Publications

Publication details [#19513]

Huber, Magnus. 1999. Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context: A sociohistorical and structural analysis. (Varieties of English Around the World G24). John Benjamins. xviii + 322 + CD rom pp.
Publication type
Book – monograph
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
ISBN
90 272 4882 6

Annotation

This study of the Ghanaian variety of West African Pidgin English (GhaPE) provides a synchronic account of GhaPE’s structure and sociolinguistics. Special focus is on the differences between GhaPE and other West African Pidgins, in particular the development of, and interrelations between, the different varieties of restructured English in West Africa, from Sierra Leone to Cameroon. This monograph further includes an overview of the history of Afro-European contact languages in Lower Guinea with special emphasis on the Gold Coast; an outline of the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone, with a description of how and when the transplantation of Sierra Leonean Krio to other West African countries took place; an analysis of the linguistic evidence for the origin, development, and spread of restructured Englishes on the Lower Guinea Coast; an account of the different varieties of GhaPE and their sociolinguistic status in the contemporary linguistic ecology of Ghana; as well as a comprehensive structural description of the “uneducated” variety of GhaPE. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM which contains illustrative material such as spoken GhaPE and photographs.

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