Contact

Telephone: +43-1-4277-43219

E-Mail: alexander.angsongna@univie.ac.at

Office hours: by appointment 

 Profile

My name is Alexander Angsongna /alɪɡzandə ǎŋsʊ̀ŋná/ (Alex for short). I am from Sombo in the Nadowli-Kaleo district of Upper West Region, Ghana. I have been a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of African Studies (Linguistics & Literatures) since September 2023.

I hold a bachelor’s in Linguistics and English from the University of Ghana, a masters in Linguistics from the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada and PhD in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. My master’s research explored complex sentences such serial verbs, multi-aspects and coordination in Dagaare (Mabia language; Ghana/Burkina Faso) and my PhD dissertation examined some aspects of morphology and phonology in Dagaare (e.g., vowel harmony, tone, inflectional morphology).

My current teaching focuses on two main areas: (i) language diversity involving phonological patterns, morphological and grammatical structures, language in context, study of meaning and many more (ii) Language and politics in Africa which encompasses the language of politics (e.g., political discourse, language of political campaigns, language of persuasion, language of insults etc.) and the politics of language (e.g., language policy, language development, promotion etc.).

My current research is a continuation of my PhD research but goes beyond Dagaare – investigating phonological morphological and syntactic patterns in Mabia languages (spoken majorly in northern Ghana). My research also extends to language documentation through folktales and proverbs, language and politics with much focus on Africa. For more information about my research, please visit https://sites.google.com/view/alexanderangsongna/home

When I am away from linguistics, I like to watch or play football!