Legon Journal of the Humanities
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh
<p>Founded in 1974<em>, Legon Journal of the Humanities (LJH) </em>is a peer-reviewed periodical published by the College of Humanities, University of Ghana. <em>LJH</em> welcomes the following types of contributions in the humanities from scholars in all countries: </p> <ol> <li class="show">research articles </li> <li class="show">reviews of new and particularly noteworthy books and films</li> <li class="show">interviews with distinguished writers, filmmakers, and scholars</li> </ol> <p>The journal is devoted to the study of the humanities, operationally conceptualized to cover not just the arts and languages but also social science disciplines, such as cultural studies, human geography, international affairs, management studies, political science, psychology, and sociology. The journal occasionally publishes theme-based issues, coordinated by guest editors. For such editions, a call for papers (CFP) is announced in a preceding issue of the journal and/or through listserv/mail shots. </p> <p>For all its issues, <em>LJH</em> only publishes original contributions (i.e., papers that have not been published elsewhere) and therefore, disapproves of duplicate publication and multiple submissions of the same paper to different publication outlets. In consonance with best academic practices, it equally takes a very dim view of the illegitimate direct replication of material in the form of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. The Editorial Board will not only ban authors of plagiarized material from any subsequent association with the journal, but also bring any breach of intellectual property rights to the attention of the contributor’s institution.</p> <p>The language of publication is English. As of Vol. 26, <em>LJH</em> will be published online twice a year as a <em>gratis</em> open access journal. </p> <p><em><strong>Legon Journal of the Humanities</strong></em><strong> is indexed in Modern Language Association (MLA) and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).</strong></p>University of Ghanaen-USLegon Journal of the Humanities0855-1502<p><strong>Creative Commons License</strong></p><p>Attribution-Noncommercial- Noderivates 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): The license allows others to “download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially” (Source: https:creativecommons.org/licenses).</p><p><strong>Copyright</strong></p><p>The copyright of all papers published in<em> Legon Journal of the Humanities</em> is vested in the journal. By agreeing to publish the accepted version of the paper in <em>LJH</em>, contributors automatically cede copyright of the manuscript to the journal. This notwithstanding, contributors may use parts of their published articles for non-commercial purposes, e.g., course material, conferences, and academic profile webpage. </p><p><strong>Access and Attribution</strong></p><p>While <em>LJH</em> published papers (new and archived) can be freely downloaded from its website in compliance with its <em>gratis</em> open access policy, hard copies of current and recent issues as well as offprints of specific papers can only be provided on demand.</p><p>Citation of a paper from <em>LJH</em> should include name of quoted author, journal title, volume, number, title of paper, page, year of publication, and Digital Object Identifier (DOI)/Uniform Resource Locator(URL). </p>Dialectal variation in lexical borrowings in Dangme
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/238490
<p>language spoken in Southern Ghana. Dangme has seven dialects (Ada, Gbugblaa, Yilɔ Krobo, Manya Krobo, Nugo, Sɛ and Osudoku), but this study concerns lexical borrowings into the first four. The language is in contact with four languages from which it has borrowed: Ewe, Ga, Akan, and English. Each dialect of Dangme is in direct contact with English, the official language of Ghana, and with at least one of the three Ghanaian languages. While Ada is in contact with Ewe and Gbugblaa with Ga, both Yilɔ Krobo and Manya Krobo are in contact with Akan and, to some extent, Ewe. The study departed from focus on phonological adaptation of borrowed words, the subject matter of previous studies, to pursue two interrelated objectives, i.e., to find out: (i) whether, and to what extent, borrowings into a dialect from a given source language remain localized or are transferred to the other dialects and (ii) whether, and what extent, the lexical borrowings constitute additions to the Dangme lexicon or, conversely, a relexification of native words in the lexicon. Eighty (80) respondents, 20 each from the four dialects considered, were purposively sampled to participate in the data collection process and the data analysis was done within the Variationist Sociolinguistics Theory. It was found that while most Akan and English lexical borrowings have become integrated in all the four dialects of Dangme, this is not the case with lexical borrowings from Ga and Ewe. Most Ga borrowings are found only in Gbugblaa and most Ewe borrowings are found only in Ada and, to some extent, Manya Krobo. It was also found that Akan and English lexical borrowings generally constitute additions to the Dangme lexicon while Ewe and Ga lexical borrowings may be seen as subtractive borrowings or cases of relexification in Ada and Gbugblaa respectively. The study is expected to contribute to an understanding of how languages like Dangme whose dialects have geographical contact with different languages develop dialectal variation.</p>Raymond Teye Akrobettoe Regina Oforiwah CaesarEvershed Kwasi Amuzu
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2022-12-152022-12-1533212810.4314/ljh.v33i2.1Serial verb reduplication in the Mabia languages of West Africa
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/238491
<p>This paper introduces and discusses the notion of Serial Verb Reduplication (SVR) in two Mabia languages of West Africa, Dagaare and Kusaal. The authors show that the phenomenon of SVRs, though under-represented in the literature, has a wide scope occurrence in natural language usage within serializing languages. Theoretically, two lexical semantic notions: semantics of verbs (verb meaning) and pluraction, are advanced to explain the intricacies of the syntax and semantics of SVRs. The paper identifies two groups of SVRs: canonical SVRs and pluractional SVRs and proposes that semantically bleached verbs can only be reduplicated in pluractional benefactive and causative SVRs in these languages.</p>Adams BodomoHasiyatu Abubakari
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2022-12-152022-12-15332295810.4314/ljh.v33i2.2‘A man is known by the company he keeps’: A critical overview of semantic prosody
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/238495
<p>The discipline of corpus linguistics has revolutionized the study of language in a variety of ways. In this respect, semantic prosody is one of the rapidly evolving research streams that encapsulates the incorporation of digital technology into linguistic research and deserves more scholarly attention. The paper aims to offer new insights into the study of this theoretical concept. It presents a critical review of the existing literature, delineating the major merits and challenges of this area of inquiry, and suggests novel research avenues. This article has theoretical and practical implications for the future research agenda on semantic prosody. It underscores the importance of endowing this corpus linguistics concept with more clarity and consistency as to its labeling, conceptualization, and delimitation. The paper also proposes some new applications pertaining to the investigation of the discursive construction of human referents across different text types.</p>Boutheina Ben Ghozlen
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2022-12-152022-12-15332597910.4314/ljh.v33i2.3Are we still Shona? An AOTS framework approach to navigating immigration-related identity
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/238498
<p>Using the African Oral Traditional Storytelling (AOTS) Framework as a culturally centered and responsive storytelling approach to studying with African peoples, this article shares the experiences of a Shona family in the United States of America as they navigate the maintenance and/or retention of their native language and culture as well as transmitting these to their children. Thus, using storytelling as analysis and theory, this article contributes to the discourse on African immigrant identity conceptualization and reconceptualization through a decolonial lens with the aim of encouraging conversations on the gradual linguistic and cultural genocide that continues to plague Africans as we critically wrestle with the lingering effects of colonialism and the lure of global mobility. </p>Araba Ayiaba Ziekpor Osei-Tutu
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2022-12-152022-12-153328010810.4314/ljh.v33i2.4In search of the better? The representations of Utopia and dystopia in Kofi Awoonor’s This Earth, My Brother…
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ljh/article/view/238502
<p>This paper is informed by the extensive corpus of African postcolonial critique that examines the after-effects of empire in ex-colonial societies. Thus, in the studied engagement of the Ghanaian ex-colonial state, this paper turns to Awoonor’s This Earth, My Brother..., read as one of such commentaries on the rusted, conscienceless ex-colonial nation and the tones of negative burdens laid on citizens’ existential quest for selfhood, self-actualisation and the assertion of identity. In such a circumstance, one may be lost between the real world and a wishful world; the real being the present state of affairs and the wishful being that for which they yearn. Through critical reading and analysis, we discuss the representations of utopia and dystopia in This Earth, My Brother..., in the light of the myriad features that these concepts offer. The paper argues that the extradiegetic Ghanaian nation has much to learn from Awoonor’s diegetic lifeworld.</p>Kwame Osei-PokuEdmund H. Ankomah
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2022-12-152022-12-1533210913110.4314/ljh.v33i2.5