Conflict Resolution in Africa Language, Law, and Politeness in Ghanaian (Akan) Jurisprudence

Conflict Resolution in Africa: Language, Law, and Politeness in Ghanaian (Akan) Jurisprudence provides significant insights into culturally congruent African communicational mores for resolving conflicts. The author discusses the African concepts of power, politeness, and persuasion, how they index and are indexed by language, their pervasiveness in African jurisprudence, and the consequences of not paying attention to them in the judicial discourse ecology. Important speech acts discussed are: concurrence, dissension, apology, pleading, request, cross-examination, persuasion, questioning, and challenging. The linguistic, discursive, and metacommunicative tools for managing the speech acts are elucidated, as are the structure and management of the courtrooms' turn taking, speech dominance, interruptive talk, and pre-sequences. The author stresses that understanding how a people resolve their conflicts is important to achieving world peace and social harmony. 

"A brilliant account of a solid investigation into conflict resolution in Africa by a great intellectual. Professor Obeng provides a detailed account of the nexus between language, power, politeness and law in the rendering of justice, and in ensuring cohesion in an African society. He lucidly demonstrates his deep understanding of linguistics, traditional law and lore, and his respect for African social, political, and judicial institutions. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in peace, unity, and justice for the universal human experience."—Joe Amoako, Chair of the Department of English and Foreign Languages, Delaware State University