World Englishes, 2016 0883-2919 doi: 10.1111/weng.12210 Contrastive focus in Ghanaian English discourse CHARLOTTE FOFO LOMOTEY ∗ ABSTRACT: Research on Englishes outside the Inner Circle points to the fact that it is not always that speakers select prominence to communicate their intended meaning. This study examined the selection of prominence in marking contrastive focus in Ghanaian English and how this might affect information packaging. Data obtained from 200 university students representing the major languages of Ghana were analyzed both auditorily and acoustically. Results suggest that similar to other Outer Circle varieties of English, Ghanaians do not always assign prominence to the ‘target’ word and this also affects how they mark contrastive focus. INTRODUCTION This study examines the selection of prominence in marking contrastive focus in Ghanaian English. Specifically, it is concerned with how the selection might affect information packaging in this variety of English. Successful communication rests on the premise that both speakers and hearers are able to understand one another. This understanding stems from the fact that meaning choices are explicitly clear to hearers. Prominence selection is one way by which speakers draw the attention of hearers to whatever meaning they wish to communicate. Brazil (1997) observes that speakers make some syllables more prominent than others based on their communicative intentions. Thus, a prominent syllable stands out in an utterance because it is mostly highlighted. To this end, Terken & Hermes (2000) define prominence as a property of a linguistic entity relative to an entity or a set of entities in its environment. Brazil (1978: 55) also argues that, ‘very informally, we might say that the presence of a prominent syllable is a signal that the word must be attended to; the absence of prominence indicates that it is informationally superfluous.’ Lastly, Dalton & Seidlhofer (1994: 54–55) note that: Prominence [ . . . ] is to a large extent a matter of speaker choice: it is an indication as to what the speaker wants to make salient in the conversational discourse, a reflection of how he or she views the state of conversational play. In all, prominence selection is at the discretion of the speaker, such that they think about which word or words in an utterance need to be emphasized in order to convey their communicative intention. The need to highlight any word leads them to stress any number of syllables, including those that would ordinarily not be made prominent when spoken in isolation. Usually, this is done to show the word in contrast to a previously mentioned notion. An example is the stressed syllable in smallER, which may be highlighted to show that it contrasts with biggER, which might have been said already in the discourse. Although ∗ University of Education, Winneba, P. O. Box 25, Winneba, Ghana. E-mail: cefolatey@yahoo.com C  2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd