'I Dey Trust You Waa': Pidgin English As a Current Spoken Communication
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‘I dey trust you waa’: Pidgin English as a Current Spoken Communication Tool at University of Mines and Technology* 1 P. B. Mireku-Gyimah 1University of Mines and Technology, Tarkwa, Ghana Mireku-Gyimah, P. B. (2018), “‘I dey trust you waa’: Pidgin English as a Current Spoken Communication Tool at University of Mines and Technology”, Ghana Mining Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 77 - 86. Abstract Pidgin English (PE), though not that popular in Ghana in the past, seems to be gaining ground in the educational institutions today. Of particular interest is the observed increase in PE use among students of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), who are training to become professionals in the mining and allied fields. What has caused this? How do the students feel about PE use? And what are their own views about PE-speaking in Ghana? This study, the first to examine PE at UMaT, aimed at finding empirical answers to these questions. A questionnaire was administered to 457 undergraduates selected at random from First and Second Year students. Analysis of the responses shows that majority of the students consider PE use “beneficial/advantageous” and “comfortable” because “it gives them a sense of belonging to the student body”; it is “easy and fun to speak”; and “trendy/spoken by friends”. They recognise that PE is not Standard English (SE) but “feel unashamed” speaking it. However, they think it is not good enough to speak PE all the time as it will “distort [their] SE”, and also “attract wrong public perception [of them] as poor scholars”. Left to the students alone, “there should be restrictions on PE use in Ghana to informal occasions” and “insistence on SE use”. It is concluded that UMaT students feel comfortable speaking PE but admit that it can adversely affect their SE. It is recommended that more studies be conducted into PE as a topical issue in Ghana. Keywords: Pidgin English, Mining and Allied Engineering Fields, Professionals, UMaT Students 1 Introduction developed as “Kru brofo”; “Abongo brofo” (Dako 2013, p. 149), which would mean something like: “English that is not really English”. In other words, 1.1 Pidgin English (PE) in Ghana: Brief this language form called PE was just “bad Historical Background English”, or “broken English” (Baitie 2010) as it departed from the Queen’s English or Standard Pidgin English (PE) is very simply, a form of English (SE). SE has been explained to be “the language combining some English and other medium of writing in English Language, languages, usually including local dialects, which grammatically stable and codified” (Crowley 1999, both speaker and listener understand. PE exists in p. 271). SE refers to the particular form of English West Africa; Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhaPE) is which is acceptable in a given English-speaking seen as part of West African Pidgin (WAP)/West country as the national norm, and includes African Pidgin English (WAPE), but it is “not an grammar, vocabulary and spelling. Generally, PE is important lingua franca” (Dako, 2012); and it is any form of English that deviates from SE. different from that of, say, Nigeria, Liberia and Cameroon. 1.2 Types of PE Spoken in Ghana Today Historically, there are essentially two accounts as Despite the foregoing historical perspective, PE to how PE arrived in Ghana. It is thought that it spoken in Ghana today has been observed to be in became a contact language during the colonial era, two main forms as “the educated variety” and “the to enable the colonial masters (Europeans) who uneducated variety”. Huber (1999; 2004a, 2004b) were the bosses to communicate with the subjects describes the two varieties respectively as or the local people, who were people of low status. “institutionalized pidgin” and “non- Thus, it was linked to low esteem from the start; it institutionalized pidgin” (see Osei-Tutu 2016, p. was “bastardized” and PE became despised as an 191). “uncivilized” variety of English (Boadi, 1971; Zabus, 1991 in Wiredu, 2013, p. 162). Yet PE is The educated variety, which is considered as “the also thought to have been introduced to Ghana by acrolectal manifestation of GhaPE” (Dako 2013, p. “itinerant male labourers from Liberia and Sierra 149), is so-called because it is mainly used by Leone and policemen, soldiers, traders and students in the second cycle schools and the domestic servants from Nigeria” (Dako 2002a, universities. Thus, it is used by people who, it is Dako 2002b, Dako 2012; and Dadzie 1985), so it believed, can manage the SE, hence, they use PE *Manuscript received September 28, 2018 Revised version accepted December 10, 2018 77 GMJ Vol. 18, No.2, December, 2018 https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/gm.v18i2.10 not really as a necessity but for other reasons. The 1.4 General Perception of On-campus PE in educated variety, from its characteristics, has been Ghana variously called Student Pidgin (SP) (Dako, 2002a, 2002b; 2012; 2013; Forson, 1996, 2006; Osei Tutu, Generally, PE in Ghana, whether “educated” or 1999; Wiredu, 2013) or School Pidgin English “uneducated” has been seen as one and the same (SPE) (Amuzu and Asinyor, 2016); and Ghanaian and, therefore, perceived negatively as a result of Student Pidgin (GSP) (Osei-Tutu, 2016). the history of PE in Ghana. There is a “subjective rejection” of PE in the Ghanaian society as pointed The uneducated variety of PE in Ghana is the older out by Ahulu (1995) and Obeng (1997) (in Wiredu type and the educated variety is the latter one. The 2013). In fact, it is noted that, “None of the uneducated variety has been referred to also as varieties is a welcome code at a typical formal “Town Pidgin” (Dako 2002a) and “Motorpark gathering in Ghana” (Desiree 2004, cited in Amuzu Pidgin” (Amoako, 2011 in Osei-Tutu (2016, p. and Asinyor 2016, p. 50). 191). Thus, the uneducated variety is associated with people of lower status, say, the illiterates, This is so because PE is mainly seen as an labourers- mainly males- who cannot really “incorrect” form of the English we go to school to manage the Standard English (SE) when they need learn and use since it appears to be a strange to use English to communicate with people who do mixture of English and other languages which are not speak their local language. Speakers use this usually the local language(s) or dialect(s) of the variety of PE as a necessity but are considered speaker. It is believed that while English is the uneducated and at the lowest range of the social lexifier, “Ga and Akan, which are indigenous Kwa ladder. They are even so depicted in fiction as languages spoken in Ghana” are, to a large extent, observed by Dako and Yitah (2012). “GSP’s substrate languages” (Osei-Tutu 2016, p. 191). As such, PE is also received unfavourably by 1.3 Emergence of the Educated Variety most parents and teachers, who have sometimes even spelled out punishment for its use. Obviously, Two main theories explain the emergence of many parents and teachers are against their children SP/SPE/GSP in Ghanaian schools and Osei-Tutu and wards speaking PE because they think that PE (2016) recounts these: the first, by Dadzie (1985), use can “contaminate” the SE they learn and has it that, it was “a result of youngsters in the thereby lead to poor performance or even failure in harbor cities of Ghana (i.e. Takoradi and Tema) their final examinations, moreso as SE is a core imitating the speech (among other behaviours) of subject and a prerequisite for further education at sailors who had returned from journeys abroad. the tertiary level. In short, attitudes towards PE, no These youngsters looked up to the returned sailors matter the type, have usually been negative, and the as the avant-garde of fashion and progress and, reason is not far-fetched. therefore, wanted to copy their mannerisms” (p. 191) and, the second, by Dako (2002a), maintains Thus, the question of PE on the school/university that, “it was a response to vestiges of colonial campus appears irritating and almost unthinkable language policies in high schools (and indeed at all for most parents. Therefore, they would choose to other levels of education) that insisted on students speak English at home with their children for using English in all communicative situations. … success (Dako and Quarcoo, 2017). Indeed, in pre- though they were able to grasp the formal registers tertiary Ghanaian institutions, it is not uncommon of English, they found it more difficult to acquire to see the words: “SPEAK ENGLISH” written on its informal registers and hence adopted an attitude walls to alert the pupils and students to speak SE, to the effect that, though they could be forced to not PE. The West African Examinations Council speak English, they would choose the type of (WAEC) and Chief Examiners’ Reports nearly English to speak” (p. 191). Actually, “Student always express concern about the falling standard Pidgin (SP) first appeared in the Ghanaian of performance in English and sometimes cite PE secondary schools in the late 1960s and then use by the students as a negative influence causing moved into the universities. As is the case with the poor performance (e.g. see Ferdinand (2018) on Ghanaian Pidgin, SP was from the beginning a WASSCE 2018). Although in their respective male code. We now observe an increasing number studies, Omari (2010), and Amuzu and Asinyor of female students adopting this code” (Dako and (2016) do not find any link between PE use by Quarcoo 2017, p. 25). Despite the fact that there is students and poor performance in these students’ not much evidence to support either view, Osei- SE, Huber (1999) finds PE use to adversely affect Tutu (2016) opines that both authors have SE and Mireku-Gyimah (2014) observes that PE contributed to information on the appearance of use has the likelihood to negatively affect students’ this variety of PE in Ghana (GSP) since those high SE.