The paper presents how students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal
(Pietermaritzburg campus) (UKZN-PMB) express their state of being depressed. Through theoretical frameworks such as
the cognitive theory of depression, narrative theory and social constructivism
theory, this interpretive/phenomenological qualitative anthropological study
purposively sampled twenty-five UKZN-PMB students to record how they express
their state of being depressed. This study revealed that students from
different socio-economic backgrounds experience depression, but they use a
concealed dialect (slang language) to express their state of being depressed.
This study shows social constructs as an expression that university students
use as their language to express depression. Depression expressions that were
revealed and explored in this study revealed that depression cannot only be
understood from the lens of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSMV), but also through emic/explanatory models that convey the
impact or the extent of depression on university students. This paper
recommends that universities should pay attention to culturally
specific/uncommon foreign languages in order to implement programmes that respond to depression.
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