What are the social implications of the language commonly used in disability discourse?
INTRODUCTION
I had a busy day recently and started writing a to-do list to plan it out, but I got tripped up on “vacuum” and lingered on the word. It’s one of those words I’ve always second-guessed whether I’m spelling it correctly, and I usually have it right but still tend to check anyway, either out of habit or fondness–I know not.
Language is one of my favorite things, and studying the semantics and etymology of words often soothes my misspelling woes and curiosity. So, grumbling as I recalled how long it took me to quit balking at spelling “balloons” (balloons, for goodness sake), I hopped into a quick search and became intrigued.
A phrase from these screenshots caught my attention:
in a vacuum:
(of an activity or a problem to be considered) isolated from the context normal to it and in which it can best be understood or assessed. ex. “professional training cannot take place in a vacuum.”
Indeed, it cannot!
IT MATTERS WHAT A VACUUM CAN MEAN
To understand a little more about how vacuums work, I Googled “scientific explanation of vacuum”. From an article by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL):
“Vacuum is not a force. Though the net motion of matter from a region of higher to lower concentration does appear to be due to a force – for example inside a vacuum cleaner, gas concentration is about 20% lower than ambient, so air and dust will be ‘sucked’ in.”
“Political vacuum” is a familiar phrase, but it seems to shift inside the physical concept of forcelessness. I like that it implies something has been removed, leaving behind a contained, empty space to be filled with only what is near. When language fails to encapsulate the lived experiences of disabled individuals adequately or respectfully, it leaves a “vacuum” that can be filled with misconceptions or stereotypes.
It is important to pause and reflect on the deeper meanings and implications of the language we use, particularly in sensitive areas like disability. Common words and phrases in the disability lexicon can trip up our societal to-do list for fostering change in our public systems and in our individual implicit perceptions.
Major stumbling blocks sometimes come from seemingly simple words. Let us linger on the words, then, in contexts pertaining to professional healthcare services, civil rights, and social policy, so we may proceed into the future on more stable ground. In order to understand the situation better, we will visit a few of these terms as linguists and plug them into our metaphorical vacuum.
A linguistic vacuum
Items of the disability lexicon currently exist in a socially unconscious vacuum of meaning; this is to speak about the isolation of terms from their broader context. Understanding the etymology and usage of terms related to disability should not occur in isolation from cultural and social implications, since words are socially derived artifacts. What meaning shall fill the space we wish to excavate between individuals and ableist language, and who gets to choose it?
The essential components of a linguistic vacuum are the following, but we will pretty much only observe pragmatics and semantic history:
Pragmatics
How context and situation can influence meaning in any given moment. At this point, for instance, readers can guess that when I say vacuum, I’m talking about a sociolinguistic metaphor and not physics or Hoovers.
Semantics
The meaning of words, or what a word refers to. Meaning is hugely fluid and is why OED and Webster continuously release new editions. Word fragments like prefixes and suffixes are also included; we can call them all semantic units, or morphemes. Etymology is the historical record of these meanings as they change, exit, reenter, etc.
Syntax
Grammar, but without The Little Brown Book breathing over your shoulder with its prescriptive/standardized aspects. Syntax describes how words and phrases must be ordered in a given language as it is naturally utilized by a community. In English, “I have nothing to vacuum it up with” would be considered perfectly correct from a descriptive standpoint but wouldn’t stand up against prescriptive metrics in literacy education.
Morphology
The study of word structures is broken down to their smallest meaningful parts (morphemes), and the rules for assembling them to generate words.
In English, this covers both root words like vacuum that stand alone in sentences and functional word-parts for purposes such as pluralization (two vacuum-s) or changing a word’s category, for example, from noun to verb (Bissell-ed: “I Bisselled the heck out of a metaphor–and this meta-floor”).
Phonetics & Phonology
These study the smallest units of a language’s meaningful “sounds” and how they are represented in our brains, like an alphabet without letters. “Sound” study includes sign languages, despite being nominally exclusionary, which is problematic.
ETYMOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF “DISABILITY”
Let’s examine some root words and affixes (e.g. prefixes/suffixes) centrally affiliated with contemporary disability lexicon in English, beginning with the word disability itself. We want to break it down to look at each small part inside our vacuum (I will never forget how to spell this word again).
But…is it [dis- + able + -ity] or [dis- + ability]?
This became a surprising journey. For starters, ability (n) and able (v) have completely different etymological roots. They are unrelated doppelgangers called false cognates. With a healthy dose of false-cognate foreshadowing:
Some Disability-Related Terms
- able
- ability
- *-able <–(asterisk * indicates an affix)
- *-ability
- *dis-
If you wish, you may skip past this nerdy table for the summary beneath.
| ETYMOLOGY OF MAJOR DISABILITY-RELATED LEXEMES IN STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH (SAE) | ||||||
| PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN (ancient) | ability | able | *-able | *-ability | *dis- | *un- (1), (2) |
| *ghabh- “to give/receive” | *-tro- /*-trom “useful instrument” | *dis- *dwis- “apart, asunder”; “two”; “in two ways, in twain” | (1) *n-, *ne- “not” (2)*anti- “before, front, forehead” “facing opposite of” “against” “near” | |||
| LATIN (newer) | habilitatem, *-abilitas “aptitude” “suitableness” “fitness” | habere “to hold or possess” | *-bilis “capable/worthy of” “full of causing” | *-abilis | *dis-, bis, duo | (1) *in- “not” |
| habilem; habilis “handy” “easy to manage” | ||||||
| PROTO-GERMANIC (newer) | (1) *un- (negation, reversal) (2) *andi- “against” | |||||
DISCUSSION: What is the vacuum picking up?
- able and *-able –not related
- able and ability — not related
- ability and *-ability — also not related
- *dis- is a rather brutal negation, historically connotative to being torn “asunder” and split two ways (hence the harshness of “getting dissed” by someone)
- to be disabled implies uselessness and unworthiness
- to have a disability implies one’s possessions are either asunder or “in twain”
- to be unable could suggest “not having”, “opposed to having”, or “not-yet-having”, but instead it takes on the more negative meaning of “lacking in ability” and “incapable”
- since *un- has two etymologies, we can ask which one we intend to mean
- some of the Latin terms might seem very similar, but so do the words look and loot
Historical linguistics marks the social values that ride these words like vehicles through time. Our perspectives on how words acquire their meaning and evolve should shift with our understanding of language and its power.
Biological models of language involve seeing neuronal network activation as part of the process of brain plasticity; the meaning of a word is reflected in the brain as a physical data structure. Conceptually combining the two approaches into a biopsychosocial approach via linguistics might tousle out some socially relevant theories for data structures linked to specific representational mental states within a given social group.
The history of a word, after all, is the living archive of people in power who speak it, and we know very well that individuals with disabilities are marginalized and overlooked worldwide. Sociolinguistic studies on media representation and policy documentation from interdisciplinary angles could provide robust empirical support for policy change. The mission for disability rights and inclusion requires seeing the importance of critically analyzing the language we use when talking about disability, as language shapes perception and policy.
FINAL THOUGHTS, TAKING ACTION
Furthering linguistic awareness and choosing our words carefully will facilitate a more inclusive society.
Do any words “sound” different in your mind if you also think of visual cues as “sound”?
What has changed about your inward experience of “sound” now that you know more about the word vacuum?
What daily words do you encounter whose histories might enlighten or change widely-held meanings? Leave a comment, and let’s look it up.