This Presidential Lecture explores the ways in which African orality provides the means for a sentimental education in an era of crisis. Quayson notes how the essentially polysemic character of the genres of orality have influenced the ways he understands both literature and the African city, two areas of keen interest. After tracing the texture of Accra’s trotro (passenger vehicle) slogans and the continuity of sentimental education from orality to social media, Quayson concludes by calling for a new interdisciplinary paradigm that would explore the polysemy of African orality alongside the hypertextual algorithms behind today’s social media and the internet.

本次总统演讲探讨了非洲口语如何为危机时代的情感教育提供手段。Quayson 注意到口语体裁本质上的多义性特征如何影响了他对文学和非洲城市的理解方式，这两个领域是他非常感兴趣的领域。在追溯了阿克拉 trotro（乘用车）口号的结构以及情感教育从口语到社交媒体的连续性之后，Quayson 最后呼吁建立一种新的跨学科范式，该范式将探索非洲口语的多义性以及当今社交媒体背后的超文本算法和互联网。