Disability in Swahili Lexicon: Locating Signs of Disablement in Kenya

• In Event: Complexities of Educational Experiences of Africans at Home and in the Diaspora

Abstract

This paper seeks to uncover signs of disability in Swahili language. Drawing upon examples of Swahili lexicon as signifiers in a Saussurean sense, this paper explores how disability as the signified concept is produced, maintained and iterated by multiple signifiers in the Swahili language. Applying Saussure's (1983) argument that a sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier with a particular signified, this paper will explore ways in which the concept of disability in Swahili is produced by multiple signifiers that comprise different signs of disability in Swahili. The paper will illuminate ways by which each unique pairing constituting a different sign contributes to the social construction of disability in everyday life in Kenya.

Author

• Kagendo Mutua, The University of Alabama