Disability: A Rose by Any Other Name? “People-First” Language in Canadian Society

ID:	HARP-522
Title:	Disability: A Rose by Any Other Name? “People-First” Language in Canadian Society
Source:	Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology, May2001, Vol. 38 Issue 2, p125, 16p
Parties:
Dispute Resolution Organ:
Year:	2001
Pages:	0
Author(s):
Keywords:	anti-discrimination, Canada, disability, economic, social, and cultural rights, government, human rights, non-discrimination, health, civil and political rights, self-determination
Abstract:	This paper examines the representation of disability that is generated by, and supports, “people-first language.” The paper first describes the ubiquitous formulation of ‘disabled people as “just people.” Second, the current ideology that stresses that disabled people are simply “people with disabilities” is examined in one of its concrete manifestations: a recent government document entitled In Unison: A Canadian Approach to Disability Issues. By making use of Dorothy Smith’s concept that language is social organization, the author shows how disability is organized in this document as a medicalized and individual matter and, as such, takes shape as abnormal limitation and lack of function that some people-four million Canadians-“just happen to have.” Finally, the paper concludes that people-first language is best understood as part of an ongoing process that removes the possibility of understanding disability as a social, and thereby complex, political phenomenon.
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