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The way language represents disability reveals deep-seated social attitudes about normality, capability, and value. Language can pathologise, patronise, and marginalise disabled people — or it can challenge stereotypes and affirm identity. This lesson examines the key debates about disability representation in language, including the person-first vs. identity-first debate, the euphemism treadmill, and the medical vs. social model of disability.
The way disability is understood — the conceptual model used — fundamentally shapes the language used to talk about it.
The medical model treats disability as an individual problem — a deficiency, abnormality, or condition that resides within the person and needs to be cured or fixed.
Language associated with the medical model:
This language constructs disabled people as passive victims defined by their medical conditions. The verbs ("suffers," "afflicted," "confined") construct disability as inherently negative and the disabled person as lacking agency.
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