Ameka, Felix K. (1999). ‘Partir, c’est mourir un peu’: Universal and culture specific features of leave taking. RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 9/10, 257-283. PDF (open access)
This paper aims to show the near-universal features of leave-taking in terms of the structure of the events that occur in terminating social encounters and in terms of the form of the language and the semantic fields to which the expressions belong. It will be shown that there are gradations in the importance or salience accorded to leave-taking in different cultures. This ranges from cultures in which there is apparently no recognisable or distinct closing phase of social encounters to less elaborate and more elaborate patterned routines of leave-taking. A second purpose is to describe the structure of the closing phase of encounters with specific reference to the southern Ghana cultural area. Two salient routine strategies that occur in closings in this area will be highlighted. Furthermore, the paper will describe the meanings encoded in some of the linguistic routines employed for leave-taking at night in Ewe, a specific ethnolinguistic group in this area.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
