This thesis studies the conceptualization of malaria in three cultural traditions: Hamar and Swahili, two indigenous East-African languages, and Western biomedicine. It will demonstrate that ideas...Show moreThis thesis studies the conceptualization of malaria in three cultural traditions: Hamar and Swahili, two indigenous East-African languages, and Western biomedicine. It will demonstrate that ideas on malaria vary significantly between these three cultures: in both Hamar and Swahili, malaria is included in a more general category of febrile illnesses, which becomes clear from the linguistic terms and constructions which are used to express ‘malaria’. In biomedicine, malaria is regarded as a potentially life-threatening disease which requires immediate treatment in hospital. If it progresses into severe or cerebral malaria, patients may show symptoms such as convulsions. This symptom is not related to malaria in many African cultures, but it is instead often categorized in a domain of spiritual illnesses and as such, requires different treatment, according to their traditional indigenous practices. An attempt will be made to clarify the Hamar, Swahili, and biomedical conceptualization of malaria from a linguistic point of view. This is done by investigating how malaria or febrile illness in general as well as related symptoms are expressed in Hamar and Swahili. For the biomedical perspective, it will not only be examined how malaria is conceptualized, but also the way in which traditional indigenous medical knowledge is considered. Moreover, an important aim of this thesis is to make a proposal of how to bring the different views together in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation, in order to contribute to the global malaria struggle.Show less
This MA thesis presents the results of a study which focused on ascertaining whether language influenced the way of thinking of English and Dutch respondents with respect to locating objects in...Show moreThis MA thesis presents the results of a study which focused on ascertaining whether language influenced the way of thinking of English and Dutch respondents with respect to locating objects in space. Speakers of Dutch make use of three different cardinal posture verbs, staan, liggen and zitten (to stand, to lie and to sit, respectively) when locating inanimate objects in space, whereas speakers of English prefer to use the neutral verb to be. By means of a classification experiment and a memorization experiment it became clear that speakers of Dutch do not have a different way of thinking (e.g. classifying and remembering) about the objects due to their more diverse lexical field. This can be due to the fact that English and Dutch do not differ sufficiently in their use of posture verbs, as English does have the verbs to stand, to lie and to sit and does use these verbs for locating objects. It can also be because the use of the three different posture verbs has conventionalized in Dutch, causing the respondents to refrain from conceptualizing the position of the object. Thus, the language does not inspire any thoughts, which means that it cannot influence the speakers’ way of thinking.Show less
