DOCSLIB.ORG

Beyond ICT4D: New Media Research in Uganda

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Beyond ICT4D: New Media Research in Uganda BEYOND ICT4D: NEW MEDIA RESEARCH IN UGANDA A SERIES OF READERS PUBLISHED BY THE INSTITUTE OF NETWORK CULTURES ISSUE NO.: 10 BEYOND ICT4D: NEW MEDIA RESEARCH IN UGANDA Theory on Demand #10 Beyond ICT4D New Media Research in Uganda Editor: Geert Lovink Copy editing: Cindy Jeffers, Lily Antflick and Morgan Currie Design: Katja van Stiphout DTP: Margreet Riphagen Printer: ‘Print on Demand’ Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2011 ISBN: 978-90-816021-9-8 Contact Institute of Network Cultures web: http://www.networkcultures.org This publication is available through various print on demand services. For more information, and a freely downloadable pdf: http://networkcultures.org/theoryondemand This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 Netherlands License. Print On Demand Series TOD#1: Geert Lovink, Dynamics of Critical Internet Culture (1994–2001). Amsterdam 2009. ISBN: 978-90-78146-07-0. TOD#2: Pit Schultz & Geert Lovink, Jugendjahre der Netzkritik: Essays zu Web 1.0. Amsterdam 2010. ISBN 978-90-816021-4-3. TOD#3: Ana Peraica, Victim’s Symptoms, PTSD and Culture. Amsterdam 2009. ISBN: 978-90- 78146-11-7. TOD#4: Joost Smiers and Marieke van Schijndel, Imagine There Is No Copyright and Cultural Conglomorates Too... Amsterdam 2009. ISBN: 978-90-78146-09-4. TOD#5: Nikos Papastergladis, Spatial Aesthetics, Art, Place and the Everyday. Amsterdam 2010. ISBN: 978-90-816021-3-6. TOD#6: Tom Apperley, Gaming Rhythms: Play and Counterplay from the Situated to the Global. Amsterdam 2010. ISBN: 978-90-816021-1-2. TOD#7: Image, Time and Motion: New Media Critique fromTurkey, Ankara (2003 – 2010). Amsterdam 2010. ISBN: 978-90-816021-5-0. TOD#8: Forthcoming, Spring 2012 TOD#9: My First Recession, Critical Internet Culture in Transition. Amsterdam 2011. ISBN: 978- 90-816021-7-4. BEYOND ICT4D: NEW MEDIA RESEARCH IN UGANDA 3 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 4 Preface 5 Geert Lovink Introduction 13 Ali Balunywa , Guido van Diepen, Wouter Dijkstra, Kai Henriquez and Ben White The Digitale Promise 26 Guido van Diepen ICT Redefining the Print Media 51 Ali Balunywa NGO’s, CBO’s & the Potential of ICT’s 76 Kai Henriquez Software Studies 92 Ben White ICT4Accountability 118 Wouter Dijkstra Bibliography 14 6 4 THEORY ON DEMAND Acknowledgements The idea for this publication dates back to November 2008, when five new media students came together and decided to conduct their MA research in Uganda. They had each signed up for the one-year masters course in new media, which is part of the media studies track inside the humanities faculty at the University of Amsterdam. This program grants neither a business nor technical degree, nor is it related to international relations or development studies. Instead what this emerging discipline researches is the cultural dimension of internet and mobile phones. But how do ‘distributed aesthetics’ and ‘data vizualization’ relate to current development in a country such as Uganda? The field trip that the students undertook in April-June 2009 had as its overall purpose to forge beyond the development rhetoric and explore what Uganda’s actual practices look like, outside of market hype, NGO discourse, government report and digital divide data. We would like to thank the Makarere University Business School (MUBS) for hosting the stu- dents during their stay. We believe that this is one of the first publications of its kind to attempt a description of the messy and fast-changing new media cultures emerging in Uganda in 2009, beyond good and evil and from both engaged and critical perspectives. After the MA graduation procedure for all four students was over, it took a while during 2010 to reduce the four extensive MA thesis documents into readable chapters. The introduction was first compiled from all four manuscripts and then extensively rewritten and updated, a process that took some time because the four members of the group were scattered around the globe (from Rwanda to Curacao and The Hague), started other jobs and some also became busy starting families. Late 2010 the New York-based Huftington Post worker Cindy Jeffers came on board to assist us with the hard job of copy editing. Cindy in fact worked in Uganda and spent time with research group members during their stay in 2009. In Amsterdam at the Institute of Network Cultures (INC), intern Lily Antflick who is studying at the New School (NYC) continued the effort in early summer of 2011. Then it was Morgan Currie who oversaw the details and finished the job just after her move to Los Angeles where she is now pursuing her PhD. INC producer Margreet Riphagen lastly organized the desktop publishing and turned the files into the Theory on Demand format. We would like to thank all four amazing editors who made sure that this publication can now finally be distributed. Amsterdam, December 2011 Geert Lovink BEYOND ICT4D: NEW MEDIA RESEARCH IN UGANDA 5 PREFACE GEERT LOVINK I haven’t been to Uganda. My role in this publication was first of all to encourage students to con- duct research overseas and to supervise the five MA theses that form the basis of this study. After the thesis research was completed in early 2010, we reassembled and started organizing the framework for this publication. By that time the Institute of Network Cultures had just started the Theory on Demand series. A publication of these studies in Kampala proved difficult to arrange from Amsterdam, and the individual theses had to be shortened, edited and collected along with a general chapter. Despite having done the coordination in the belief that the collection would eventually be compiled, I do not see my role as a main editor whose task it is to synthesize the work of the five individual researchers. Instead I want to say something about my own motiva- tion to conduct ‘post ICT for development’ research. Independent ‘ICT4D’ critique was the topic of the first ever course I gave at the University of Amsterdam, back in 2004/2005. Since then I have stimulated a number of new media students to do their MA research overseas, including Rikus Wegman, who studied the use of ICT in Zambian high schools, Pieter-Paul Walraven, who investigated the Chinese internet industry, Ellen de Vries and Fei-An Tjan, who worked with media activists in Brazil and Columbia and Jidi Guo, who witnessed the arrival of 3G smart phones in urban China. But wait a minute – I did have a connection to Uganda that linked me to the topic. In late 2005, during the second meeting in Tunis of the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) I got to know the Uganda delegation, and they were kind enough to adopt me as a fellow traveller for a couple of days. What I saw there was not only the increased role of civil society (a few mem- bers of such organizations managed to become an official member of the delegation), but also the large role that government agencies played in the roll-out of ICTs on top of a rapidly emerging telecom sector. Despite Africa’s having the lowest overall penetration as a whole compared to the rest of the world (11%), Uganda is in the African Connectivity Top Ten and enjoys impressive growth rates. Ben White’s chapter in this study is a strong account of the early entrepreneurial ICT start-up activity in the country. What struck me about the Uganda delegation was the warm and informal character and the open communication between the different ‘stakeholders’ such as government bodies, companies and NGOs. In most countries this ‘multistakeholderism’ was merely ideology. As I was rather sceptical about the ‘corporatist’ nature of such ‘governance’ constructions (I hate thinking of society as an organic body), I thought it was an odd coincidence that I could see such coalitions in action. Was I perhaps tricked by a cultural convention that I was unfamiliar with? For me the ‘ICT4D’ rhetoric works as a mirror, a detour operation to investigate the essence of technology in a time when functionality is overshadowed by marketing and celebrity. Ever since 2005 we have seen a shift away from general claims and demands voiced in policy reports, to- wards the actual expansion of telecommunication infrastructures and the creation of new media markets on a truly global scale. In terms of its research agenda this publication has to be situated as a post-WSIS but also post-World Social Forum initiative. The Solaris and Incommunicado net- 6 THEORY ON DEMAND works in which I was involved (2002-2010) tried to criticize the roll out of telecom infrastructure from a deconstructivist post-colonial policy perspective. The issues ranged from topics such as the ideology critique of ‘good intentions’ of Western NGOs and companies involved in the wir- ing of the ‘rest’ of the world to e-waste dumping, cognitive justice and the already mentioned ‘multistakeholderism’.1 Since 2005 the critique of development, already well established decades ago by scholars such as Arturo Escobar, reached the mainstream with titles such as The White Man’s Burden from Wil- liam Easterly (2006) and Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid: Why Aid is not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa (2009). This rather personal content cloud also includes Linda Polman’s investigative journalism into the role of the UN and emergency aid, including We Did Nothing (2003) and The Crisis Caravan (2010), and Renzo Martens’ video art work ‘Enjoy Poverty’ from 2009, widely screened at festivals, in museums and on TV, and which calls for Africans to take media representation into their own hands. In an odd and not yet fully reflected manner the justified critique of the development and emergency aid industries and the problematic role of the UN in a variety of conflicts started to coincide with the militarization of aid on the one hand and rise of right-wing populist demands to radically cut back spending of development aid by Western countries.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Language Surveys in Developing Nations
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 104 170 FL 006 842 AUTHOR Ohannessian, Sirirpi, Ed.; And Others TITLE Language Surveys in Developing Nations. Papersand Reports on Sociolinguistic Surveys. PUB DATE 75 NOTE 227p. AVAILABLE FROMCenter for Applied Linguistics,1611 North Kent Street, Arlington, Virginia 22209($8.50) EDRS PRICE Mr-$0.76 RC Not Available from EDRS..PLUS POSTAGE DESCRIPTORS *Developing Nations; Evaluation Methods; Language Patterns; Language Planning: *LanguageResearch; Language Role; *Language Usage;Nultilingualism; Official Languages; Public Policy;Sociocultural Patterns; *Sociolinguistics; *Surveys ABSTRACT This volume is a selection of papers preparedfor a conference on sociolinguistically orientedlanguage surveys organized by the Center for Applied Linguisticsand held in New York in September 1971. The purpose of theconference vas to review the role and function of such language surveysin the light of surveys conducted in recent years. The selectionis intended to give a general picture of such surveys to thelayman and to reflect the aims of the conference. The papers dealwith scope, problems, uses, organization, and techniques of surveys,and descriptions of particular surveys, and are mostly related tothe Eastern Africa Survey. The authors of theseselections are: Charles A. Ferguson, Ashok R. Kelkar, J. Donald Bowen, Edgar C.Polorm, Sitarpi Ohannessiam, Gilbert Ansre, Probodh B.Pandit, William D. Reyburn, Bonifacio P. Sibayan, Clifford H. Prator,Mervyn C. Alleyne, M. L. Bender, R. L. Cooper aLd Joshua A.Fishman. (Author/AN) Ohannessian, Ferquson, Polonic a a Center for Applied Linqirktie,, mit Language Surveys in Developing Nations papersand reportson sociolinguisticsurveys 2a Edited by Sirarpi Ohannessian, Charles A. Ferguson and Edgar C. Polomd Language Surveysin Developing Nations CY tie papers and reports on 49 LL sociolinguisticsurveys U S OE P MAL NT OF NEAL spt PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETMIT.
    [Show full text]
  • Languages of New York State Is Designed As a Resource for All Education Professionals, but with Particular Consideration to Those Who Work with Bilingual1 Students
    TTHE LLANGUAGES OF NNEW YYORK SSTATE:: A CUNY-NYSIEB GUIDE FOR EDUCATORS LUISANGELYN MOLINA, GRADE 9 ALEXANDER FFUNK This guide was developed by CUNY-NYSIEB, a collaborative project of the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS) and the Ph.D. Program in Urban Education at the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, and funded by the New York State Education Department. The guide was written under the direction of CUNY-NYSIEB's Project Director, Nelson Flores, and the Principal Investigators of the project: Ricardo Otheguy, Ofelia García and Kate Menken. For more information about CUNY-NYSIEB, visit www.cuny-nysieb.org. Published in 2012 by CUNY-NYSIEB, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10016. [email protected]. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alexander Funk has a Bachelor of Arts in music and English from Yale University, and is a doctoral student in linguistics at the CUNY Graduate Center, where his theoretical research focuses on the semantics and syntax of a phenomenon known as ‘non-intersective modification.’ He has taught for several years in the Department of English at Hunter College and the Department of Linguistics and Communications Disorders at Queens College, and has served on the research staff for the Long-Term English Language Learner Project headed by Kate Menken, as well as on the development team for CUNY’s nascent Institute for Language Education in Transcultural Context. Prior to his graduate studies, Mr. Funk worked for nearly a decade in education: as an ESL instructor and teacher trainer in New York City, and as a gym, math and English teacher in Barcelona.
    [Show full text]
  • Herent Complement Verbs in Ibibio Viktoria Apel
    Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................... 1 Schedule ..................................................................................... 2 Abstracts .................................................................................... 10 Conference Venue ........................................................................... 50 Nearby Dining and Attractions ............................................................. 51 Notes ........................................................................................ 54 Invited Speakers Firmin Ahoua,Akin Akinlabi, and Gildas Gondo ....................................12 When a five-way opposition does not represent a five-tone language: The case of Dan Jeff Good .............................................................................10 Stability under contact as a guide to reconstruction: Noun classes, argument alignment, and the Macro-Sudan belt Tom G¨uldemann .....................................................................14 A shared pronominal canon in the Macro-Sudan belt: typological, areal and geneological aspects Claire Halpert .......................................................................11 Surmountable Barriers Sharon Rose .........................................................................13 Areal vowel harmony patterns in the Nuba Mountains and Beyond Papers and Posters Hasiyatu Abubakari ..................................................................28 Contrastive focus particles in Kusaal
    [Show full text]
  • The International Status of Kiswahili: the Parameters of Braj Kachru's
    The International Status of Kiswahili: The Parameters of Braj Kachru’s Model of World Englishes by Patrick Lugwiri Okombo, MA [email protected] Nairobi, Kenya & Edwin Muna, MA [email protected] Nairobi, Kenya Abstract This paper critically examines the status of Kiswahili as an international language within the parameters of Braj Kachru’s sociolinguistic construct – “Model of World Englishes”, that works to analyze how sociolinguistic histories, multicultural backgrounds and contexts of function influence the use of English in different regions of the world. In our view, such a model yields fairly objective results. Thus, the results of this paper are that Kiswahili perfectly meets the standards of an international language within Braj Kachru’s model, albeit with few disparities. The paper concludes that Kiswahili’s growth into an international language is clearly taking the trends taken by English as examined by Kachru. Hence, the findings reinforce Kiswahili’s geo- political significance as it recommends the creation of conditions that would encourage its spread and influence in the world. Key words: Kiswahili, international language, world Englishes, native speaker 55 Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.10, no.7, September 2017 Introduction Kiswahili is an indigenous African language whose origin, according to many researchers, is the coast of Eastern Africa. Traditionally, it was regarded as the language of the coastal communities of Kenya and Tanzania. It remained the language of the people of East African coast for a long time. It is argued that the early visitors and traders, such as the Arabs and Persians who came to the East African coast, used to speak with the natives in Kiswahili.
    [Show full text]
  • THE ROLE of READING in ENHANCING ENGLISH SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING of ORDINARY LEVEL LEARNERS in NAMIBIA By
    THE ROLE OF READING IN ENHANCING ENGLISH SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING OF ORDINARY LEVEL LEARNERS IN NAMIBIA By Sylvia Ndapewa Ithindi Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree PHILOSOPHIAE DOCTOR Faculty of Education Department of Humanities Education University of Pretoria SUPERVISOR: Dr A. Engelbrecht CO-SUPERVISOR: Dr L.J. de Jager August 2019 Declaration of authorship I, Sylvia Ndapewa Ithindi, hereby declare that this thesis entitled, The role of reading in enhancing English Second Language learning in Namibia, which I hereby submit for the degree Philosophiae Doctor in Humanities Education, at the University of Pretoria, is my own work and has not previously been submitted by me for a degree at this or any other tertiary institution. i Ethics certificate ii Language editor Cell: 083 455 3723 Address: 9 Tiger Road Monument Park 0181 PRETORIA E-mail: [email protected] To whom it may concern This is to confirm that I, MJ de Jager, edited the language in the PhD dissertation, The role of reading in enhancing English second language learning in Namibia, by Sylvia Ndapewa Ithindi. The onus was on the author to attend to all my suggested changes and queries. Furthermore, I do not take responsibility for any changes effected in the document after the fact. MJ DE JAGER 5 October 2019 iii Dedication This study is dedicated to my children, Aino Ndamana Tangi Matheus, Simon Nanyooshili Tangeni Matheus, and my nephew Samuel Kalitheni Shiindi, in the hope that they will all complete their studies and lead successful independent, career lives. iv Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who love and supported me and made my long, yet fruitful journey, worth completing.
    [Show full text]
  • Profiles of Multilingualism in Kampala: an Analysis of Language Biographies and Linguistic Repertoires of University Students
    PROFILES OF MULTILINGUALISM IN KAMPALA: AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE BIOGRAPHIES AND LINGUISTIC REPERTOIRES OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS By FLORENCE TENDO BAYIGA Dissertation presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in General Linguistics in the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Prof. Christine Anthonissen Co-supervisor: Dr. Ondene Van Dulm March 2016 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za DECLARATION By submitting this dissertation, I declare that I understand what constitutes plagiarism, that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights, and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. ................................................................................. .......................................................... Name Date Copyright ©2016 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved i Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my three children who persevered staying without mummy for months as I was away for studies. I pray that they have the charisma to persevere even more challenges to achieve great goals in life. ii Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za ABSTRACT This is a sociolinguistic study that investigates the language biographies and repertoires that underpin the kinds of linguistic knowledge students in Kampala, Uganda have acquired by the time they enter university. The study relates such biographies and repertoires to the status of the various languages represented in the study. The concepts of ‘multilingualism’ and ‘linguistic repertoire’ are central to this study as they are relevant to multilingual African communities where a wide variety of indigenous languages are recorded.
    [Show full text]
  • The African Storybook and Teacher Identity
    THE AFRICAN STORYBOOK AND TEACHER IDENTITY by Espen Stranger-Johannessen A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Language & Literacy Education) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2017 © Espen Stranger-Johannessen, 2017 Abstract The African Storybook (ASb) is a digital initiative that promotes multilingual literacy for African children by providing openly licenced children’s stories in multiple African languages, as well as English, French, and Portuguese. One of the ASb pilot sites, a primary school in Uganda, served as the focal case in this research, while two other schools and libraries were also included. Data was collected from June to December 2014 in the form of field notes, classroom observations, interview transcripts, and questionnaires, which were coded using retroductive coding. Based on Darvin and Norton’s (2015) model of identity and investment, and drawing on the Douglas Fir Group’s (2016) framework for second language acquisition, this study investigates Ugandan primary school teachers’ investment in the ASb and how their identities change through the process of using the stories and technology provided by the ASb. The findings indicate that the use of stories expands the repertoire of teaching methods and topics, and that this use is influenced by teachers’ social capital as well as financial factors and policies. Through the ASb initiative and its stories, the teachers began to imagine themselves as writers and translators; change agents; multimodal, multiliterate educators; and digital educators, reframing what it means to be a reading teacher. Teachers’ shifts of identity were indexical of their enhanced social and cultural capital as they engaged with the ASb, notwithstanding ideological constraints associated with mother tongue usage, assessment practices, and teacher supervision.
    [Show full text]
  • Definiteness and Specificity in Runyankore-Rukiga
    DEFINITENESS AND SPECIFICITY IN RUNYANKORE-RUKIGA by ASIIMWE ALLEN Dissertation presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Professor Marianna W. Visser December 2014 Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za i DECLARATION By submitting this dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification Date: 20 November 2014 Copyright © 2014 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za ii ABSTRACT This study investigates the manifestations of the universal categories of (in)definiteness and (non-)specificity in the Runyankore-Rukiga determiner phrase by means of discourse- pragmatic and morpho-syntactic considerations. Runyankore-Rukiga, like all other Bantu languages, exhibits no (in)definite articles, but there are various ways the language employs to encode the definiteness. Lyons’s (1999) semantic principles of definiteness and his definition of specificity are adopted for the study, as well as the Minimalist and Cartographic approaches to syntax. The data come from authentic written materials, recorded spoken discourse and elicitation (backed up by other native speakers’ grammaticality judgement). The study considers modified and unmodified (bare) nouns. Bare nouns are generally (save for those with inherent unique semantic features) ambiguous between (in)definite and (non-) specific readings Thus, an appropriate reading is contingent on a correct discourse-pragmatic setting.
    [Show full text]
  • NABOTU Publishing in Uganda.Indd
    1VCMJTIJOHJO 6HBOEB XJUIOPUFTGSPN"GSJDB "3FWJFX *LPKB0EPOHP +3 1I% 5IF1VCMJTIJOH*OEVTUSZ-JUFSBUVSF4VSWFZXBTQBSUPGUIF1"-."GSJDB1SPKFDUGVOEFECZ*%3$ Publishing in Uganda with notes from Africa: Publishing in Uganda with notes from Africa: A Review Ikoja-Odongo, J.R, PhD. 1 Publishing in Uganda with notes from Africa: About the Author 2 Publishing in Uganda with notes from Africa: NABOTU P O Box 25412 KAMPALA, Uganda Copyright @information You are free: To share — copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). to attribute this work: What does “Attribute this work” mean? You can use the HTML to cite the work. Doing so will also include metadata on your page so that others can find the original work as well. Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike — You may alter, transform, or build upon this Work provided you share under the same license. With the understanding that: Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: Your fair dealing or fair use rights; 3 Publishing in Uganda with notes from Africa: Table of contents Table of contents ............................................................................................................. 4 2.1 Uganda: Country profile ....................................................................................7 2.2 Education policies and their relationship to publishing ............................ 9 3.0 Language Policy ...................................................................................................... 15 4.0 The Concept of Publishing ..................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Pointing out Possession and Existence in Adamorobe Sign Language
    VICTORIA NYST 235 Chapter 11 Pointing out possession and existence in Adamorobe Sign Language Victoria Nyst ADAMOROBE SIGN LANGUAGE Adamorobe Sign Language (AdaSL) is used in a small village in Ghana of about 1400 inhabitants where a high incidence of hereditary deafness has persisted over many generations. Both deaf and hearing villagers use AdaSL, which is entirely unrelated to Ghanaian Sign Language (GSL), the ASL-based national sign language of Ghana. Compared to the sign languages studied to date, AdaSL has a number of distinctive features that set it apart structurally. These include the absence of entity classifier handshapes in verbs of motion, an unusual system for the expression of size and shape, and idiosyncratic iconicity phenomena, in particular the types of spatial projections allowed (Nyst 2007). The relatively large number of hearing AdaSL signers seems to have caused some of these atypical, language-specific features. References: Amedofu, K. G. (1993). News from Ghana. Signpost 6:1. Amedofu, K. G., Brobby, G. W. and G. Ocansey (1999). Congenital Non-Syndromal Deafness at Adamarobe, an isolated Ghanaian village: Prevalence, incidence and audiometric characteristics of deafness in the village (Part I). Journal of the Ghana Science Association 1(2): 63-9. Brobby, G. W., Müller-Myhsok, B. and R. D. Horstmann (1998). Connexin 26 R143W Mutation Associated with Recessive Nonsyndromic Sensorineural Deafness in Africa. The New England Journal of Medicine 338: 548-50. David, J. B. (1972). Deafness in Ghana- a personal record. Seminar on Deafness, Accra, Ghana, September 4th-8th, 1972. London: Commonwealth Society for the Deaf. David, J. B., Edoo, B.
    [Show full text]
  • International Journal of Research P-ISSN: 2348-6848 E-ISSN: 2348-795X Volume 08 Issue 02 February 2021
    International Journal of Research p-ISSN: 2348-6848 e-ISSN: 2348-795X Volume 08 Issue 02 February 2021 National Varieties Of English Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Augustine Owusu-Addo Catholic University College of Ghana, Fiapre, P.O. Box 363, Sunyani [email protected] Atianashie Miracle Atianashie University of California. Wilmington, DE 19899, U.S.A [email protected] Abstract This mission aims in analyzing the various varieties of English on the basis of national boundaries. English is the most widely-spoken language in the world, having the different status of being the official language of multiple countries. Though the English language is uniform with important variations in spelling current between American English and British English, the dialect or accent is usually the element which allows one to distinguish the various types of English out there. Like most languages, there are varieties of English also, but the distinction isn't quite as notable as you might see in other languages.In the thick Ugandan English into the French-themed Canadian British, the assortments of accents gift are equally diverse and beautiful. Aside from accents, there is a tendency for individuals to combine English with their regional lingo to create a hybrid variety of English language that's as colorful as the culture within that nation. Keywords: Language, English, linguistics, people Introduction According to Richard (2020), in sociolinguistics, speech variety--also known as lect--is a Linguists commonly utilize language variety (or simply number ) as a cover term for any of those overlapping subcategories of a speech, such as dialect, register, jargon, and idiolect.
    [Show full text]
  • Functional Markers in Sign Languages Sandro Zucchi, Carol Neidle, Carlo Geraci, Quinn Duffy and Carlo Cecchetto
    10 Functional markers in sign languages Sandro Zucchi, Carol Neidle, Carlo Geraci, Quinn Duffy and Carlo Cecchetto 1 Lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes It is a common observation that grammatical morphemes often develop gradually from lexical morphemes.1 Some languages show this fact more transparently than others. For example, Sebba (1997) observes that creoles and pidgins often use lexi- cally contentful elements with the meaning of ‘finish’ or ‘done’ as functional markers signaling that the event described by the sentence occurs before the time of utterance: (1) mo fin mahze (Mauritian Creole) I finish eat ‘I ate.’ (2) me waka kba (Sranan Tongo) I walk finished ‘I had walked.’ (3) mipela I ting olsem i mas dai pinis (Tok Pisin) we him think anyhow him must die finish ‘We think he must have died.’ (4) a don kom (Pidgin of West Africa) I done come ‘I have come.’ Similar examples from other spoken languages are offered by Pfau and Steinbach (2006). In Rama (a spoken language of Nigeria), the verb aktul meaning ‘finish’ is now used as a completive marker, and in Lhasa (spoken in Tibet), the verb tshaa meaning ‘finish’ marks perfective aspect.2 Examples of this sort are also quite common in sign languages.3 For instance, the signs FINISH and FATTO belonging, respectively, to American Sign Language 197 198 Sign Languages (ASL) and Italian Sign Language (LIS), can both occur as lexically contentful main verbs with the meaning of ‘finish’ (or ‘done’) and as aspectual/temporal mor- phemes. Both signs, when acting as grammatical morphemes, also exhibit a pecu- liar behavior with negation and negative quantifiers.
    [Show full text]