Cover not available
Part of
Corpus Linguistics and African Englishes
Edited by Alexandra U. Esimaje, Ulrike Gut and Bassey E. Antia
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 88] 2019
► pp. 259–292

Chapter 2.4
Lexical expansion in Ghanaian English from a diachronic perspective

A structural and semantic analysis

| University of Regensburg
This chapter provides a real-time structural and semantic analysis of lexical expansion in the Nativization phase of Ghanaian English based on the Historical Corpus of English in Ghana (HiCE Ghana) and the written-printed sections of the Ghanaian component of ICE. Taking a comprehensive list of previously attested ‘Ghanaianisms’ – innovative lexical items of English and local origin – as a starting point, the paper shows that traditional word-formation processes like derivation or compounding play only a subordinate role and that semantic shift is the most important process used in both periods. While the corpora are comparatively small for lexical research, the results still provide a useful starting point to better our understanding of how Ghanaian English has evolved over the past 40 years.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background: Lexis in the dynamic model
  • 3.Previous studies on the lexis of Ghanaian English
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1General findings
    • 5.2Word-formation analysis
    • 5.3Semantic classification
    • 5.4Entrenchment
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 13 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.88.12bra
References (37)
References
Ahulu, Samuel. 1994. How Ghanaian Is Ghanaian English? English Today 10(2): 25–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alabi, Victoria A. 2000. Semantics of occupational lexis in Nigerian English. World Englishes 19(1): 107–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Archer, Dawn, Andrew Wilson, & Rayson, Paul. 2002. Introduction to the USAS category system. Ms, last modified June 12, 2016. <[URL]>
Baayen, Rolf Harald. 2001. Word frequency distributions. Text, Speech and Language Technology 18. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baayen, Rolf Harald & Lieber, Rochelle. 1991. Productivity and English derivation: A corpus-based study. Linguistics 29(5): 801–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bamiro, Edmund O. 1997. Lexical innovation in Ghanaian English: Some examples from recent fiction. American Speech 72(1): 105–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baumgardner, Robert J. 1998. Word-formation In Pakistani English. English World-Wide 19(2): 205–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biermeier, Thomas. 2008. Word-formation in new Englishes: A corpus-based analysis [Anglistik, Amerikanistik 29]. Münster: LIT.Google Scholar
Biewer, Carolin, Bernaisch, Tobias, Berger, Mike & Heller, Benedikt. 2014. Compiling The Diachronic Corpus of Hong Kong English (DC-HKE): Motivation, progress and challenges. ICAME 35. Nottingham, April 30.Google Scholar
Blench, Roger. 2006. A Dictionary of Ghanaian English. <[URL]> (13 July 2016).
Brown, Philip Penton & Scragg, John. 1950. Common Errors in Gold Coast English: Their Cause and Correction. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dako, Kari. 2001. Ghanaianisms: Towards a semantic and formal classification. English World-Wide 22(1): 23–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2003. Ghanaianisms: A Glossary. Accra: Ghana University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Mark. 2016. NOW Corpus (News On the Web). <[URL]> (22 June 2016).
Denteh, Andrew C. 1967. A Visitor’s Guide to Ghanaian Customs and Other Matters. Accra: Self-published.Google Scholar
Evans, Stephen. 2015. Word-formation in Hong Kong English: Diachronic and synchronic perspectives. Asian Englishes 17(2): 116–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evert, Stefan & Baroni, Marco. 2007. zipfR: Word frequency distributions in R. In Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Posters and Demonstrations Sessions, 29–32. Prague.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Robert & Gut, Ulrike. 2015. An apparent time study of the progressive in Nigerian English. In Grammatical Change in English World-wide [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 67] Peter C. Collins (ed.), 373–87. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gold Coast Colony. 1930. Report on the Education Department for the Year 1929–1930.Google Scholar
Gyasi, Ibrahim Kwaku. 1991. Aspects of English in Ghana. English Today 26: 26–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoffmann, Sebastian, Sand, Andrea & Tan, Peter K. W. 2012. The Corpus of Historical Singapore English: A first pilot study on data from the 1950s and 1960s. Leuven, 30 May.Google Scholar
Huber, Magnus. 2004. Ghanaian English: Phonology. In A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool, 3 Vols, Edgar Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie & Clive Upton (eds), 842–865. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 2014. Stylistic and sociolinguistic variation in Schneider’s nativization phase: The case of Ghanaian English. In The Evolution of Englishes: The Dynamic Model and Beyond [Varieties of English around the World G49], Sarah Buschfeld, Magnus Huber, Thomas Hoffmann & Alexander Kautzsch (eds), 86–106. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huber, Magnus & Dako, Kari. 2004. Ghanaian English – Morphology and syntax. In A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool, 3 Vols, Edgar Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie & Clive Upton (eds), 854–865. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 2013. International Corpus of English, Ghana Component. Gießen: University of Giessen.Google Scholar
Kirby, Jon P. 1998. A North American’s Guide to Ghanaian English. Tamale: Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies.Google Scholar
Lambert, James. 2014. Diachronic stability in Indian English lexis. World Englishes 33(1): 112–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mensah, A. N. 1971. The language of Ghanaian newspapers. Legon Observer, 22 October.Google Scholar
Nimako, D. Annor. 2004. Mind Your Language: Educated Ghanaian English. Tema: Ronna Publishers.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidyney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Schmid, Helmut. 1994. Probabilistic part-of-speech tagging using decision trees. Proceedings of International Conference on New Methods in Language Processing, Manchester, UK.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the World. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W., Burridge, Kate, Kortmann, Bernd, Mesthrie, Rajend & Upton, Clive (eds). 2004. A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool, 3 Vols. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sey, Kofi Abakah. 1973. Ghanaian English: An exploratory survey. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tent, Jan. 2001. A profile of the Fiji English lexis. English World-Wide 22(2): 209–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tingley, Christopher. 1981. Deviance in the English of Ghanaian newspapers. English World-Wide 2(1): 39–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Rooy, Bertus & Terblanche, Lize. 2010. Complexity in word-formation processes in New Varieties of South African English. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 28(4): 407–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Unuabonah, Foluke Olayinka & Jemima Asabea Anderson
2023. “You are quite funny paa!”: A corpus-based study of borrowed discourse-pragmatic features in Ghanaian English. Corpus Pragmatics 7:3 ► pp. 267 ff. DOI logo
Buregeya, Alfred
2022. How real has the long-anticipated fast-growing influence of American English on Kenyan English been?. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 43:2 ► pp. 192 ff. DOI logo
Unuabonah, Foluke Olayinka, Adebola Adebileje, Rotimi Olanrele Oladipupo, Bernard Fyanka, Mba Odim & Oluwateniola Kupolati
2022. Introducing the Historical Corpus of English in Nigeria (HiCE–Nig). English Today 38:3 ► pp. 178 ff. DOI logo
Hundt, Marianne
2021. On models and modelling. World Englishes 40:3 ► pp. 298 ff. DOI logo
Brato, Thorsten
2020. Noun phrase complexity in Ghanaian English. World Englishes 39:3 ► pp. 377 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.