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Top1. Introduction
The limits to an individual’s language are commensurate to the limits to an individual’s real-life world. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is, to a large extent, unconsciously built upon the language habits of a group: different communities of humans, speaking different languages, think differently to the extent that their languages differ from one another (Gleitman & Papafragou, 2012). The situation as described above happens in every part of South Africa. Thus, it is problematised for a possible solution through this study. ICT’ artefacts has the potential to make major impacts in improving the health and well-being of poor and marginalised populations, combating poverty, and encouraging a sustainable development and governance (Clarke, Wylie & Zomer, 2013).
The use of ICT artefacts for healthcare are often to facilitate communication, processing and transmission of information electronically to improve health (DiCarlo et al., 2015). This is primarily because ICT can make significant improvements in healthcare delivery, reducing medical errors, improving clinical care through adherence to evidence-based guidelines, and preventing duplication and inefficiency in the delivery of clinical care (Peña-López, 2010). WHO (2000) explained that experts have agreed that it will take an unprecedented transformation to reverse the tide of failing healthcare systems, particularly in light of shrinking resources that must now be used more efficiently. Fortunately, support is increasingly available through a set of breakthrough tools known as e-Health (electronic health) and M-health (mobile health), commonly understood to be the innovative application of emerging information and communications technology (ICT) in health systems. This includes the use of software and mobile systems by healthcare practitioners, working from any location to access, track and trace patients’ records in order to provide services to them (Ventola, 2014).
However, this does not address the challenges of language and its semantics of translation, which is vital in providing improved services to communities in South Africa. Hatim and Munday (2004:6) define translation as “the process of transferring a written text from source language (SL) to target language (TL)”. The challenges arise, not only because of the content of word-for-word, literal translations, but also the linguistic form of the language, such as tone, syntax, manner of questions posed, and the concept of the consent; similarly, contexts of use affect meaning (Hanrahan et al., 2015). For example, countless community members are hesitant to be enrolled for healthcare services primarily because they feared that a language they do not understand will be used as medium of communication. Interestingly, the same people are frequent users of the mobile phones. Therefore, this identifies a gap that needs to be addressed to be certain that a better healthcare service is rendered to everyone, irrespective of where they stay and which language they speak.
Translation is described as a way of collaborating different entities and convincing them to have interest in connecting and relating to produce results (Van Der Duim, 2007). The translation occurs between humans and objects once the actor/network has been formed (Comber, Fisher & Wadsworth, 2003). In ANT, the translation is triggered by the four moments of translation. Callon’s (1986) four moments of translation include the following, problematisation, interessement, enrolment and mobilisation.
The objectives of this study were: (1) to identify the factors which influence semantics in South African languages; and (2) how the semantics impact the services that healthcare practitioners provide to the community. The objectives are aimed at understanding the challenges towards improving the healthcare services in South Africa. This article is divided into six main sections, the first and second section provide introduction to the study and presents the review of literature, respectively. The third section discusses the research methodology, which is followed by the analysis of data. The fifth section presents the interpretation of the findings, which discusses an understanding of language translation in the South Africa healthcare environment.