Developing an Original Theoretical Framework for African Oral-Written Literary Interface Studies

The interface between oral and written literary modes in African literary traditions has been addressed primarily through the lens of postcolonial theory, cultural studies, and linguistics, but no comprehensive theoretical framework has been developed that treats the oral-written interface as a specific literary-theoretical problem requiring its own conceptual apparatus. This study developed an original theoretical framework for African oral-written literary interface studies, drawing on evidence from Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and Tiv literary traditions. A multi-stage theory-building methodology was employed: systematic review of existing theoretical approaches from oral-formulaic theory (Parry and Lord), orality theory (Ong), African oral literary scholarship (Okpewho, Finnegan, Scheub), and postcolonial literary theory; qualitative analysis of 24 literary texts representing different positions on the oral-written interface spectrum; and expert validation through structured consultation with 22 scholars in oral literature, Comparative Literature, and African language studies. The systematic review identified a fundamental conceptual gap: existing frameworks treat orality and writing as opposites on a continuum rather than as interacting modes that generate genuinely hybrid literary forms with their own poetics. The original Oral-Written Interface Theory proposes five core constructs: oral residue (the structural presence of oral literary forms in written texts), scribal transformation (the changes that writing imposes on oral devices), performative surplus (what live oral performance adds that written text cannot encode), digital orality (new forms of oral-written interface produced by social media and digital storytelling), and cosmological encoding (how spiritual worldview determines the specific forms of oral-written interaction in each tradition).