scholarly journals The use of person-first language in scholarly writing may accentuate stigma

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morton Ann Gernsbacher
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
First Language ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Scholarly Writing ◽  
American Psychological ◽  
Adults With Disabilities ◽  
Style Guides

Numerous style guides, including those issued by the American Psychological and the American Psychiatric Associations, prescribe that writers use only person-first language so that nouns referring to persons (e.g. children) always precede phrases referring to characteristics (e.g. children with typical development). Person-first language is based on the premise that everyone, regardless of whether they have a disability, is a person-first, and therefore everyone should be referred to with person-first language. However, my analysis of scholarly writing suggests that person-first language is used more frequently to refer to children with disabilities than to refer to children without disabilities; person-first language is more frequently used to refer to children with disabilities than adults with disabilities; and person-first language is most frequently used to refer to children with the most stigmatized disabilities. Therefore, the use of person-first language in scholarly writing may actually accentuate stigma rather than attenuate it. Recommendations are forwarded for language use that may reduce stigma.

scholarly journals Comparison of attitudes of children with typical development toward children with disabilities in 2012 and 2017

Engrami ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-20
Author(s):  
Jasmina Radojlović ◽  
Tatjana Simović ◽  
Goran Nedović
Keyword(s):  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Typical Development

scholarly journals Completing the English Vocabulary Profile: C1 and C2 vocabulary

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Capel
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Use ◽  
First Language ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Validation Phase ◽  
Extensive Information ◽  
The Common ◽  
Polysemous Words

AbstractThe English Vocabulary Profile is an online vocabulary resource for teachers, teacher trainers, exam setters, materials writers and syllabus designers. It offers extensive information about the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) levels of words, phrases, phrasal verbs and idioms, and currently includes just under 7,000 headwords. This article reports on the trialling and validation phase of the A1−B2 levels of the resource, as well as outlining the research and completion of the C1 and C2 levels. The project has followed a ‘can-do’ rationale, focusing on what learners actually know rather than prescribing what they should know, and is underpinned by up-to-date corpus evidence, including the 50-million word Cambridge Learner Corpus and the 1.2-billion word Cambridge English Corpus of first language use. At C1 and C2 levels, the English Vocabulary Profile describes both General and Academic English, and the additional sources used to research this area of language learning are described in the article. Polysemous words are treated in depth and the project has sought to determine which meanings of these important words appear to be acquired first; new, less frequent meanings often continue to be learned across all six CEFR levels. Phrases form another substantial part of the resource and this aspect has been guided by expert research (see Martínez 2011).

scholarly journals Living in several languages: Language, gender and identities

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Burck
Keyword(s):  
Family Relationships ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Language Differences ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
First Languages ◽  
Research Interviews

Living in several languages encompasses experiencing and constructing oneself differently in each language. The research study on which this article is based takes an intersectional approach to explore insider accounts of the place of language speaking in individuals’ constructions of self, family relationships and the wider context. Twenty-four research interviews and five published autobiographies were analysed using grounded theory, narrative and discursive analysis. A major finding was that learning a new language inducted individuals into somewhat ‘stereotyped’ gendered discourses and power relations within the new language, while also enabling them to view themselves differently in the context of their first language. This embodied process could be challenging and often required reflection and discursive work to negotiate the dissimilarities, discontinuities and contradictions between languages and cultures. However, the participants generally claimed that their linguistic multiplicity generated creativity. Women and men used their language differences differently to ‘perform their gender’. This was particularly evident in language use within families, which involved gendered differences in the choice of language for parenting – despite the fact that both men and women experience their first languages as conveying intimacy in their relationships with their children. The article argues that the notion of ‘mother tongue’ (rather than ‘first language’) is unhelpful in this process as well as in considering the implications of living in several languages for systemic therapy.

The Zulu Philosophers

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hlonipha Mokoena
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
African History ◽  
Scholarly Writing ◽  
School Subject ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Literary Cultures ◽  
University Level ◽  
The 19Th Century

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Please check back later for the full article. The fortunes of the Zulu language were dramatically changed in the early part of the 20th century through the introduction of a standardized orthography and the creation of vernacular as a school subject. This should have led to a flourishing of Zulu literature and to the emergence of a vibrant literary culture. This, for the most part, is not what occurred. Instead, the literature that emerged was in the form of textbooks, which were used in primary and high schools, and sometimes even at university level, to ostensibly teach first-language Zulu speakers about their own language and culture. This vernacularization of Zulu has had the effect of masking and occluding the 19th century roots of Zulu writing. In that earlier era, there was no governing authority to regulate what and who could write in the language, nor was there a clearly defined market for Zulu texts. In this space, dominance was mainly achieved through the printing press, and many mission stations and missionaries purchased and used these presses for such a purpose. What emerged was a trans-ethnic, regional, and sometimes international network of Zulu speakers who communicated with each other via the pages of bilingual newspapers that were themselves often printed at mission stations. These Zulu writers and their creative works have languished in archives for decades, and are yet to find their interpreters and translators. Thus, although much has been written about Zulu intellectuals from the 1930s onwards—B. W. Vilakazi, H. I. E Dhlomo, his brother R. R. R. Dhlomo, C. L. S. Nyembezi—there is a yawning paucity of scholarly writing on the literary cultures that preceded this formalization of a “Zulu canon.” What complicates the recovery of this pre-vernacularization literature is that its most ardent promoters and contributors were missionary scholars and linguists such as John William Colenso and Henry Callaway, whose enthusiasm for the language was often marred by their association with the colonial project of conversion and subjugation.

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