Black American dirty dozens and the tradition of verbal insult in Ghana constitute parallel processes and serve identical functions. Differences exist in the degree of their institutionalization in relation to the local culture. While the American dozens limits itself largely to the projection of a psychological situation of malaise in adolescent male behaviour, verbal insult in the Ghanaian context is deeply rooted in the culture as a creative tool for defining moral priorities and sense of direction. In the pursuit of these apparently different objectives, and in their relationship to the development of group consciousness, both traditions reveal a firm awareness of ritual, psychological, linguistic and literary processes whose parallel motivations are so strikingly similar that one is tempted to conclude a common origin. Bibliogr., ref. (Paper first presented at the Fifth International Conference on African Literature and the English Language, 30 April – 5 May 1985, University of Calabar, Nigeria.)
