Accountability: Towards a Definition of Hybridity for Scholars of Transnational Rhetorics

Abstract

As rhetoricians turn increasingly to study non-Western rhetorics, they rely on postcolonial scholarship but sometimes encounter difficulties adapting its key methods—in particular, hybridity. While it is quite clearly a necessary concept for transnational rhetorics, nevertheless its literariness, ubiquity, and vagueness about agency limit its utility. In this paper I draw from relevant work in genre studies, sociolinguistics, and social constructivism to propose a new version of hybridity that can take account of hybrid rhetorical forms, account for their agency with audiences, and be accountable to stakeholders in transnational settings where rhetoricians work. I finish by applying this new method to a protestant sermon preached in Mali and noting both the successes and challenges of engaging an accountable notion of hybridity.