Modern African political style: strategies and genre in Swahili political discourse

<p>This paper analyses aspects of contemporary Swahili political style against the background of internationalizing African political systems. It is argued that Swahili rhetoric displays an ambiguous form of coherence, anchored in both traditional (or local) Tanzanian notions of political and social organization and more internationally acknowledged 'modern' forms of political thinking. This hybrid coherence is approached by means of a model of stylistic research on non-Western styles, focused upon the notions of strategy and genre. Methodological arguments pro this model, especially with regard to the intercultural status of linguistic knowledge derived from such an analysis, are discussed.</p>