An Analysis of the Communicative Skills of Undergraduate Students of the University of Cape Coast from a Linguistic Perspective

Abstract

Research has shown that pre-university institutions have a culture and practice which are different from tertiary  institutions. Engaging in academic pursuits at the university level goes with challenges. The Communicative Skills (CS)  course, a form of Academic Literacy (AL) or English for Academic Purpose (EAP) programme at the university level, exposes fresh students to techniques, methods, approaches and some orientation they will require to pursue their  undergraduate studies with minimum difficulty. The CS course equips students with skills in speaking, listening, reading  and writing. It also emphasizes effective ways of gathering, organizing, recording and retrieving information. In view of the fact that English is the medium of communication in universities in Ghana, various aspects of its structure that may  facilitate effective communication are highlighted in the CS course. This article is focused on the linguistic aspect of the  communicative skills of undergraduate students of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), analyzing errors of grammar and  other conventions of usage in the English of the students. Mixed research methodology was used guided by the  Error Analysis (EA) theory. The analysis of the errors of students revealed that they committed errors of grammar,  syntax, morphology and collocation and these affected the communicative functions of the English they used.