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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.
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