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Uchaguzi wa mtu kuitumia lugha yake kama njia ya ukombozi huanza na uamuzi wa kifikra. Uamuzi huo wa kifikra ni hatua ya ukombozi. Ni uamuzi ambao hatimaye humpa mtumiaji wa lugha mamlaka ya kuchukua hatua zaidi za kujitegemea. Ni ukombozi wa kiisimu ambao, hatimaye humpatia mtumiaji wa lugha nguvu binafsi. Lugha ni mamlaka; na wakati mwingi mamlaka huzaa nguvu. Ingawa hapa ‘nguvu’ inamaanisha uwezo wa mtu binafsi; na ‘mamlaka’ ni dhana ya kisheria, lakini dhana hizi mbili zinahusiana katika uchambuzi huu wa kujenga uwezeshaji kupitia matumizi ya lugha. Katika kuchunguza mawazo ya Frantz Fanon kuhusu dhana ya ukombozi wa fikra kwa Waafrika kama inavyojitokeza kupitia Lugha ya Kiswahili, nadharia ya Bobby Wright ya fikraufu inatoa nafasi kuangalia namna utambulisho wa watu unavyoweza kubomolewa kupitia matumizi ya lugha isiyokuwa ya asili kwao.
Abstract
From the 1960s to the 1980s, the debate that focused on how to properly understand Kiswahili poetry can safely be regarded as part of what was later to be dubbed ‘experimental literature’. The intention driving this experimentation was to highlight quintessentially African aesthetic norms that contrast with the western frameworks of novels and plays. In this process of Africanisation, a form of literary work was discovered as constituting a hybrid genre, featuring elements shared by both oral and written literatures. The result appears to be a unique literary phenomenon similar to the proverbial inscriptions painted on public vehicles as seen every day throughout Africa’s urban centres. This kind of signage constitutes another tradition that features the merging of oral and written genres, and has become recognised as an established staple of African popular culture. This paper explores the extent to which the ongoing experimentation with converging oral and written literary genres in Kiswahili literature should be identified as a continuation of the historic struggle to illuminate those spaces in modernity which are uniquely African.