Terminology Debate

"Language... .has as much to do with the philosophical and political conditioning of society as geography or climate...people do not realize the extent to which their attitudes have been conditioned since early childhood by the power of words to enable or condemn, augment or detract, glorify or demean. Negative Language inflicts the subconscious of most people from the time they first learn to speak. Prejudice is not merely imparted or superimposed. It is metabolized in the bloodstream of society. What is needed is not so much a change in Language as an awareness of the power of words to condition attitudes." (Saturday Review 1967) When one thinks about the above quote, it doesn't sink in, so we take a closer examination of our surroundings. From early infancy, ours is conditioned by our physical surroundings and the Language we take in. For example, a child in India will learn several dialects of the Indian subcontinent. U.S. English will be utterly foreign to them. However, someone in America will quickly pick up on the U.S. idiom of chilling if they have grown up in American culture. It is a great wonder how powerful a language can be. It can be neutral, it can be positive, but it has its most significant impact when negative or assuming.  This blog came about as a result of a conversation with a friend of mine named Laura Carson. She recently asked me what the acceptable term is for someone with a disability? It got me thinking, what exactly does the term "disability" even mean? Words only have context if we give them context. I use the word "gimp" to refer to myself quite often. For me, it has no negative context because I am using it humorously. However, other individuals who are in my situation distinctly hate the word. Why is this? The answer is simple. I was not conditioned to have any negative connotation of the word "gimp." The first time I encountered the story was positive. Indeed, in a movie entitled King Gimp about an art student named Dan, who was extraordinarily disabled but used his disability to increase his quality of life greatly. I recommend that everyone, whether disabled or not, at some point in their lives to check out this excellent documentary. It will give you a different perspective on disability and life in general.  However, back to my point. Because I positively encountered the word, there's no negative connotation behind it. A language is a unique tool that humans possess. We can establish our meaning and context for a variety of words. Something insulting in one Language may be a term of endearment in another. Not to get too controversial, but even the meaning of the n-word is all based on context. Nowadays, there is no argument that the n-word has a negative connotation, but that is due to its sorted past and the way it was used. The word's original meaning meant "ignorant," but it no longer has that definition because people have given it such a negative context and definition. The same can be said for terms relating to disability. One of the most common terms to describe disability is true "disability." Isn't this a negative term, though? Disability implies that someone cannot do something, which is partly true for anyone who cannot walk or cannot speak normally. However, it is also not true because just because there is one way to do something doesn't mean there aren't other ways around it.

I have never been one to be politically correct at all. Like I said above, I make fun of myself all the time, but I do understand the need in an appropriate professional setting to be non-condescending. Therefore, I make this argument. The term "disability" should no longer be used. One might ask...what do I suggest? What should be used to replace it? In my education classes, a term that is often used is exceptionality. I think this is a neutral term—neither positive nor negative, which allows the person with the exceptionality to determine the word's context. The person sitting next to me, helping me write this, is exceptional in some regions of her life just as I am exceptional in certain areas in mine. Neutral Language, while not changing one's condition, maybe better than society immediately labeling a person. Because as much as I would like to hope that society's labels don't impact people, I would not be honest if I said this was the case. On the deepest level, the Language that we hear every day affects us. To make this point even clearer, let me cite another example that my friend mentioned in the same conversation. 

My friend described the concept of how their race labels everybody. When we are young, we do not know the difference between a Filipino American and a Japanese American. It is only through social interactions that we learn the difference, and Language is a formal creator of difference in the world. In closing, I argue that you can call me "crippled,” "disabled,” "exceptional," or whatever you like depending on the emphasis behind the word. I don't care about the actual word, but what the meaning behind the word is. 

I know many of you haven't been commenting, and I appreciate your readership, but I would also like to see where you stand on this one. How do you think Language affects society and the creation of difference? Am I on to something or totally off base? Let me know what you think in the comments below. 


Footnotes: 
1.) http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=813&page=all
2.) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239528/