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Ghana and Accra: a Multilingual Setting

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PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/190131 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-26 and may be subject to change. LANGUAGE CONTACT AND CHANGE IN LINGUISTICALLY HETEROGENEOUS URBAN COMMUNITIES THE CASE OF AKAN IN ACCRA Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6111 Trans 10 3512 JK Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://www.lo tschool.nl Cover illustration by NOAHBS ART GALLERY ISBN: 978-94-6093-278-6 NUR 616 Copyright © 2018: Solace Ago Yankson. All rights reserved. LANGUAGE CONTACT AND CHANGE IN LINGUISTICALLY HETEROGENEOUS URBAN COMMUNITIES The case of Akan in Accra Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. J.H.J.M. van Krieken, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 26 maart 2018 om 10.30 uur precies door Solace Ago Yankson geboren op 2 april 1976 te Agona Swedru, Ghana Promotor: Prof. dr. P.C. Muysken Copromotor: Dr. M.C. van den Berg (Universiteit Utrecht) Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. R.W.N.M. van Hout Dr. F.K. Ameka (Universiteit Leiden) Prof. dr. P.E. Kerswill (York University, Verenigd Koninkrijk) This research was supported by the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP/NUFFIC) under project number 23000276 LANGUAGE CONTACT AND CHANGE IN LINGUISTICALLY HETEROGENEOUS URBAN COMMUNITIES The case of Akan in Accra Doctoral Thesis to obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen on the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof. dr. J.H.J.M. van Krieken, according to the decision of the Council of Deans to be defended in public on Monday, March 26, 2018 at 10.30 hours by Solace Ago Yankson Born on April 2, 1976 in Agona Swedru, Ghana Supervisor: Prof. dr. P. C. Muysken Co-supervisor: Dr. M.C. van den Berg (Utrecht University) Doctoral Thesis Committee: Prof. dr. R. W.N.M. van Hout Dr. F. K. Ameka (Leiden University) Prof. dr. P. E. Kerswill (York University, United Kingdom) This research was supported by the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP/NUFFIC) under project number 23000276 For the Late Prof. Emerita Mary Esther Kropp-Dakubu For my late parents: Rev. Samuel Charles Yankson Mrs. Florence Kokwe Ansah Yankson ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A dream that I had so many years ago has been fulfilled today because of the support I enjoyed from many kind hearted people I met on my academic journey. At this juncture, it is fair to take the opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to them, though I may not be able to remember all. If you offered me help and your name doesn’t appear here, it doesn’t mean that I do not appreciate what you did for me. It is only an oversight and so I say thank you. I wish to first all say a big thank you to the Late Emerita Prof. Mary Esther Kropp-Dakubu who gave me the opportunity to work on the project The Sociolinguistic Aspects of Akan in Accra , which ignited my interest to dig deeper into the Akan variety spoken in Accra. I also thank Prof. Paul Edward Kerswill who gave me a lot of materials and directions during the initial stages of developing the proposal for this project when I shared my ideas with him. I thank my supervisors prof. dr. P. C. Muysken and dr. Margot C. van den Berg who had faith in me and accepted to supervise this project when I contacted Prof. Muysken through email and shared my ideas regarding this project with him. It is their support that brought me to Radboud University, Nijmegen, and I am very much grateful to them. Thank you for all the support you gave me throughout this journey to make this day a reality. I very much appreciate it. I also want to appreciate the members of my Committee: Professors Roeland van Hout, Paul Edward Kerswill and Felix Ameka for their time in assessing the manuscripts and their insightful comments. I thank the Languages in Contact (LinC) research group for supporting me in diverse ways to make this project reach fruition (I wish to mention their names here though in no particular order): Linda van Meel, Robert van Sluijs, Francesca Moro, Pablo Irizarri van Suchtelen, Harald Hammarström, Hülya Sahin, Suzanne Aalberse, Gerrit jan Koostra, Loretta O’Connor, Kofi Yakpo, Neele Müller, Josh Birchall, Cefas van Rossem, Sophie Villerius, and Helder Perri. Thank you, friends, for all the support and encouragement. Others also contributed to the success of this project in diverse ways that need mention. They are; Hella Jooren, Kitty Rikken, Isabelle Le ́glise, Sarah Monson, Mark Dingemanse, Saskia van Putten, Valerija Matos-Krezic, Frans van der Slik, George Owusu, Emmanuel Asiedu, Ebenezer Howard, Patsy Anderson, Arun Joseph, Evershed Amuzu, and Stefan Grondelaers. I also thank the contact persons who led me to informants to participate in this project in Accra, and Asante and Kwawu rural communities. They are Afful, Madam Dwomo, Mr and Mrs Kusi, Doris and Sandra. I thank my research assistants and fieldworkers; Afriyie, Philomina, and Beatrice, and all the informants who participated in the project. I thank my colleagues at the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Department of Modern Languages, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi (KNUST), and Prof. S. K. Amponsah for all the support. I am very grateful to the Netherland Fellowship Programme (NUFFIC) who funded this project. Without them this project may not have seen the light of day. Thank you very much. I thank all members of the Africanist group and the Anglican Church in Nijmegen for the friendship and fellowship we shared, which made my stay in Nijmegen an enjoyable one. Finally, I say thank you to my family; the Yankson family, the Kumah family, and all my friends, for all the emotional and spiritual support they gave me during the period of writing this dissertation. I couldn’t have made it without you. Thank you. CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO Ghana and Accra: A multilingual setting ............................................................ 7 2.0 Introduction ....................................................................................... 7 2.2 The origin of Accra and its development ........................................... 24 2.3 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 38 CHAPTER THREE Research design and methodology .................................................................... 41 3.0 Introduction ..................................................................................... 41 3.1 Objectives of the research.................................................................. 41 3.2 Type of data ..................................................................................... 42 3.3 Research area ................................................................................... 42 3.4 Participants ...................................................................................... 45 3.5 Sampling method and number of participants ................................... 48 3.6 How I involved the participants ........................................................ 51 3.7 Data collection method ..................................................................... 54 3.8 The sociolinguistic variables ............................................................. 59 3.9 The extra-linguistic parameters ......................................................... 81 3.10 Methods of analysis and conceptual framework .............................. 87 3.11 Conclusion ................................................................................... 118 CHAPTER FOUR The sociolinguistic profile of Akan migrants in Accra ........................................ 121 4.0 Introduction ................................................................................... 121 4.1 Research methodology.................................................................... 121 4.2 Background of respondents ............................................................. 122 4.3 The sociolinguistic profile of Akan migrants in Accra ..................... 125 4.4 The perception ofAkan migrants on the Akan variety they speak in Accra ............................................................................................ 147 4.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................... 176 CHAPTER FIVE Urban and rural Akan: Lexical variables ....................................................... 179 5.0 introduction .................................................................................... 179 5.1 methodology .................................................................................. 179 5.2 variables for which all the participants used the same variant .......... 180 5.3 variables for which the participants used different variants .............. 181 5.4 linguistic processes involved ........................................................... 216 5.5 conclusion ...................................................................................... 241 CHAPTER SIX Urban and rural Akan: Morpho-syntactic and phonological variables .................. 243 6.0 Introduction ................................................................................... 243 6.1 Methodology .................................................................................
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