چکیده:
This paper investigates major themes espoused in the national anthems of English
West Africa. Further, it seeks to find out how these themes are projected
linguistically and literarily. Five English-speaking countries in West Africa, namely,
Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia, were purposively sampled
based on their colonial history, language, and geographical location for this paper.
Findings show that the major themes espoused in these national anthems are the
themes of unity, religion, freedom, and modesty. The themes are projected
linguistically by conscious diction. Content lexical items nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs are preferred to non-content words in projecting these themes.
Besides, literarily, these anthems employ figures of speech such as repetition,
apostrophe, oxymoron, imagery, rhythm, and metaphor to convey the various
themes. These findings confirm the popular view in the study of national anthems
that national anthems of countries which share colonial history, language, and
geographical location are similar in content and style.
خلاصه ماشینی:
A Thematic Analysis of the National Anthems of English West Africa Cosmas Rai Amenorvi * (Corresponding Author) Lecturer of English and Academic Writing and Communication Skills, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana Email: cosmas.
Five English-speaking countries in West Africa, namely, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia, were purposively sampled based on their colonial history, language, and geographical location for this paper.
Keywords: Thematic Analysis, National Anthems, English West Africa, Ghana, Themes ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received: Monday, June 3, 2019 Accepted: Wednesday, July 3, 2019 Published: Saturday, September 7, 2019 Available Online: Monday, August 26, 2019 DOI: 10.
National anthems have received some attention from discourse analysts over the years (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Brooke, 2007; Daly, Kellehear, & Gliksman, 1997; De Souza, 2006; Lauenstein, Murer, Boos, & Reicher, 2015; Lester & Gunn, 2011).
The focus of this paper is to thematically analyse some major themes espoused in the national anthems of the five English-speaking West African countries, namely, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia; these anthems are sourced from Hang (2003) and crosschecked with Bristow and Reed (2006).
In that regard, the present study seeks to also discover how themes are projected linguistically and literarily in the national anthems of English West Africa.
The next concern is to address the ways that this major theme of unity are projected in the anthems of these English-speaking countries of West Africa.