Ghana Journal of Linguistics

“Hello my ears, are you still there?” Analysing the discursive strategies in Yankah’s “Occasional Kwatriot’s” columns: A CDA approach

Daniel Dwamena Ofosu — 2025-12-31

This study examines the discursive strategies employed by Professor Kwesi Yankah in his "Occasional Kwatriot Kwesi Yankah Writes" commentaries, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) grounded in van Dijk’s sociocognitive approach. Drawing on a qualitative methodology, the study analyses 20 commentaries published in 2024, with a special focus on Yankah’s integration of his unique writing style to critique societal norms and ideologies. The data reveal high lexical densities (75.80%–83.08%), emphasising Yankah’s content-rich discourse. Through the socio-cognitive framework, the research explores how Yankah’s columns negotiate language, cognition, and societal structures to construct ideological positions. Findings indicate his adept use of satire and anecdotes that blend local linguistic expressions (orature) with formal rhetoric to engage diverse audiences. Notable strategies include vivid imagery, intertextual references to Ghanaian music and folklore, metaphor, hyperbole and irony that transition seamlessly from anecdotal narratives to socio-political critiques. The study highlights Yankah’s ability to provoke critical reflection, challenge entrenched ideologies, and foster dialogue on social justice and political accountability. By decoding these discursive strategies, this research contributes to understanding how language mediates cultural identities to offer an understanding of the role of media discourse in shaping public opinion and advocating for social reform.

Representation of Disability in Akan Discourse

Emmanuel Amo Ofori — 2025-12-31

The study examines some proverbs and insults in Akan that legitimise and reinforce marginalisation and stigmatisation of people with disability (PWD) in Ghana. Analysing fifty (50) proverbs and ten (10) insults from both written and oral sources collected through interviews and library search, the findings reveal that some proverbs and insults portray PWD as weak and vulnerable, making aspects of the Akan language a perpetuator of disability. Taking into consideration the Sustainable Development Goal 10, which strives to reduce inequality within and among countries by empowering and promoting social, economic and political inclusion of all, there is the need to make indigenous languages inclusive of the needs of PWD.

Neologizing Akan Indigenous Ecological Proverbs and Wise-Sayings for Earth-Keeping Among Akan Christians of Ghana

Emmanuel Twumasi-Ankrah — 2025-12-31

All over the world, environmental noxiousness has caused the emission of greenhouse gasses, climate change and diseases that threaten human and non-human survival. Ghana has had her fair share in this global onslaught. Although there have been several political interventions, the recent global environmental performance rankings according to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) 2022, grades Ghana at 170^th out of the 180 nations assessed and 45^th out of the 46 nations in the sub-Saharan Africa, scoring only 27.7. That of 2024 appreciated slightly, where Ghana was ranked 145th on the global stage, scoring 36.9 and 29th in sub-Saharan Africa. This pathetic development, formed the basis of this study; which advocates for the need to turn to Indigenous Ecological Knowledge systems (IEKs) for a response. This paper made use of qualitative method. It used interviews as the primary data collection instrument. The secondary data was collected from Akan proverbs derived from oral and written literature. The study affirms that in the past, some Akan axioms were used to prompt the natives about the essence of protecting and conserving nature. This article has neologized eleven new proverbs and wise-sayings that are ecologically ennobled and could be viable to be harnessed for earth-keeping among the Akan of Ghana.

Connecting past, present, and future: A corpus-based study of Grammatical Cohesion in Budget Discourse

Osei Yaw Akoto — 2025-12-31

Cohesion in politico-financial registers, such as budget statements, remains terra incognita, although it is crucial in shaping the rhetorical structure of these documents. Cohesive devices are key indicators in strengthening financial arguments and shaping people’s understanding of fiscal policies. Despite their significance, studies on cohesion in budget statements remain limited. This corpus-assisted study thus examines the discourse functions of grammatical cohesion in politico-financial budget statements using Ghana’s 2024 Budget Statement as data. The analysis was guided by Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesion framework. The findings revealed that references were used to establish the Finance Minister’s authority and maintain thematic continuity, while substitution was used to enhance textual variation and avoid monotonous sentences. Additionally, conjunctions were used to structure economic narratives by establishing additive relations, signalling causality, contrasting financial outcomes, and indicating temporal sequences between economic events. The findings offer a deeper understanding of the functions of grammatical cohesion in a politico-financial register, such as budget statements.

Relativization in Sisaalɩ: A descriptive account

Irene Basimaga Dumah — 2026-03-25

This paper examines relativization in Sɩsaalɩ, a Mabia language spoken in Ghana, with particular attention to the structural properties and strategies of relative clause formation. Drawing on elicited and natural speech data, the study shows that Sɩsaalɩ employs postnominal, externally headed, and obligatorily finite relative clauses. The language uses two relativizer forms (àà/άά), which do not inflect for person, number, or gender, followed by a definite determiner (hʋ) to introduce relative clauses. The analysis shows that subject and object relativization employ a gap strategy, while possessive and locative contexts typically involve resumptive pronouns. Sɩsaalɩ further permits relativization across a wide range of syntactic roles, consistent with the NP Accessibility Hierarchy. These findings contribute to the typological understanding of relativization in Mabia and related languages.