Communication Skills in English: Suggested Reading for the Media, Schools and Colleges

By A. K. S. Deima-Nyaho

This book is an attempt to satisfy the needs of all those who use English especially journalists by definition and also all persons who work in the media as producers, writers, announcers, programme officers and readers. It is aimed at benefiting all persons connected with the media by employment other than the technical personnel. Specifically, the book is therefore primarily aimed at helping such persons as reporters, the rewrite men or sub-editors, feature writers or editors. Even news casters or readers may also find it useful. By the media therefore is meant the newspaper, magazines, radio and television. It may also be useful to film producers and actors who use English as their tool except if there is the need or deliberate cause to deviate from the normal usage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Jan 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781482878783

A. K. S. Deima-Nyaho

Mr. A. K. S. Deima-Nyaho is a retired district magistrate of Ghana. He was born at Peki Dzake, in the Volta region of Ghana, and acquired his general certificate of education (GCE) O and A levels by correspondence between 1964 and 1966 prior to becoming a lawyer. He has practiced as a solicitor and advocate of the Supreme Court of Ghana and of Nigeria, having been enrolled on the bars of both countries in 1974 and 1984 respectively. He has extensive experience in legal practice and in the teaching and practice of journalism. He moved to Nigeria in 1982, during the political disturbances at the time, from where he continued with his work as a solicitor and journalist. Mr. Deima-Nyaho has written extensively on social, legal, and political issues in both Ghana and Nigeria during his time as a lawyer and journalism teacher. He also has a number of commentary papers on major political, sociocultural, legal, and constitutional matters to his name.

Book preview

COMMUNICATION

SKILLS IN

English

SUGGESTED READING FOR THE MEDIA,

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

Second Edition

A. K. S. DEIMA-NYAHO

Legal Practitioner & Journalist

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Copyright © 2016 by A. K. S. DEIMA-NYAHO.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/africa

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Tenses and their Sequence

Chapter 2 Words – Vocabulary

Chapter 3 Vocabulary Building

Chapter 4 Parts of Speech

Chapter 5 Punctuation

Chapter 6 Syntax and Sentence Forms

Chapter 7 Figures of Speech

Chapter 8 Appreciation, Comprehension and Condensation

Chapter 9 Essay and Composition I

Chapter 10 Essay and Composition II

Chapter 11 Official Correspondence

Chapter 12 Journalism

TO:

Dr. T. K. Setse

Mr.

Cromwell Kwami Tutu

All who wish me well.

Preface

This book is an attempt to satisfy the needs of all those who use English especially journalists by definition and also all persons who work in the media as producers, writers, announcers, programme officers and readers. It is aimed at benefiting all persons connected with the media by employment other than the technical personnel. Specifically, the book is therefore primarily aimed at helping such persons as reporters, the rewrite men or sub-editors, feature writers or editors. Even news casters or readers may also find it useful. By the media therefore is meant the newspaper, magazines, radio and television. It may also be useful to film producers and actors who use English as their tool except if there is the need or deliberate cause to deviate from the normal usage.

It is therefore assumed that those to whom certain parts of the book may be useful or to whom those parts may appeal must have already attained the required standard of proficiency in the English Language as their working language. That is to say, they have already passed their English Language paper of General Certificate of Education or obtained credit passes in the school certificate in English Language paper. It may also be useful to those who desire to improve their technique of expression in English. The book may also improve the ability of its readers or students to understand what others have had necessarily to express in fairly high or sophisticated and technical language and which they are bound by their normal functions in employment or business to grapple with and get their meaning. Therefore, the general reader too has his interests catered for.

I have been connected with the teaching of the English Language in the years 1972 – 1989 in institutions for training journalist in Ghana and Nigeria and I conceived the idea that the English Language lessons which student journalists needed would be essentially what would help them to get their patterns and usage standardized so that they would be not only firm and precise but also clear in their expressions and to develop their ability to be concise in their sentence constructions. This work seeks to do just that. It was envisaged that some of the people who may use this book would learn some new things while others would polish up their techniques already learned elsewhere. In the end, all would universally become more confident while writing or speaking the English Language, hence the emphasis on precision. If it is found that much emphasis has been placed on grammar and its functions, it is because it is found necessary for the foregoing purposes. However no discussions in formal grammar have been embarked upon in these lessons for the sake of doing so except to aid precision. Punctuation is discussed not as an exercise in itself but towards avoiding vagueness and ambiguity. However, it should be conceded that a difficult sentence should be analysed for its meaning. I have observed in the course of teaching English Language in Journalism schools that because of the use of the Pidgin English as a means of communication especially in Nigeria, many people’s usage has been adversely affected. Even this trend has been observable with notable personalities highly placed in society or government who sometimes express themselves publicly in rather unidiomatic and faulty English. There has been, it seems to me, a tendency to pay more attention to English literature than the language so that less pain is now taken to conform to normally accepted usage. This book purports to satisfy the needs of secretaries and personal assistants and all those who have to prepare speeches for public figures to read at functions. The book may help also those who have to use English Language in recording minutes of meetings and decisions and also in preparing agenda for meetings whether public or private. The assumption is that they all must aim at precision and avoidance of vagueness and ambiguity with the result that whatever message is purported to be conveyed can reasonably be understood as conveyed with little or no tedium and toil. It is considered rather too lame an excuse often repeated that the English Language is not our own. For though this is so, there are limited areas where we as foreigners shall find difficulty in the sense that we do not belong to the Anglo Saxon race. With the possible exception of occasional faulty pronunciation of certain words, our difficulty cannot be in every aspect of the language. And certainly there cannot be any difficulty in observing the normal grammatical rules and simple logic in expressing one’s thoughts and ideas whether or not one belongs to the Anglo Saxon race.

I have therefore not had any public examination in view whose syllabus is intended to be covered. All I want to achieve is to help the media personnel as professional colleagues and other persons who perform secretarial duties whether or not they are colleagues or friends to function more acceptably when preparing documents which either go to the public or form permanent record of proceedings using the English Language. The book may therefore appeal to both students and non-students alike.

In preparing this book, I have always kept in mind what those whose original language is English would normally consider as right, clear and precise. I have also aspired to win the approval of those who have studied English Language and have become experts in it. If I trespass into their domain, I hereby ask them to treat me as a licensee.

Most of the topics discussed were lessons conducted at English Language classes at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Accra, 1972 – 1974 and the Daily Times Journalism Institute, formerly (Times Newspaper Training Centre) Lagos.

I am grateful to Mr. Ayo Ajibade Registrar of the Times Journalism Institute and Miss Eudorah Okorie of Champion Newspapers Limited for their industry in typing and performing other secretarial duties in connection with the manuscript. Ms. Gladys Brahene a Stenographer Secretary, Ministry of Works and Housing, Ghana was responsible for final secretarial duties in preparing the manuscript for submission to publishers.

I have to apologise to my infant children at the time and express my appreciation for their endurance of all the hardships they had to suffer when I embarked upon these writing exercises.

A. K. S. Deima-Nyaho

LL. B (Hons) BL. Ghana, BL, Nigeria (Rtd. District Magistrate)

Solicitor & Advocate of the Supreme Courts of Ghana and of Nigeria.

Suggested further reading:

Chapter One

TENSES AND THEIR SEQUENCE

The normal average English man or woman will expect recognition to be accorded to his or her logic in any discussion, conversation and in communication to another person concerning how his or her thought processes have been working. This trend largely accounts for the tense patterns in the English language. For the English language is spoken and written in tenses. There are three main tenses namely: Past Tense, Present Tense and Future Tense. Every expression in English uses one of these three tenses in one of four main senses: perfect or imperfect sense, and momentary or continuous sense. So that when we put them together, we can say that there are twelve tenses in English, each of which is used to express ideas and occurrences specific in context and appropriate by occasion. It is one of the features of the language which gives it the character of precision and conciseness which distinguishes it from most of our African languages which cannot equally claim to be precise and concise.

Next is to observe the form of the person or the thing a statement or a thought is about. This is more conveniently referred to as the number. For the verb form will depend on whether the number is singular or plural or collective. Another factor which may control the form of the verb is whether the thing about which something is said or statement is made is countable or uncountable. The twelve tenses may take the form of the following diagram:-

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In the above diagram, the tenses are referred to according to the time involved and the sense in which they are used. Example: The present imperfect momentary tense is I write for a living. It is in the first person singular number. It will become We write in the first person plural number. You write in the second person. In this sense it is the context which will show whether the one is speaking in the singular number or plural number. Similarly, the third person plural number they write does not see a change in the form of the verb. But the third person singular number he writes or she writes or it writes indicates that the verb write has a change in its form by adding the letter ‘s’ at the end. This is how the English man or woman knows his or her language to be and it is not for us to rationalize it. We just have to note that that is how the language is spoken and written. If the letter’s’ is not written or heard in speech, it is bad English. In the same vein if there is the letter‘s’ added to the verb in other tenses when it should not be added it is bad English. Therefore one has to be particular about the tense forms. Now the tense is momentary because its sense suggests that there is no continuing progress but it lasts at the present time. It is imperfect since it is not an act which has been concluded. It happens. It has not happened.

The present imperfect continuous tense notices certain changes in the auxiliaries which help the sense of the verb write to be completed in its participial form depending on the person and also the number. Example: I am writing. You are writing. He or she is writing. They are writing.

The present perfect momentary tense again notices a change in the verb and also in the form of the perfecting word in the third person singular number. Example: I have written my notes. You have not written that letter yet? They have written a reminder. He or she has written to accept the offer of the appointment.

The present perfect continuous tense introduces the word been but otherwise retains the participial form of the verb. Examples: I have been writing. You have been writing. He or she has been writing. They have been writing.

This tense is described as the present tense because it states things about what occurs at the present time whether momentarily or in a continuing sense.

The past imperfect momentary tense does not indicate any changes at all in the verb form no matter the person or number involved.

The past imperfect continuous tense shows changes in the form of the auxiliary verb according to the person and the number.

The past perfect momentary tense is indicated by