Participant relationship and code choice in communication: A Case of the University Community of Cape Coast, Ghana

Abstract

The current study focused on the effect of interpersonal relationship on code choice in discourse situations in the university community of Cape Coast. The study also looked at the nature of the linguistic situation and the kinds of code choice in the university. It revealed that the university community of Cape Coast is multilingual and the kinds of code choice are: unmixed codes, code mixing and code switching. The research target population comprised: students, lecturers and the non-academic staff. The present study employed a sociolinguistic approach and it was conducted within the framework of ethnography of speaking and sociology of language. The study also adopted the ethnographic research design and the instruments used for data collection were: observation, questionnaire and interview. The findings of the research revealed that the interpersonal relationship between participants in discourse defined by age, sex, rank, level of education and ethnicity affected code choice