What Languages are in Names? Exploring the Languages in Church Names in Ghana

IF 0.9 4区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

American Journal of Psychology Pub Date : 2021-02-19 DOI:10.30958/AJP.8-1-2

O. Akoto, J. Afful

{"title":"What Languages are in Names? Exploring the Languages in Church Names in Ghana","authors":"O. Akoto, J. Afful","doi":"10.30958/AJP.8-1-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Several studies over the years have employed the rhetorical question \"What is in a name?\" to uncover the semantic-pragmatic imports of names. This paper examines church names (ecclesionyms) which constitute part of the religio-onomastic landscape of Ghana to discover the various languages embedded in them. To achieve this task, we gathered names of churches from ‘online’ (websites of associations of Christian churches) and ‘offline’ sources (posters, signages and billboards). We manually searched the data and identified all languages embedded in the church names. Guided by Akoto’s (2018) global-local model of language choice, the analysis showed that churches in Ghana generally adopt three global languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), a glocal language (English) and three local languages (Akan, Ewe and Ga). It is argued that the status of the global, glocal and local languages as canonical/biblical languages, an ‘ethnically neutral’ language and ‘Ghanaian majority’ languages respectively enable the churches to foreground their uniqueness. Implications for language planning in religion are discussed. Keywords: church names, ecclesionym, glocal language, identity, language choice","PeriodicalId":48063,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Psychology","volume":"8 1","pages":"37-52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Journal of Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.30958/AJP.8-1-2","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 2

Abstract

Several studies over the years have employed the rhetorical question "What is in a name?" to uncover the semantic-pragmatic imports of names. This paper examines church names (ecclesionyms) which constitute part of the religio-onomastic landscape of Ghana to discover the various languages embedded in them. To achieve this task, we gathered names of churches from ‘online’ (websites of associations of Christian churches) and ‘offline’ sources (posters, signages and billboards). We manually searched the data and identified all languages embedded in the church names. Guided by Akoto’s (2018) global-local model of language choice, the analysis showed that churches in Ghana generally adopt three global languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), a glocal language (English) and three local languages (Akan, Ewe and Ga). It is argued that the status of the global, glocal and local languages as canonical/biblical languages, an ‘ethnically neutral’ language and ‘Ghanaian majority’ languages respectively enable the churches to foreground their uniqueness. Implications for language planning in religion are discussed. Keywords: church names, ecclesionym, glocal language, identity, language choice

查看原文本刊更多论文

名字中包含哪些语言?探索加纳教会名称中的语言

多年来的几项研究都采用了反问“名字里有什么？”来揭示名字的语义语用导入。本文研究了构成加纳宗教经济学景观一部分的教堂名称（教会名称），以发现其中嵌入的各种语言。为了完成这项任务，我们从“在线”（基督教会协会的网站）和“离线”来源（海报、标志和广告牌）收集了教堂的名称。我们手动搜索了数据，并确定了教堂名称中嵌入的所有语言。在Akoto（2018）的全球-地方语言选择模型的指导下，分析表明，加纳的教堂通常采用三种全球语言（希伯来语、希腊语和拉丁语）、一种全球语言和三种地方语言（阿坎语、埃维语和加语）。有人认为，全球、全球和地方语言分别作为规范/圣经语言、“种族中立”语言和“加纳多数”语言的地位使教会能够突出其独特性。讨论了宗教语言规划的意义。关键词：教会名称、教会名称、语言、身份、语言选择

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

American Journal of Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

1.30

自引率

7.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： The American Journal of Psychology (AJP) was founded in 1887 by G. Stanley Hall and was edited in its early years by Titchener, Boring, and Dallenbach. The Journal has published some of the most innovative and formative papers in psychology throughout its history. AJP explores the science of the mind and behavior, publishing reports of original research in experimental psychology, theoretical presentations, combined theoretical and experimental analyses, historical commentaries, and in-depth reviews of significant books.