Needed or at least wanted: sanity in the language wars.

03Original abstract

One arena in which the current Kulturkampf (culture war) is being waged is in the domain of language. I will not confine my comments to the terminology change our Association has been wrestling with, but the broader context in which this is occurring. First, I will spell out some of the assumptions, assertions, and dynamics that one encounters mostly from the politically correct (PC) protagonists, either implicitly in the current language wars, or that are explicated by them.In combination, these six rules mean, for instance, that “psychotic person” becomes “person who is psychotic,” “person with psychosis,” “person who has psychosis,” or “person diagnosed (or labeled) as psychotic,” etc.The combination of several of the above rules under No. 4 is called “people first” language, and to my knowledge, no one has ever explicated that it involves not just one rule but a combination of many.Next, I will critique at least some of the above assumptions and assertions.Linguists talk of “natural” language rules, which are those that actually construct or constitute a particular tongue. The natural rules of English permit all the usages under rule No. 4, but these 14 rules become irrational, crazy, and even counterproductive if (a) these practices are only used when discoursing about a class of people that is somehow “special,” even as (b) the ordinary rules continue to be used in reference to all other human attributes and classes of people, including valued ones. Relatedly, so-called “people first” argot is totally different from any other linguistic conventions of trying to bestow social value on a party. For instance, one does not show honor or respect by speaking about highly valued people only as “people who are rich” rather than “rich people,” “people who hold high offices” rather than “office-holders,” etc.If people hear their tongue spoken in a way that violates its natural rules, they experience this as either extremely funny or jarring. It quickly results in the speaker being classified as either mentally impaired, a foreigner, a jokester, or (least likely of all) as holding some ideology that dictates an unnatural language practice. For instance, it is a natural rule in English to put the verb in a sentence immediately or soon after the subject. But for some reason, the Great Who Sayz may proclaim that henceforth, when about purple people speaking, the verb at the end of a sentence must be put. This much attention draw will, commonly people laugh will, and the purple people thus talked about certainly different considered will be. Many of the ridiculous PC language rules appropriately elicit ridicule, which is counterproductive.Another problem is that if people need to communicate about something but are put under rules that do not allow it, then they get stressed and perhaps even crazified; they may start repressing; and if they do communicate about forbidden subjects, they may invent euphemisms to do so. This explains why we now have so many words in English for formerly unmentionable pieces of clothing. One of several problems with euphemisms is that they are often more vulgar than the original, as turned out with words for sexual parts and functions.When people become afraid to say the wrong thing, they often quit talking (or at least communicating) about the issue altogether, which engenders miscommunications, misunderstanding, accidents, and unconsciousness. I believe that generally, it is far less worse for people to talk “the way their mouth is grown,” even if it comes out poorly, than to quit talking altogether.Finally, people resent coercion, especially when it becomes multifarious and relentless, and they will lash back in all sorts of ways that will prove to be counterproductive to the intent of the language tyrants.An example of these last two points is that the very media that virtually overnight have consistently adopted the phrase “challenged” in efforts to be PC have also begun to run a small avalanche of jokes about that convention. I have scores of examples in my files if anyone doubts this. Obviously, although these media people feel driven to use the “challenge” convention, they think it is ridiculous—which it is.I have written at length about some of the current language insanities (see Wolfensberger, 1997), and have also developed much material to teach about language about devalued human conditions and the people who “have” them. In this limited space, I can only mention a few relevant principles for the selection and use of such language, and those only briefly.Of course, it is not only in our field where language terrorism is being practiced; it is becoming culture-wide. In some contexts, one will be skewered for mentioning “history.” We recently learned that a teacher was denounced for using the terms husband and wife, instead of partners. Will the use of the word reality carry the death penalty soon? I believe that some of the current language terrorism calls for active resistance, but I am aware that few people will follow the course that I have decided upon and recommend: to live with opprobrium, harassment (even from the people I have long advocated for), and marginalization for rejecting many currently popular language conventions.In regard to several of these principles, it is very important to the credibility of language whether it is perceived to be accurate, honest, veridical. If one discovers that a reality does not accord with what one had been led to believe and expect by communications about it, then one gets, at least, discombobulated. For instance, a person may turn out to be more or less competent than the descriptions of the person had led one to expect, and the arrangements one had made for the person then do not fit, and may even be life-endangering. This is an issue quite aside from the one that some people can be said to have an outright entitlement to full disclosure because they need it for the decisions they are expected to make, or even must make.Also, people typically tend to get angry toward parties that give them false or misleading information, or that withhold relevant information from them. People then also tend to generalize such anger toward the party that had been communicated about, or toward the condition of that party which played a major role in the transaction. For example, if one is told that a person is nearsighted but discovers that the person is really almost blind, one's anger at this deceit may spread from the communicator to the blindness itself, and hence toward the blind person, all of which can happen very unconsciously. This is not mere speculation, because research has shown that (a) feeling tone can readily generalize to anything associated to it, and that (b) people already have a tendency to blame victims for their plight, even when the blamers are fully aware that the blaming is irrational. We have recently seen some public backlash against the new language rules, which turns into anger against not only the rule-makers, but also against the people being talked about (or not talked about).Now, suppose a class of people cannot see, hear, speak, or walk, and shows many indicators of being very unintelligent. Terms such as differently abled or profoundly gifted or people with different learning and communication styles do not communicate honestly about such people. Such people might have many gifts and communicate in other ways, but even so, something very real and important about their identities is being denied by such language. Those who hear such language used about such people may inwardly snigger, and think “what fools these human service workers (advocates, or whatever) be,” and eventually associate their disgust at such foolishness to the handicapped people themselves, which is the opposite of what the communicators tried to achieve.Principles 1 to 4, 6, 7, and to some degree 10 would actually argue for at least colloquial use of the historically longest-standing terms that people have always understood and will always understand, regardless of what the currently reigning professional or politically correct terms may be. In English, one of the oldest, most honest, and most widely-recognized and understood terms for what we are concerned with would probably be “stupidity from birth or early age.” Of course, this phrase has image problems, and would not get much support from within professional circles such as this Association, or from the so-called “self-advocacy” movement, though it would probably give most members of the public a sense of relief that “finally, they are not pretending, and they are talking a language that I can understand!”Relevant to several of the above points and issues is that the think-gooders in our Association and work have totally failed to appreciate one thing: Most people who “have” the condition that for about 50 years we have termed mental retardation, and some of their allies, will never be satisfied with any designating term for them whatsoever, even though some designation is necessary in many situations in order for the state, condition, person, or class at issue to be appropriately communicated about. If one is trying to find a term that would meet my 10 criteria that will finally satisfy those to whom it will be applied, one may as well give up this quest as futile, because there is no such term, and never will be.

Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556-49.6.463