Person-first terminology

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Person-first terminology is a linguistic technique used when discussing disabilities to avoid perceived and subconscious dehumanisation of the people having the disabilities. It may also occasionally be used to refer to other identities such as ethnicity or nationality. Its use is controversial in a small number of contexts. It is an example of political correctness.

The technique is to use the term "person with a disability", putting the person first, rather than "disabled person", which puts the disability first. The word ordering is thought to carry implications about which part of the phrase is more important. Many people with disabilities have expressed unease at being described using person-second terminology, seeing it to devalue them as people, with the implication that the most significant facet of their existence is their disability. Person-first terminology is therefore widely preferred in the discussion of most disabilities.

[edit] Criticism

Person-first terminology is rejected by some disabled people, most commonly deaf and autistic people. People with these two conditions generally see their condition as an important part of their identity, and so prefer to be described as "deaf people" and "autistic people" rather than "people with deafness" and "people with autism". In a reversal of the rationale for person-first terminology, these people see person-first terminology as devaluing an important part of their identity and falsely suggesting that there is, somewhere in them, a person distinct from their condition. Notably, these two conditions have extensive effects on language use, leading to significant subcultures, the deaf community and the autistic community. These features are not shared with most other conditions that are commonly considered disabilities. Some people with these conditions (especially high-functioning autism) do not consider them disabilities, but rather traits.

Most disability rights activists in the United States, perceive person-first terminology as an euphemism and prefer to avoid it, often using "disabled people" as the alternative. Among disability rights activists in the United Kingdom who adhere to the social model of disability, person-first language is not used because it locates disability within the individual person. Social model adherents believe that while differences between human bodies exist and may be located within individual people, the cause of disability is due to oppression of people with certain types of differences. Since person-first terminology falls under the medical model of disability, social model adherents reject it.

Some people consider person-first terminology to be unnecessarily wordy or odd-sounding. They argue that because terms like "disabled", "blind", etc. are used as adjectives instead of nouns, they are not more significant than "person" just because they come first in a phrase.