Socio-political Discourse and Communication in Sidaama Folk Media

Abstract

The aim of this study was to highlight aspects of the socio-political discourse and communication in Sidaama through the analysis of three selected Sidaama folk media. Folk media include songs, proverbs, folktales, praises, curses, greetings and so on, but this contribution is limited to examples of hano “dance of married adults”, faaro “song (with a wide variety of topics)”, and hayye “lullaby”, a representative but by no means complete selection. Dances are accompanied by poetic discourse that may be used for political and social ends. The selected material was subject to linguistic and contextual analysis, demonstrating the treatment of a variety of political and social topics in the folk media.