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Graduate Courses

Credits: 
3

M.A. IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH STUDIES (SANDWICH)

Admission Requirements
The minimum entry requirement for admission into the MA Sandwich programme is any good bachelor’s degree (at least a second class lower) from a recognized university. Interviews may be conducted to arrive at a short list of successful applicants.

Programme Duration
The Sandwich MA in English is a two semester programme to be run between May and July. Each semester will last eight weeks, as stipulated in the University of Ghana Handbook for Graduate Studies.

Graduation Requirements
Course work                                         30-36 credits
Seminar                                                       3 credits
Independent study                                       6 credits
TOTAL                                                39- 45 credits

GENERAL CORE COURSE (To be taken either in the first semester or in the second semester)

Course Code and Title                                                                   Credits
 
General Core Courses
MCES 600 Independent Study       6
MCES 601 Seminar        3
 
First Semester Core Courses

Course Code and Title                                                                
MCES 603 Contemporary Grammar and Usage     3
MCES 605 Phonetics and Phonology of English     3
MCES 607 Literature for Critical Thinking and Analysis    3

Second Semester Core Courses
MCES 602 Culture and Arts Criticism      3
MCES 604 Meaning in English       3
MCES 606 Popular Genres       3


Elective course(s)

First Semester Elective Courses: Business/Communication/Media Track
(Students must take at least 2 Elective courses offered in the semester)

MCES 609 Language and Advertising      3
MCES 611 Proposal Writing       3
MCES 613 The English Language and the Social Media    3
MCES 615 The English Language and Religion                       3
MCES 617 Public Speaking and Speech Writing     3
MCES 619 Pidgins and Creoles of the Atlantic     3

First Semester Elective Courses: Arts/Criticism/Pedagogy Track
(Students must take at least 2 Elective courses offered in the semester)
MCES 621 The Film in West Africa      3
MCES 623 Reading Literature: The Novel     3
MCES 625 Responding to Drama       3
                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Second Semester Elective Courses: Business/Communication/Media Track
(Students must take at least 2 Elective courses offered in the semester)

MCES 608 Business Communication      3
MCES 612 Editing         3
MCES 614 Oral Communication in the Mass Media    3
MCES 616 Language in Performance      3
MCES 618 Pragmatics        3
MCES 622 Registers and Varieties of English     3
MCES 624 English in Ghana       3

Second Semester Elective Courses: Arts/Criticism/Pedagogy Track
(Students must take at least 2 Elective courses offered in the semester)

MCES 626 Reading Literature: Poetry      3
MCES 628 Special Topics in Literature      3

COURSES                        CREDIT
MCES 600 Independent Study       6
MCES 601 Seminar         3
MCES 602 Culture and Arts Criticism      3
MCES 603 Contemporary Grammar and Usage     3 
MCES 604 Meaning in English       3
MCES 605 Phonetics and Phonology of English     3
MCES 606 Popular Genres       3
MCES 607 Literature for Critical Thinking and Analysis    3
MCES 608 Business Communication      3
MCES 609 Language and Advertising      3
MCES 611 Proposal Writing       3
MCES 612 Editing         3
MCES 613 The English Language and the Social Media    3
MCES 614 Oral Communication in the Mass Media    3
MCES 615 The English Language and Religion     3
MCES 616 Language in Performance      3
MCES 617 Public Speaking and Speech Writing     3
MCES 618 Pragmatics        3
MCES 619 Pidgins and Creoles of the Atlantic     3
MCES 621 The Film in West Africa      3
MCES 622 Registers and Varieties of English     3
MCES 623 Reading Literature: The Novel     3
MCES 624 English in Ghana       3
MCES 625 Responding to Drama       3
MCES 626 Reading Literature: Poetry      3
MCES 628 Special Topics in Literature      3

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
MCES 600 INDEPENDENT STUDY
This will be a required 6 credit project for all students on this programme, to be carried out either in the first or in the second semester. In this course, the students will be exposed to research methodology to strengthen their skills in doing research. They can then work as individuals or in groups on projects ranging from scholarly writing to creative performance oriented work, but each independent study must have a research component. The burden is on the student to show how the course has been applied to the problem being investigated. This study could be tied to one of the other courses (e.g., Culture and Arts Criticism, Editing).

MCES 601 SEMINAR
Each student will present work from his/her research by the end of the first semester. The topic for the seminar will be arrived at by the student in consultation with a supervisor who will be assigned for this purpose. The presentation can take the form of a scholarly article, a conference paper, a research proposal, or the results of research conducted.  

MCES 602 CULTURE AND ARTS CRITICISM
This course is dedicated to focused practice in culture and arts criticism, a very significant gap in both scholarship and media practice in Ghana. Students will examine various essential features of Ghanaian and African cultural institutions, traditions, and principles, especially as manifested in such expressive artistic forms as rituals, festivals, the performance genres of music, dance, and drama, dance-drama, traditions of verbal/oral art and popular culture. They will also study interrelations between these various ancestrally/indigenously rooted forms and various contemporary forms associated with written and electronically driven traditions borrowed from elsewhere.


MCES 603 CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND USAGE
This course deals with the recognition and usage of acceptable English structure and usage. It will examine grammar and the recognition of acceptable idiomatic usage of English. It will guide students through the analysis of the English sentence and its components.  In usage the emphasis will be on areas that appear problematic for second language users of English.

MCES 604 MEANING IN ENGLISH
This course will deal with meaning at different levels. It will begin with a distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning at the level of the morpheme and the word. It will also examine sentence meaning as a product of the linguistic system, the contextual or utterance and the metaphorical levels. What happens to the meaning of utterances in English in a second language situation will also be probed, focussing on the expression of ideas and sentiments alien to the English language, but germane in a first language. Contextual meaning will be particularly examined as it is the basis of pragmatics and usage in normal interactive situations. Meaning in formal situations will also be discussed to highlight the differences that registers make in the determination of meaning.

MCES 605 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF ENGLISH
The course will aim at acquainting students with work done on English pronunciation in Ghana and demonstrate how these studies can be applied to the teaching of English pronunciation and oral English in the Ghanaian schools, as well as in the media. The students will be made familiar with Received Pronunciation as a reference point, but the emphasis of this course will be on how the Ghanaian accent phonologically marks itself as distinct from other varieties of English.

MCES 606 STUDIES IN POPULAR GENRES
The course will consider the alleged disparity between the classic or ‘highbrow’ and ‘popular’ genres and themes in contemporary literature and performance traditions. It will focus on Ghanaian forms such as the concert party, highlife/hiplife and other forms of popular music, ‘home video’ movies, and popular novels with their often romantic and/or moralistic slant. The course will also look at popular international literature and performance genres such as song texts (reggae, country music, blues etc.), soap operas, the romantic novel, horror, the ‘who-done-it’ novel, the superman action novel etc.

MCES 607 LITERATURE FOR CRITICAL THINKING AND ANALYSIS
This course is designed to sharpen fundamental intellectual skills for analyzing literary texts in ways that cultivate critical thinking. At one level, it is a study of literature as a storehouse of enduring human values and reflections on complexities of various life situations and on the nature of the universe. But above all, the course looks at these values and complex life situations as portrayed in a wide range of classic and popular literary texts, with language as the ultimate miracle tool for encoding and elucidating critical insight.

MCES 608 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
In the fast-paced business environment, the ability to communicate effectively is essential to both the individual and the organization. This course is designed to sensitize learners to the effective communication skills necessary in accomplishing assigned tasks within an organization, and in maintaining good working relations among employees, customers and business associates. It aims at taking learners through executive summary writing, minute taking, business correspondence, speech writing, oral presentations, position papers, memos, CVs and résumés and expository writing.

MCES 609 LANGUAGE AND ADVERTISING
This course examines the language of print, broadcast and web advertising. It will primarily focus on the sociolinguistic and stylistic strategies employed in the construction of advertising texts. It will also explore the multilingual realities in contemporary African societies, addressing topics such as code-switching, pidgin and street language in advertising.

MCES 611 PROPOSAL WRITING
This course is designed to build skills on how to write both academic and non-academic research proposals.  It introduces students to the key elements of proposal writing such as formulation of research questions and objectives, reviewing of relevant literature as well as the procedure to be used to complete the proposed study/project. It will particularly focus on hands-on practices in developing proposals in order to offer students the opportunity to conceptualize and write their own proposals.

MCES 612 EDITING
This course targets the processes involved in sanitising and refining written text. It examines texts from the conceptual point – i.e., the raison d’être for the text and the material, the organisation – the logical development of ideas and paragraphs -- the expression – the felicities and infelicities in patterning sentences and the mechanical inaccuracies consequent on a lack of knowledge in the writer and/or typos, as well as editing symbols used in proofreading. It also looks at the place of the computer in all the processes. The course will to a large extent be practical.

MCES 613 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND THE SOCIAL MEDIA
The course will examine how the English language is shaped by social media. Using data drawn from new media contexts such as WhatsApp, twitter, facebook, SMS, email, instant messaging and personal blogs, the course discusses the impact of these web-based social media platforms on the development of the English language. Students will examine the features that characterize these different media genres or ‘medialects’. The aim of the course is to analyze the structure and features of these social media discourses.

MCES 614 ORAL COMMUNICATION IN THE MASS MEDIA
This course is designed to provide study and practice in conversational English in Ghana with specific emphasis on the processes by which ideas are exchanged orally in the audio visual media. The course shall cover such topics as: panel discussions, programme presentations, debates, and public speaking.

MCES 615 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND RELIGION
The course focuses on the perlocutionary function of language in religion. Thus it examines what speakers do with language and targets the methods associated with homiletics and the persuasive thrust of the language used. It will look at rhetoric as a means to an end, and examine the methods of delivery that enhance the message. It explores both linguistic and rhetorical devices that support the delivery of sermons. It also examines the place of logic, if any, in belief systems. Many of the concepts to be discussed will be supported by a critical examination of sermons, religious tracts, etc.

MCES 616 LANGUAGE IN PERFORMANCE
This course explores how language is used to perform in specific contexts that are contemporary, live, involve audience participation and exist outside the conventional traditions of theatre, storytelling, music, dance and poetry (performance  poetry – rap, hiplife, soap box oratory, the pulpit, political speeches, street theatre events, storytelling dance forms, stand-up comedy etc).  A key issue will be the features of language at the lexical, phonological and grammatical, and sentence fragment levels which these forms call for.  Another important issue will be creativity as a key element which these forms involve. The peculiar linguistic characteristics that include the non-verbal will be addressed.

MCES 617 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND SPEECH WRITING
This course will deal with the theory and practice of the art and craft of persuasion, specifically as they pertain to public speaking and speech writing. It will deepen students’ analytical and critical thinking skills, their persuasive writing skills, and their oral presentation skills. Students will adopt the position of speaker/writer and that of critic. They will examine the rhetorical concepts that are fundamental to the study and practice of ethical and effective oral and written communication, and methods of development, practice and delivery for a variety of speeches, including topic selection, speech outlines, audience analysis and visual aids.

MCES 618 PRAGMATICS
This course deals with meaning in the context of usage. Pragmatics emphasizes the place of context in the delimitation of meaning, particularly in interactive situations, which is the norm in natural languages. Semantics and pragmatics deal with meaning at different levels but they complement each other. Both of them will be discussed and the difference between system sentences and utterances highlighted. The course will refer to the Speech Act theory and Grice’s Maxims, among others, to explain what we do with language and how we interpret it in its natural state. Attention will also be paid to understanding, interpreting and using the insights of pragmatics in identifying the meaning of what we and others say both in First and Second Language situations.

MCES 619 PIDGINS AND CREOLES OF THE AFRO-ATLANTIC
Atlantic pidgins and creoles have their origin in West Africa. This course will begin by exploring the various theories proposed to explain the traces of their beginnings. It will further investigate how the basic pidgins developed in the various slave castles along the coast and how this code crossed the Atlantic to develop into the various creoles of the Caribbean region. The focus will then shift to pidgin in Ghana, with particular attention to the Ghanaian phenomenon: Student Pidgin (SP), a relatively new code that is spoken widely by especially boys in most of the southern high schools, universities and beyond. We will trace SP’s antecedents in GhaPE (Ghanaian Pidgin English) – back to Kru Brofo and the various influences from Nigerian Pidgin.
MCES 621 THE FILM IN WEST AFRICA
This course explores the development of film in West Africa and the issues posed by this development.  The course will focus on the contexts of technology, culture, politics and economics in West Africa within which the tradition of film making took root. Particular attention will be paid to various national traditions of film emerging in the Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone parts of the sub-region in the wake of independence.  The course will also study the audio-visual work enabled by more recent (i.e., digital) technology and media (Nollywood, Ghallywood).

MCES 622 REGISTERS AND VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
This course will look at the registers and the varieties of English in Ghana. The focus will in the first instance be on making the students aware of the various registers in English: from the frozen formal registers to the slangy colloquial registers. The course will encourage the students to pay attention to the new varieties and speech modes in especially urban Ghana: Student Pidgin, LAFA (locally acquired foreign accent), code switching.

MCES 623 READING LITERATURE: THE NOVEL
This course is intended to deepen students’ competence in discussing novels through the application of several theoretical concepts. It will revise some of the basic ideas about the novel which have come to us from E.M. Forster and Percy Lubbock as plot versus story, point of view, characterization, etc., and review the functions of these aspects of the novel. It will also introduce Marxist ideas about literature taken from Georg Lukacs, and explore views of the relationship between the novel and social reality. Finally, the course will look at a selection of some more recent structuralist theories on the novel such as Greimas’ ideas on character and Role, or Genette’s concepts of Focalization and Anachrony, and examine the ways in which these ideas reveal the basic patterns which form the structure of the novel.

MCES 624 ENGLISH IN GHANA
This course will consider the implications of multilingualism on English in Ghana. Issues to be considered will include standardization of English in Ghana, examination of real usage and the problems of nativization. Attention will be given to the semantic, phonological, structural, pragmatic and lexical peculiarities of English in Ghana.

MCES 625 RESPONDING TO DRAMA
The aim of this course is to train students to respond to drama as a literary form whilst being aware of its status as performance. The first part will look at key concepts in dramatic theory using a keywords approach, e.g., drama, ritual, theatre, performance, spectacle, audience, play-text etc. A second part will address how one may respond to drama as literature whilst being sensitive to its visual medium dimension. Finally, it will introduce the terminology used in literary discussions of drama, e.g., plot, rising action, climax, falling action, conflict, protagonist, antagonist, theme as intellectual and emotional impact of a play, visual aspects crucial to a literary approach to drama, etc.

MCES 626 READING LITERATURE: POETRY
This course seeks to guide students to become more competent readers of poetry by teaching them to make insightful readings through the application of a major theory. Two essays from the New Criticism will provide the intellectual foundation for this study of poetry, namely, Cleanth Brooks’ “The Language of Paradox” and Wimsatt and Beardsley’s “The Intentional Fallacy”. The first essay, in particular, supplemented by knowledge of the appropriate technical terminology for describing elements of poetry, will provide the approach to our analysis of specific poems.

MCES 628 SPECIAL TOPICS IN LITERATURE
This course is designed to enable faculty and students explore special topics of interest in literary studies that are not covered in the available course offerings on this programme. Such areas will include special genres such as detective fiction or non-fiction prose; the literature of particular cultures, e.g., Hispanic literature; literary trends such as utopian literature or science fiction; or areas of professional interest such as literature and psychology or literary editing. In short, the course offers an important outlet for fresh or new areas of literary study.