Has the way politicians discuss disability issues changed over time? When do particular ways of speaking about disability become popular, or fall out of favour? In an attempt to answer these questions Evan Odell, DRILL Research Programme Officer downloaded everything that has ever been said in the House of Commons from 1937 to the present day, and used a computer to count the number of times different words and phrases related to disability were used.
The full interactive research tool that was produced by Evan allows you to select different disability related phrases and see their usage between 1937 and 2017 plotted out on a graph.
Evan points to several patterns in the data, including the very clear rise in the use of “people with a disability” and similar phrases, instead of “disabled people.” Odell explains that “the popularity of ‘person-first’ language clearly extends to parliamentarians.”
Person-first language is not without controversy in the disabled community though, as this comment from disability campaigner Clenton Farquharson points out “The Social Model of Disability says society disables us, not our bodies. So putting ‘disabled’ first before ‘people’ highlights this”.
