The South African perspective of the impact of language on the delivery of healthcare services

Abstract

Despite its essentiality, spoken languages continue to pose severe challenges within the South African health facilities, which can be attributed to the country’s adaptation of 11 official languages. Some of the challenges can be attributed to the fact that the limits to an individual’s language are commensurate to the limits to an individual’s real-life world and meaning, which are often influenced by semantics. The objectives of this study was to establish the factors that influence spoken languages, and how the semantics in the languages can be translated from local dialects to English by using mobile systems. The interpretivist approach was applied in the study. Data was collected through semi-structured interview technique. The actor-network theory was used as a lens to guide the analysis of the data. From the analysis, the following factors—heterogeneity of networks, bilingualism, healthcare facility, and information engine—were found to influence language semantics in South African healthcare. Based on the findings, a framework was developed that can be used to understand how language semantics influence healthcare services in the country. Thus, the study can be of interest to healthcare practitioners, language specialists for translation purposes, and IT experts for support and enablement.