Citation
(LAWRENCE A. BOADI)
LAWRENCE ADDAI BOADI: Professor of Linguistics.
You have served your alma mater, the University of Ghana, and your
nation with distinction as a scholar, researcher, teacher and
administrator in a career spanning 33 years.
Born at Akyem Oda on 2nd September 1935, you had your elementary
education at Oda Methodist School from 1941 to 1950. From there you
attended Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, from 1951 to 1956. From
1957 to 1960, you studied at the (then) University College of Ghana and
received a University of London Honours BA degree in English. Between
1960 and 1962, you received a postgraduate certificate and an MA
degree in Linguistics from UCLA. From 1964 to 1966, you earned a PhD
in Linguistics at the University of London.
After returning from UCLA in 1962, you were appointed as a lecturer in
what was then the Department of Phonetics in the University of Ghana—
the first past student from Ghana ever to be appointed into the
Department. You were able to persuade the Head of Department and
your colleagues to argue for the Department’s expansion from a service
unit which chiefly taught the pronunciation of English and French, to
embrace a teaching and research curriculum that included courses in
general linguistics and Ghanaian languages. With your colleagues you
persisted, in the face of bitter opposition from those who were against
1
the addition of Ghanaian languages and general linguistics to the
curriculum in the humanities. It is through your vision and perseverance
that today, since April 1964, the University presents among its strongest
establishments the Department of Linguistics and Ghanaian Languages,
one of the oldest in any African university.
As one of the more junior members of a group of linguists in the
University at that time, in 1967 you personally started the Linguistic
Circle of Accra, now called the Linguistic Association of Ghana.
As a lecturer, you played a key role in teaching and research when the
PhD programme and the two-year MA in Linguistics, Ghanaian Language
and Akan Literature were introduced. You taught the first MA
programme in Phonology, Morpho-Syntax and Semantics courses. You
successfully co-supervised the first PhD thesis in the Department. You
devised and taught the literature courses yourself and recruited the first
students enrolled in them. Ghanaian language literature is now a central
fixture in the curriculum of the Humanities in this University, and is
copied by other universities in Ghana.
In 1974, you were appointed Associate Professor and substantive Head
of the Department of Linguistics, the first Ghanaian to be appointed to
that position. You occupied yourself with building the Department,
especially the postgraduate section, many of whose courses you yourself
have taught.
2
In 1979 you were appointed Full Professor at the University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, and developed for them a postgraduate programme in
linguistics and African languages. You returned to our Department of
Linguistics in 1988. When you became Head of the Department again
four years later, you were instrumental in the creation of the Legon-
Trondheim Linguistics Project and the Akan Dictionary Project, with
funding from the Norwegian government. This brought into the
department a computer laboratory, a vehicle for research, library books
and journals, graduate training, and the dissemination of research
results through conferences and publications. Another important
extension of the project was the Buli Literacy Project which you
personally directed, conducting literacy classes for adults in the Buli-
speaking areas of the Upper-East Region and producing reading
materials for them.
With Professor Thomas Bearth, you collaborated with the University of
Zurich and our Department of Linguistics to revise and update J.G.
Christaller’s Twi Dictionary. The resulting Twi Dictionary was launched
in January 2007. That project has also published the Ga and Gurene
dictionaries, while yet a fourth dictionary in Ewe is in preparation.
Reaching outside the cloister of established, high profile universities, you
have been the writer and presenter of the popular English language
programme “Everyday English” on national radio for over forty years.
Even in retirement you were prevailed upon to head the newly
established Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of
Education, Winneba.
3
Lawrence Addai Boadi: In recognition of your immense contribution
to scholarship, the development of linguistics as a discipline in Ghana,
and for pioneering the academy’s focus upon Ghanaian languages and
literatures, the University of Ghana confers on you the degree of Doctor
of Letters, honoris causa.
4