Greetings as a linguistic routine among the people of Larteh in Ghana

Abstract

This study examines greeting as a linguistic routine among the people of Larteh in south-eastern Ghana. It aims to identify the linguistic forms of greetings among the people of Larteh, analyse their sociopragmatic functions and explain how social variables shape their use. Guided by speech act theory, the study draws on ethnographic methods, including observation, audio recordings of social events and unstructured key informant interviews. The findings show that greeting is an important sociolinguistic ritual for establishing and preserving interpersonal relationships and social cohesion. Greetings occur in both time-bound and time-free forms and serve expressive, phatic and ceremonial functions in contexts such as daily encounters, marriages, funerals and festive events like New Year celebrations. The study concludes that greetings among the people of Larteh are deeply embedded in cultural norms, functioning as markers of respect, social hierarchy and communal identity, while sharing features with greetings in other Kwa languages. By documenting these practices, the study contributes to ethnopragmatics and supports the preservation of cultural knowledge in the face of modernisation and language shift.