pssst silence
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Euphemisms
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Speaking of disabilities - a taboo?
Self-identification
Language and Gender
Skin colour
Conclusion
girl with down-syndrom
img_14

child with Progeria
img_03
Speaking of disabilities - a taboo?

Many people without a disability are often uncomfortable in dealing with people having disabilities. Because some people are afraid they will do or say the wrong thing around someone with a disability, they try to avoid the individual with the disability altogether.
What is often perceived as discrimination is often only a communication problem rather than true discrimination. To observe the reactions of the partricipants concerning people with a disablity there were two images displayed to them:
a little girl with the Down-syndrome (IMG_14) and a child with Progeria. (IMG_03)
The reactions and the way of describing both the children were the most interesting of all images. Almost everyone hesitated and tried to find the right words in order to avoid a faux-pas which indicates that speaking openly about someone having a disability still seems to be a problem. Two of the participants (female) made a pause at the beginning and hesitantly said that the little girl has some kind of strange eyes and a very strange face. But they could not say precisely why the girl looks strange. Later, both of them admitted they were not sure whether the girl has a disability or not. In that case, they decided to remain silent to avoid a wrong or embarrassing statement which shows that "speaking of disability"is a very sensitive issue.

As Tannen argues:

"Silence is the extreme manifestation of indirectness. If directness is a matter of saying one thing and meaning another, silence can be a matter of saying nothing and meaning something."9

Again, two other participants (female, male) made a pause at the beginning of their description and also hesitantly said that they think that the girl maybe suffers from a disease or something. It seemed as they had restraints to say freely that the girl has a disability and instead, preferred saying that she suffers from a disease.
Another point is, "when writing or speaking about people with disabilities, it is important to put the person first."10 The male participant, mentioned shortly before, made a pause and then directly said that the girl looks some kind of ill. In this case, it would have been more tactful to use another way of uttering.
Furthermore, two participants (male) also faltered at the beginnnig and recognized the girl having a disability but did not really know how to name it. Lastly, they said that it is probably the Down-syndrome or something like that. Hesitation and insecurity often results from a lack of information. Being informed about something makes you secure and more aware of what you are talking about.

"Formerly, people with Down- syndrome were called "Mongols", an expression no longer in use and replaced by the name "Down syndrome."11

The image of the child with Progeria (IMG_03) evoked similar reactions but is even more evident for analysing because the disability cannot be ignored. In this case, some of the participants were aware about the fact that the child has a disease which makes you age rapidly but did not exactly know how to name it. Altogether, the statements were very hesitating and slow-going in order to recall and describe the name of the disease.
In his work Wallace Chafe constitutes pauses and hesitations as in the following:

[…] "sometimes speakers hesitate while they are deciding what to talk about next, and sometimes they hesitate while they are deciding how to talk about what they have chosen."12

The statement of Chafe seems to affirm the reactions of the participants. When feeling insecure about a topic you try to circumscribe it as long as possible, until you find the right words or the next thought. Two other participants (male, female) seemed to know nothing about the disease and probably unintentionally both made remarks containing a negative touch. The male denoted the disease as a deformation whereby the female said that the child looks some kind of gnomical because of the cuspid nose and ears.
As already said above, what seems at the first moment to be discriminating is often a lack of communication and information, as one can see in this example.