Dean, Faculty of Arts

JOSEPH BENJAMIN ARCHIBALD AFFUL (PhD) 
(Associate Professor of English) 

Prof. Joseph Benjamin Archibald Afful is an Associate Professor in Applied English Linguistics at the University of Cape Coast, where he has been teaching for nearly twenty years. He is the Dean of Faculty of Arts. His areas of expertise include Onomastics, Genre Studies, Language of Evaluation in Academic Writing, and the Interface between Academic Research Writing and Postgraduate Pedagogy. He has taught courses in Research Methods, Sociolinguistics, Genre Studies, and General Linguistics. Prof. Afful holds a PhD in Applied English Linguistics from the National University of Singapore (Singapore) in 2006. He had his pre-doctoral training at the University of Cape Coast, where he obtained his MPhil (English Language) in 1999 and BA (Hons) in English and Dip. Ed in 1988. He is a Post-Doctoral Mellon Fellow from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Before his current position as Dean, he was the Vice-Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Cape Coast. He had also been Coordinator of Communication Skills Unit (now Department of Communication Studies), Head of Department of Communication Studies, and Head of Department of English. 

Prof. Afful has worked extensively in onomastics (especially, naming practices, address terms and reference terms) in various domains of use and academic writing, producing several research articles in locally and internationally refereed journals and supervising MPhil and PhD students in these areas. He has served as a dissertation and thesis assessor at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Besides, he serves on editorial boards of locally and internationally refereed journals. Currently, he is working on two DRIC-sponsored projects and book projects singlehandedly and jointly with colleagues in the Department of English. By virtue of his position in the University of Cape Coast, he has served either as Chair or member on several statutory and adhoc boards and committees at departmental, faculty, and university levels and represented the university on boards and committees outside the University. He has also served as a member and team leader of panels under the auspices of the National Accreditation Board for some years. He is married, with three children. 

Scroll to Top