Ghanaian and West African English (Huber)

The aim of this project is to document and evaluate the under-researched varieties of English spoken in those countries in West Africa whose de jure or de facto official language is English. Particular attention is given to English in Ghana. The phonology and morpho-syntax of both standard and nonstandard are described here and varieties are located in their West African social, historical, and linguistic context. One of the research objectives is to identify national varieties of West African English and to locate their position in the life cycle of World Englishes.

Publications

Huber, Magnus. 1999. Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African context: a sociohistorical and structural analysis. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

— 1995. "Ghanaian Pidgin English: an overview". English World-Wide 16: 215-249.

— 1996a. "Ghanaian Pidgin English: a preliminary consideration of its position among West African Pidgin Englishes. Evidence from its relativization strategies". In Véronique, Daniel (ed.). Matériaux pour l'étude des classes grammaticales dans les languages créoles. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l'Université de Provence, 285-303.

— 1996b. "The grammaticalization of aspect markers in Ghanaian Pidgin English". In Baker, Philip & Syea, Anand (eds.). Changing meanings, changing functions. Papers related to grammaticalization in contact languages. London: University of Westminster Press, 53-70.

— 2003. "Verbal reduplication in Ghanaian Pidgin English. Origins, forms, and functions". In Kouwenberg, Silvia (ed.). Twice as meaningful. Reduplication in Pidgins, Creoles and other Contact Languages. London: Battlebridge, 139-54.

— 2004a. "Ghanaian English: phonology". In Kortmann, Bernd and Edgar W. Schneider (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. A Multimedia Reference Tool. Volume 1: Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 842-865.

— 2004b. "Ghanaian English: morphology and syntax" (with Kari Dako). In Kortmann, Bernd and Edgar W. Schneider (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. A Multimedia Reference Tool. Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 854-865.

— 2004c. "Ghanaian Pidgin English: phonology". Kortmann, Bernd and Edgar W. Schneider (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. A Multimedia Reference Tool. Volume 1: Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 866-873.

— 2004d. "Ghanaian Pidgin English: morphology and syntax". In Kortmann, Bernd and Edgar W. Schneider (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. A Multimedia Reference Tool. Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 866-878.

— 2006. "Anglophone West Africa/Das anglophone Westafrika". In Ammon, Ulrich, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus Mattheier and Peter Trudgill (eds.). Sociolinguistics. An international handbook of the science of language and society. 2nd edition, vol. 3. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 

Contact details: 

Prof. Dr. Magnus Huber, Institut für Anglistik, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen