Address Forms of the Kolamↄ of Ghana: A Sociolinguistic Analysis

Abstract

This paper focuses on typical address forms of the Kolangꜫ language (a Gur member of the Niger-Congo classification) in the socio-linguistic context of the language use of the people. Astrit Maria and Sudirman William (2019) express that, “address terms indicate the speaker’s attitude, intention, as well as a relationship with the addressee that someone is talking to”. This paper principally explores how native speakers of Kolangꜫ appropriately address one another using varied address terms. Address terms in the domains of kinship, occupation, age, formal titles, status description, religion, intimacy, respect, nicknames, and mockery are examined. Attempts were made to explain, discuss or give meanings to the various address forms used in every situation from the sociolinguistic perspective. The data collection techniques I used were observation (both participant and non-participant), unstructured interviews, informal conversation, and my own introspection as a native speaker. The main finding from the analysis of data was that the Kolangꜫ speaking group as any other tribe has its own way of addressing members in that tribe and that the typical address forms used by native Kolangꜫ speakers are appropriate names or titles or reference terms used to show politeness, deference, solidarity, intimacy, mockery, and familiarity when speaking to or addressing someone. This, however, depends on the relationship between the addresser and addressee, the speaker’s intention, the setting of the encounter, and the subject being discussed. The study result has implications for the sociolinguistic analysis of address forms in relation to European and non-European (African) linguistic cultural settings.