Department of Modern Language

Rezumat Funeraliile la etnicii Akan: unele perspective referitor la Ashanti Această lucrare pune în discuție procesele de înmormântare la grupul etnic Akan, unele sisteme de credințe akane şi tendințele moderne care au evoluat în ceremoniile funerare. De asemenea, demonstrează complexitățile implicate în organizarea înmormântării începând cu ziua morții care culmina cu celebrarea ritului funerar final. Scopul propriu-zis al înmormântării este de a onora pe morți pentru serviciile lor meritorii de pe pământ, aducându-i în glorie veşnică şi integrându-i în lumea de dincolo. Cu toate acestea, exista unele disensiuni care militează împotriva acestor motive pozitive. Drept urmare, unele familii care obişnuiau să fie destul de unite se divizează, iar membrii familiei încetează să mai comunice între ei. În unele cazuri, înmormântările rezultă în litigii care durează ani de zile sau cu ordonanțe, impunând o datorie grea asupra unor familii. Alte familii rămân dezorientate ca urmare a neînțelegerii. Obiectivul acestui studiu este de a identifica factorii şi perspectivele care caracterizează procesul înmormântării în rândul Akanilor şi în special, al Ashantilor. Studiază procesele înmormântărior la Akani ca fenomen şi schimbările prin care au trecut acestea prin timp. Cuvinte-cheie: deces, înmormântare, conflict, familie, Akanii, Ashanti. Резюме Похороны у аканцев: некоторые перспективы в отношении ашанти В этой работе обсуждаются процессы проведе-ния похорон этнической группой акан, некоторые системы их верований и современные тенденции, сложившиеся в похоронных обрядах. Также в ней демонстрируются сложности, связанные с организа-цией похорон, начиная со дня смерти, кульминация которых ознаменовывается заключительным похо-ронным обрядом. Настоящая цель похорон-почтить память мертвых за их заслуги на земле, возвести их к вечной славе и интегрировать в загробный мир. Од-нако существует ряд разногласий, препятствующих этим позитивным мотивам. В результате некоторые семьи, отличавшиеся ранее сплоченностью, теперь разделены, а члены этих семей прекратили общаться друг с другом. В отдельных случаях похороны при-водят к тяжбам, которые тянутся годами или завер-шаются судебными распоряжениями, влекущими за собой тяжелые долги некоторых семей. Другие семьи дезорганизованы в результате недопонимания. Це-лью данного исследования выступает выявление фак-торов и перспектив, которые характеризуют процесс погребения у аканцев, в частности у ашанти. В статье исследуются погребальные процессы у группы акан как феномен и изменения, которые они претерпели во времени. Ключевые слова: смерть, похороны, конфликт, семья, аканцы, ашанти. Summary Funerals among the Akan people: some perspectives on Asante This work discusses the processes of celebrating funerals among the Akan people, some Akan belief systems and modern trends that have evolved in funeral ceremonies. It also demonstrates the complexities involved in organizing the funeral from the day of death culminating into the celebration of the final funeral rite. The actual purpose of funeral is to honor the dead for their merito-rious services on earth, ushering them into eternal glory and to integrate them into the next world. However, there are often some skirmishes that militate against these positive motives. As a result, some families that used to be closely knitted end up being divided. Other members of a family stop communicating with each other. In some cases , funerals result in legal wrangling lasting for a number of years and some have been slapped with injunctions, leaving a heavy debt on some families. Others are also disorganized as a result of misunderstanding. The objective of this study is to identify the factors and perspectives that characterize funeral celebration among the Akan people , and the Asante in particular. It studies the processes in Akan funerals and the changes they have undergone through time.

Explaining and interpreting biblical concepts in different cultures without due regard to the cultures of the biblical world have some challenges. When caution is not taken, one stands a chance of imposing one’s cultural worldview on the biblical text. Understanding of the concepts in one’s culture could be useful in helping him or her grasp the meanings of the biblical concepts. This paper delves into wisdom in the OT and that of the Akan of Ghana, analysing critically the connotations of the concept, sources and acquisition of wisdom in the OT vis-a-vis those of the Akan ethnic groups of Ghana. Through a comparative analysis, it attempts to describe how the OT concept of wisdom could be understood with the help of its parallels in Akan, regardless of their disconnections. It discovers that the Akan concept of wisdom can be of help in the interpretation of wisdom in the OT, but it cannot fully explain it. The paper pinpoints one of the challenges that interpreters are likely to enc...

Rezumat Funeraliile la etnicii Akan: unele perspective referitor la Ashanti Această lucrare pune în discuție procesele de înmormântare la grupul etnic Akan, unele sisteme de credințe akane şi tendințele moderne care au evoluat în ceremoniile funerare. De asemenea, demonstrează complexitățile implicate în organizarea înmormântării începând cu ziua morții care culmina cu celebrarea ritului funerar final. Scopul propriu-zis al înmormântării este de a onora pe morți pentru serviciile lor meritorii de pe pământ, aducându-i în glorie veşnică şi integrându-i în lumea de dincolo. Cu toate acestea, exista unele disensiuni care militează împotriva acestor motive pozitive. Drept urmare, unele familii care obişnuiau să fie destul de unite se divizează, iar membrii familiei încetează să mai comunice între ei. În unele cazuri, înmormântările rezultă în litigii care durează ani de zile sau cu ordonanțe, impunând o datorie grea asupra unor familii. Alte familii rămân dezorientate ca urmare a neînțe...

Decent use of language has been a common trademark in communication. It is such an aspect of human development that has been an important part in our societies since time immemorial. In recent times, this practice has contemptuously gone amiss due to our demanding need for democratic development. Recent development in politics in Ghana has witnessed a total change in the use of decent language to achieve the intended purposes in political communication. It is in this regard that the present study sought to examine the use of invectives in political communications in Ghana. The study adopted Fairclough's (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis theory to analyse the data gathered, which spanned from 2011 to 2016 and were taken from statements made by politicians that had been covered as major news items in the print media and online networks. In all, one hundred and fifty (150) bulletins of such invectives were identified and further categorised into descriptive, attributive and symbolic forms. Our findings showed that many of the noted politicians in Ghana made frequent use of invectives to seek political recognition that will prepare them for better political fortunes should the party they represent come to power in the future. It was further identified that all of these invectives were meant to cause emotional and psychological pains and also to lower the social status of the affected individuals so as to make them politically 'dirty' and irrelevant.

This paper examines graphemic and lexical borrowings in Twi for Academic Purposes (TAP). Textbooks written in Asante Twi by some renowned scholars in the language constituted the dataset for this study. The textbooks were read and all instances of anglicisms or English features borrowed into Twi were collected. The borrowed-features were identified by drawing on our native speaker and scholarly competencies. The dataset was analyzed by drawing on Clyne's (1977) Borrowing Typology and Haugen's (1950) Borrowability Scale. Three key findings emerged from the analysis. First, the study yielded that in TAP two letters (<v>, and <j>) are borrowed towards empowering Asante Twi to enable it to account for words that contain these letters. Second, at the lexical level, it was found that the borrowed words were either integrated or adapted into Asante Twi linguistic environment. The final point was that all the lexical items realized were nominals affirming the primacy of noun on borrowability scales. The findings have implications for developing Ghanaian languages for academic purposes.

Several Ghanaian studies have examined prostate cancer knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. However, none of these studies was conducted in women except our previous study which served as the third stage in the development of a local robust tool, PCaKAB-Gh, to assess women’s knowledge about prostate cancer. Although the subject had previously been studied in Ghana, none of the studies utilized a psychometrically valid tool and focused on involving women in the early detection of prostate cancer. For this purpose, we performed a psychometric study on a 41- item tool to improve robustness. The study which was the final stage of the tool development process employed a cross-sectional approach and conveniently recruited 500 participants. Sta tistical analysis to assess the reliability and construct validity of the tool was performed. The factors of the tool had Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega coefficients of 0.53 – 0.78 and reflected favourable internal consistency. The Exploratory Factor Analysis, using the Principal Component Analysis with Varimax with Kaiser Normalization, generated 5 factors with itemized factor loadings of 0.44 – 0.80, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy of 0.857, and a significant Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (2293.448, p-value < 0.001). A variance of 55.3% was explained. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis had a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation and a Standardized Root Mean Square Residual below 0.050, and a Comparative Fit Index and a Tucker-Lewis Index above 0.900 which indicated satisfactory fit indices (p-value < 0.001). The study successfully developed a 24-item psychometrically valid tool, with 5 factors, to be used to study the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about prostate cancer among Ghanaian women. The availability of the PCaKAB-Gh tool, the first of its kind, would permit the active involvement of women in improving the early detection of prostate cancer to reduce the cost of therapy and improve management outcomes.