A comparative study of colour description in Nigerian and Ghanian Englishes

Abstract

This study on the exploration of colour terms: A comparative study of colour description in Nigerian and Ghanaian Englishes is a  qualitative study of colour terms as it is used in the fashion domain by two West African varieties of English language. The study  describes shades of colours by Nigerian and Ghanaian speakers of English language. The theory adopted two theories namely, Systemic  Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Linguistics Relativity. The systemic functional linguistics is adopted because of the choices that people  make in meaning explication while linguistic relativity is adopted because of the way the world is differently experienced and conceived in  different linguistic communities. More so, humans have different perspective of the world and this is reflected through the languages  spoken in their various communities. Data were randomly collected from Nigerians and Ghanaians who are into weaving of native attires.  The data were obtained in written and audio-record format. Fifteen (15) colour terms were obtained for each of the varieties. The  study reveals those Nigerians and Ghanaians speaker of English name colours after item peculiar to their immediate environment and  culture. The paper concludes that further research needs to be carried out in order to develop a framework that could account for the  meaning of colours in indigenous languages both in Nigeria and Ghana and possibly other West African languages.