New Media and Mass Communication www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.21, 2014 64 Language, Beliefs and the HIV-AIDS Campaign In Africa GRADE IMOH, Ph.D. * Department of Mass Communication Delta state University, P.M.B. 1 Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria. GSM: +2347063454591 *E-mail: gradeimoh@gmail.com Abstract African governments accepted the reality of HIV-AIDS as a matter of convenience and not out of conviction. As a result, many of them failed to achieve the targets they set for HIV-AIDS prevention. This paper attributes this failure to the language and concepts used in introducing HIV-AIDS as a disease and in promoting safer sex practices such as abstinence, being faithful and condom use (ABC) as the core measures for the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV infection. The paper observes that the concepts of HIV-AIDS, abstinence, mutual fidelity (monogamy) and condom use originated from the west and did not fit into the cosmology, the consensus of meaning and normative behaviour within the African sociocultural and economic environment and therefore could not engender the desired sexual behavioural changes at the group and individual levels. The paper notes however, that there are linguistic elements in some African countries studied that negatively or positively reinforce the spread of HIV-AIDS and promote large family size. By identifying the linguistic elements in the culture that positively reinforce HIV-AIDS prevention messages and behaviours, we may succeed in assimilating the people’s traditional values in line with the demands of modernity. There is therefore need for semantic restructuring of HIV-AIDS campaign messages so that words, slogans and messages originate from the community and reflect the linguistic and sociocultural realities of the people. By using local language, local idioms, local media and local social networks, we may succeed in reducing the semantic noise in HIV-AIDS messages. Keywords: Language and Beliefs, Language use and HIV/AIDS Transmission in Africa. 1.0 Introduction The control of the spread of HIV infection is one of the major challenges facing African countries at the beginning of the 21 st century. Since HIV-AIDS was first reported in the 1980s, many African governments have grappled with the multiple challenges of high rates of HIV-prevalence among the general public, the resultant high level of vertical transmission, the preponderance of orphans and destitutes and the gigantic task of caring for the infected including those with AIDS related complications (Imoh, 2002). The prevention and control of HIV-AIDS infection is one of the Eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals and targets which seem realizable in the developed world may be unattainable in Africa. Many factors account for this. First, the initial controversy surrounding the existence and origin of the AIDS virus led to denial and complacency among many African governments. Secondly, many African leaders accepted the concept of HIV-AIDS as a matter of convenience and not out of conviction ( Imoh, 2009). These factors resulted in low levels of political commitment to programme intervention at all levels and sectors of society. The HIV-AIDS campaign has created a lot of awareness about HIV-AIDS prevention, but there has not been a corresponding change in behaviours that put people at risk of HIV infection at the individual level. (Imoh, 2009). This is happening because the concepts being promoted are alien and fail to have any near equivalents in the African culture. For this reason, any communication strategy to be effective in promoting innovations in developing societies should arise from its cultural contexts (Georgoudi and Rosnov 1985). Even science with its specific methods is culturally specific. Communicating scientific concepts in a tradition bound developing society should in principle be culturally embedded and arise from the people. The principles of plurality and multiplicity recognize the need to acknowledge the differing social, economic, cultural and linguistic characteristics of the target population, when conceptualizing and disseminating innovation messages. By using local language, local media and cultural entertainment channels, development communicators have been quite effective in promoting innovations among rural dwellers in India and Egypt (Hedebro 1982). 2.0 Statement of the Problem The process of communicating change in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and practices relating to HIV-AIDS prevention and control in Africa has been problematic. This is because programme planners failed to acknowledge the resistances inevitably aroused by the language, concepts and messages used in promoting abstinence, mutual fidelity and condom use as the primary means of HIV-AIDS prevention among sexually active members of the African population. The language, concepts, technologies and behaviours being