. Akosua
guistics. I got the London University scholarship and Anyidoho, Prof. Yankah, Dr. Dzameshie, and Prof. Obeng had
in September, 1962, I went to Britain to do my post just completed so we got them to apply for scholarships to do
graduate programme. At the end of the first term of their graduate studies. That is how we were able to train a few
the second year, the Head of Department called me people to come and help.
and asked whether I would be prepared to stay for
two more years to do a PhD instead of the masters
and I agreed and thus I was transferred to do the

L-cube:What have you been doing since leaving the department?

PhD programme. My thesis topic was the phonetics Prof. Dolphyne: I was a member of the National Reconciliation
and phonology of the Asante dialect of Twi. When I Commission for three years. I helped the Methodist church to
came back in September 1965, the Department of establish the Methodist University College, and to get accrediLinguistics had actually started, and I became part tation. The student numbers had also increased so much and
of it.
L-Cube: Did you think it was a good idea to separate
the Department from the English Department then?

to sit up late at night to mark was not something I wanted to

do. I decided I was not going to teach or hold any office as
such but I do assist in whatever I am called to do.
Cont. On pp. 8.

Prof. Dolphyne: I think it was a good idea because I

didnt know a thing about linguistics. Even though
08/2014

D e pa r t me n t News

LAG holds its 7th Annual Conference

Voices from the past...

I serve as an external examiner for the Department, and an external assessor for promotion in
Cape Coast, Winneba and some Nigerian universities. I had been an executive officer for the West
African Linguistics Society at different times and
was president for some time.

The Linguistics Association of Ghana, held its 7th annual conference at the University of Professional Studies, Accra from
the 28th to the 30th of July, 2014. The theme for the conference was Harnessing Linguistic Resources for Effective Aca-

demic/Professional Practice. The key note speech was delivL-Cube: Who were some of your contemporaries?
ered by Professor Ozo-mekuri Ndimele of the University of
Prof. Dolphyne: Professor L. A Boadi, Prof Naa
Afarley Sackeyfio, Dr. Nii Mensah, and Prof. Alan Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The chairman was Professor Joshua
Duthie.

Alabi, Vice-Chancellor, UPSA. The topics of the presentations

L-Cube: This year, we are 50, any Jubilee message spanned the areas of semantics, pragmatics, syntax, phonetics, phonology, morphology, language and literature, lanfor the Legon Linguistics community?
Prof. Dolphyne: The Department has really grown
and now has gotten proper recognition as an academic department. I must remark that over the
years, staff of the Department have shown that
linguistics is a serious academic subject. Fortunately, we have people who have done their graduate studies in linguistics from Legon, working in
Cape Coast, Winneba, and some private universities. At the 50th anniversary launch at the British
Council, I was pleasantly surprised to see the range
of professions people are into with their linguistics
background. Congratulations to everybody and
congratulations to what I would call young lecturers even though some of them are retired. I hope
that you will all keep up the standard that has been

guage teaching and acquisition, evolution, media and language change, code-switching and bilingualism, language use,
and language and discourse. Some of the participants from
Ghana came from the University of Cape Coast, University of
Ghana, University of Education, Winneba, and Kwame
Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Central University College, University of Professional Studies and Wisconsin University College. Other highlights of the conference
were a business/general meeting, an excursion to the Ghana
Planetarium and the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and an
ACLS AHP Application Workshop. Elections were held during
the general meeting to elect new executives. Dr. Charles
Marfo (KNUST) took over from Prof. Nana Aba A. Amfo as
President . Other executives are Dr. Jemima Anderson, UG
(VP), Dr. Gladys Ansah, UG (Sec.), Ms. Regina Caeser, UEW
(Org.Sec.) and Ms. Juliet Oppong, KNUST, (Treasurer).

set.

Faculty publications
Diabah, Grace & Nana Aba Appiah Amfo (2014). Caring supporters and daring usurpers?: Representation
of women in Akan proverbs. Discourse Society. DOI: 10.1177/0957926514541343.
Hudu, Fusheini. 2014. [ATR] feature involves a distinct tongue root articulation: Evidence from ultrasound imag
ing. Lingua 143 (2014) 36--51.
Hudu, Fusheini. 2014. Dagbani vowel phonology: a competition between constraint hierarchies. In (eds.) Kwesi
Yankah, Kofi Korakye Saah, Nana Aba Appiah Amfo. A Legon reader in Ghanaian linguistics. (Chapter 9).

08/2014

D e p a r t m e n t N e ws

Photo Gallery
Sna p s hot s f r om t he C o rp us L i ng ui s t i cs T ra i ni ng

Sna p s hot s f r om t he 5 0 t h A nn i ve rs a r y L a u nc h

08/2014

10

U p - co m in g e ve n t s

50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS

PROPOSED PROGRAMME OF ACTIVITIES
September

Students Week/Outreach Programme

October

International Conference

Thanksgiving Services

08/2014

-Inter-departmental Quiz/Debate
(Linguistics and Modern Languages/French)
-Games-Staff and Students
(Triangular-LING-MOL-FRENgames)
-Blood donation
-Social outreach to the school for
the deaf
-Launch of reading club
-Open forum/seminar (on accessing scholarships for further studies)
-Clean up exercise within and
around the department
-Time with a distinguished
Alumnus/alumna
This will be a joint conference
with the Department of Modern
Languages and French
-Friday Muslim Prayer
-Sunday-Christian Thanksgiving
Service