From: FCTY7310@RYEVM.RYERSON.CA (Gary Woodill)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Professional Language
Date: 6 Oct 92 20:44:30 GMT
Reply-To: FCTY7310@RYEVM.RYERSON.CA (Gary Woodill)
Organization: Olivetti AFD
Originator: wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com

Index Number: 24623

[Forwarded from the Disability Research List by Patt Bromberger
 <patt@squid.tram.com>]

Several people have asked for my paper on the language of special education
professionals, which follows. This version was published in French, while
a shortened version was published in 1989 in the Canadian Journal of Special
Education.

Reactions to the list should provoke some discussion....

            The Language of Special Education Professionals:
                       a conceptual framework

                         Gary Woodill, Ed.D.
                 School of Early Childhood Education
                   Ryerson Polytechnical Institute
                          Toronto, Ontario

                      Iain F.W.K. Davidson, PhD.
                   Department of Special Education
              Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
                          Toronto, Ontario

Paper presented at the Canadian Forum: International Conference
on Special Education, Vancouver, May 17-20, 1989.Introduction

    The language of special education professionals has received
scant attention in published literature. This specialized
"professional discourse" (Foucault, 1972) is usually part of the
"world-taken-for-granted" of practitioners and researchers in
special education, and is therefore generally not called into
question. This may be a reflection of the degree to which present
models of special education practice are hegemonic, that is,
based on a commonly held and dominant belief system about the
nature of "children with special needs" and what needs to be done
to "help" them.

      At the most obvious level, the language of professionals in
special education can be viewed as simply a necessarily
specialized mode of communication, a way of conveying information
about a person from one professional to another, or to parents.
This non-critical way of viewing professional language is
probably the way it is usually seen by practitioners and parents
alike.  In this article, we would like to propose a conceptual
framework which takes a deeper view in order to reveal more
hidden aspects of the language of special education
professionals.

     An analysis of the language used by special education
professionals is one method of revealing, and calling into
question, some of their most strongly held and cherished
assumptions about the field of special education.  An analysis of
language can show biases, ideologies, and relationships which are
usually hidden. By holding the language of special education up
to scrutiny, the understanding of special education can be
advanced through fresh perspectives on the underpinnings of
dominant theories and practices in the field. However, our goal
is not to undertake a detailed and technical analysis of the
language of special education professionals, but rather to
propose a conceptual framework under which further analyses can
be made, and to show through a few examples how an analysis of
the language of special education professionals might proceed.

     The language of special education professionals can be
analyzed at three distinct, but overlapping, levels. At the most
general level, it can be seen as one of many "language games"
(Wittgenstein, 1958) which exists in a given society. More
specifically, this particular language game is an example of a
"professional discourse" (Foucault, 1972) which can be studied in
terms of its development and its place in the spiral of
"power/knowledge" relationships. At the most specific level, the
level of social semiotics or sociolinguistics, the meanings of
the actual words used in this particular professional discourse
can be further delineated in terms of "generative metaphors",
"keywords", and "signs of difference".

Special Education as a Language Game

      To refer to special education discourse as a "language
game" is to emphasize several aspects of special education which
are usually hidden. The concept of a "language game" comes from
the work of Wittgenstein, who, except for some examples about the
blind and the deaf, did not analyze the situation of children
deemed to be exceptional or their education.  Instead, much of
his work was focused on language and its role in human societies.

     Wittgenstein's views  changed from the positivistic picture
theory of language in  Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus to the more
pragmatic conceptions in Philosophical Investigations and later
works. Although the Tractatus was endorsed by the Vienna Circle
and the Logical Positivists, Wittgenstein repudiated his earlier
picture theory of language in Philosophical Investigations. In
Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein proposes that meaning
depends on use; that is, we should not go looking for formal
definitions of words but see how they are used and note the
various uses of the same word. The multiple meanings of the words
in a particular field  and the rules for their use constitute a
"language game". Language games are themselves embedded in a
larger context which Wittgenstein calls  "forms of life"
(Lebensformen).

     Special education can be conceptualized as a series of
language games played mainly by educators, psychologists and
allied professionals, and sometimes by parents. First, in the
sense of special education language as a simulation game there
are aspects of special education which are different from "real"
education - that is, the special education classroom can be seen
as a protected environment where the mistakes are allowed and
even expected without serious consequences. More importantly,
special education can be seen as a classic board game with
procedures, rules, and playing elements. Like Monopoly, there is
a great deal of busyness in playing the game - with children
being collected in groups or moved from one location to another,
with cards to be collected, marked, sorted and sent, with special
apparatus to be used to carry out a procedure, and with a form of
scoring and recording of scores in assessment and testing
procedures, and marking of individual educational plans. Beyond
this level, special education can be seen as a team sport with
professionals on one team (The Interdisciplinary Team?) and
parents and children on the other. Here the overall object of the
game is power, and specialized language can be seen as one way
professionals gain and keep power over the opposing side.

    A specialized language works in several ways to increase the
power of the professional practitioner. In order to increase
their authority, newer professions borrow words and metaphors
from other older and more prestigious professions. For example,
the word "profession" itself has religious roots, referring to "a
proclamation of faith" (Brown, 1986), made necessary in a time
when the most powerful group in Western society was the clergy.
More recently, the word "mission" has come into vogue as another
example of religious terminology in professional life. As
medicine became more powerful in the 18th and 19th century, other
professions borrowed the terminology of medicine to raise their
public stature. "Psychologists compared themselves to medical
doctors, their purview of mental and social problems to bodily
disease, and their methods, such as the `I.Q.' test, to
diagnostic instruments like the thermometer, the x-ray, and the
blood count." (Brown, 1986, p. 39)

     Viewing special education as a language game implies that it
is a social construction, and as such, it is a human activity
which is subject to change. This does not imply that changing
language is easy; language games transcend the language of each
individual, and are culture-specific and class-specific
repositories of commonly held ideas and attitudes.

     Seeing special education as a series of language games means
that a word used by one person can mean something else in another
context.  Consider the multiple definitions of "learning
disability" or "exceptionality". To unravel the multiple meanings
in a field one must look for "family resemblances" (Wittgenstein,
1958), the ways in which meanings overlap and connect, in the
various uses of "keywords" (Williams, 1976) by the people
involved in a particular language game.

     The words used by special education professionals are not
only learned through formal study but are "built up" through
experiences with children classified as needing special
education. The meaning of special education terminology changes
depending on whether one is the recipient of unsolicited
"treatment" and/or "care" and/or "education", the administrator
and dispenser of these processes, or a parent watching or aiding
what is going on. With time, professionals assume that their
point of view is "normal", and the "world-taken-for-granted" that
is shared with others in similar positions becomes a common
language game because they have built up a common experience of
meaning.  The language game is embedded in the "form of life"
(Wittgenstein, 1958) shared by being a professional in a
particular field.

     The child labelled as exceptional learns the special
education language game from the other side and takes on the
identification of being "handicapped", "disabled", or "gifted"
through a "moral career" as documented by Goffman (1961) in
Asylums and Scott (1969) in The Making of Blind Men.  A moral
career involves taking on the values ("adjusting") to the
definition of reality as seen through the eyes of the dominant
groups in society.
      This process is often well hidden from children in a
special education program, and from their parents as well. The
words and concepts of special education need to be analyzed to
show how the meanings of the words relate to the underlying goals
and dynamics of special education to produce this mystification
process. For example, in North America, special education classes
used to be referred to as "opportunity classes" even though one
knew that the children in these classes would have fewer
opportunities in life choices. (In France, early special
education classes were called "classes de prefectionnement", an
equally misleading term). Children are placed in special
education because of their "needs" or "for their own good" while
the needs or good of the school system and/or society are rarely
mentioned. The purported ethic of humanitarianism in special
education placement may serve to mask the power relations and the
economy of professional employment of those who enter the
"helping professions" as a career choice. An additional mystique
of special education vocabulary comes from the invoking of
scientific methodology to justify placement decisions.

    The word "special" is probably the most mystifying word in
the field. What, for example, is "special" about special
education or "special needs"?  One might start by stating that
special education is the education of children who are special.
One possible meaning of special is to be regarded with particular
favour and affection. But there is an irony in the word "special"
in that for the most part, the children of special education are
usually  devalued. The stigmatizing effects of the label
"special" are well known; in any case many people react against
this meaning of special by observing that "all children  should
be special".

     The phrases "special needs" or "learning disability" may be
examples of the phenomena of "blaming the victim" (Ryan, 1971) in
that the emphasis is on the problems inherent in the child rather
than the teacher, the society, or the school system. Tomlinson
(1982) takes issue with the concept of special needs which she
says is used as "a legitimation for the exclusion of more and
more children from the normal education system." (p. 73)
Analyzing the use of the concept of "needs" from the time of
Rousseau to the present she concludes that "the rhetoric of
special needs may have become more of a rationalization by which
people who have the power to define and shape the system of
special education and who have vested interests in the assessment
of, and provision of, more and more children as special, maintain
their influence and interests." (p. 75)

     Some writers emphasise the specialness of the education
rather than of the child in special education. Dunn (1973)
defines four types of provisions included in special education:
specially trained professional educators, special curricular
content, special methodology, and special instructional
materials.  Yet one cannot say that special education is all of
these factors taken together since there are obvious exceptions
to each of the aspects cited found in enterprises which are
labeled as special education.  There are children, who, though
unusual or different, would not be classified as needing special
education, such as children with unusual dress, religion, or
cultural backgrounds. Even the provision of special equipment
such as glasses, hearing aids or oversized desks does not qualify
a child for the description of being in need of special
education.  The critical variable seems to be whether or not the
child can, or is willing, to follow the regular curriculum at a
normal pace, although even here a child might be sent to a
special school simply because there is a visible disability. In
the end, the word "special" may simply designate any child who is
currently in a designated special education program or who is
receiving professional attention outside the regular school
classroom.

Special Education as Professional Discourse

     In a narrower sense than Wittgenstein's use of the concept
of a "language game", Foucault (1972) uses the term "professional
discourse" to designate the specialized language of the "expert"
or "professional". Discourse in the "human sciences" results when
a new professional group takes jurisdiction over some area of
human functioning. Discourse in special education is to be found
in reports, journals, books, government policy papers and any
other documents written by those who work in special education or
a related field.  While Foucault's writings are on the origins of
mental hospitals, medical clinics, and prisons, there are
parallels between these institutions and those that deal with
disabled persons.

     For Foucault, the role of professionals is to further the
specification and articulation of classifying and controlling
human beings. The consensus they achieve with each other is
through professional "discourse".  Foucault differentiates
discourse, the talk of experts, from everyday language. But there
is a further delineation. Foucault is mostly interested in the
dominating aspects of the "human sciences", which, because they
do not operate outside the society they study, never achieve the
objectivity of the natural sciences, and are tied to the
production of knowledge for the ever increasing efficiency of
"bio-techno-power". (Foucault, 1979) Hence, Foucault refers to
them as "pseudo-sciences". It is the appearance of being
scientific which gives power to the professional in decisions
about the future of children in special education.

     Foucault's approach requires an overview of what is said
about an object of discourse as well as all the things that
happen (non-discursive relations) around the object. For
Foucault, professional discourse produces the object about which
it speaks.  As new categories are named, defined and  studied,
new professional groups are developed to administer to
the newly identified "needs". But the production and maintenance
of professional status is not an easy task. It is, essentially, a
balancing act between two necessities - the need to maintain a
monopoly of expert knowledge while at the same time popularizing
the benefits of this knowledge to a potential clientele. (Brown,
1986)

     The development of a professional discourse is an essential
part of the growth of any profession. Foucault (1972) describes a
four stage process in which this development takes place, and
suggests areas for investigation in any study of the emergence of
a professional discourse.

     The production of a professional discourse begins with the
identification of the objects of the discourse; there is a need
to map the "surfaces" of how these objects emerge as objects of
interest, describe the authorities of delimitation of the
objects, analyze the grids of specification of objects, and
describe the relationships between these various phenomena. The
history of disability in Europe shows that those we now label as
"disabled" or having "special needs" are relatively new objects
of professional attention. In the 17th century children who were
seen as delinquent or in "moral danger" were placed in closed
institutions, often affiliated with religious orders. Later,
both deaf children and blind children became objects of interest
for the newly emerging professions of teacher of the deaf and
teacher of the blind, as specialized schools were built in the
1700s. The pedagogical interest in mentally retarded persons
developed in the 18th century, and initially was found in the
large mental hospitals where mentally retarded persons were
incarcerated with many other different groups. North American
reformers who visited various specialized schools in Europe
imported these models back to Canada and the United States.

     Second, there is a period of systematic description
("enunciative modalities") of the phenomena of the emerging
professional field; here it is necessary to ask who is speaking,
who has the right to speak, what are the institutional sites at
which this discourse takes place, and what is the relationship of
the speaker to the objects under discussion. While many of the
18th century works on the education of deaf children or blind
children were written by clergy, writing in the field of special
education grew rapidly near the end of the 19th century, and by
that time most of the authors were medical doctors (usually
psychiatrists). As power shifted to the non-medical professions
in the twentieth century, the professional discourse of special
education included the work of psychologists, social workers, and
special educators.

     In the third stage, concepts are elaborated; in the
organization of the field of statements where they appear and are
circulated it is necessary to examine the ideas on which these
concepts depend, what concepts go together, and how concepts can
be applied, modified or transformed. For example, the controversy
over sign language versus oral methods in the education of the
deaf was a struggle which began early in the education of the
deaf and which has continued to the present day. While the term
special education was used as early as 1834, the concept of
special education developed in Western Europe and North America
in the last half of the nineteenth century. The concept of a
"syndrome" flourished in the late 19th century also, with many
new syndromes being "discovered" and named after the medical
doctors who first described them. As the field of intelligence
testing became prominent in special education at the beginning of
the twentieth century, concepts such as "idiot", "imbecile", and
"moron" were found more frequently in special education
literature. In recent times, concepts such as "normalization",
"the dignity of risk", and "the least restrictive environment"
reflected the politics of deinstitutionalization and the
lessening of control by traditional professions in special
education. But other concepts such as "early identification",
"infant stimulation", "children at risk" have been developed as
doctors and psychologists endeavoured to keep their positions of
influence. These are only a few examples of the concepts which
have been developed in the field of special education and which
need careful scrutiny.

     Finally, different concepts can be united in various
strategies or disciplines, that is, they become the generally
unquestioned underpinnings of particular practices or uses of
power; it is necessary to describe the use of concepts in history
and in present day practices and ideologies, in order to fully
understand the uses of professional discourse. Professional
discourse as a sociolinguistic practice cannot be separated from
the hegemony and legitimation of professional power. The role of
the dominant metaphors in maintaining professional power, and in
maintaining disempowerment for disabled people, needs analysis.

The Social Semiotics of Special Education

     Sociolinguistic analysis of a "human services" field such as
special education reveals that practitioners often operate within
a coherent framework which orients them towards a particular view
of what the are doing and the nature of the persons who are the
objects of their professional practice. In an interactive and
overlapping way, we see that professionals usually operate within
a given framework or "generative metaphor", that each framework
has its own technical vocabulary or "keywords", and that each
vocabulary is supported by the recognition of specific "signs"
which invoke the use of particular technical terms.

     Generative metaphors. Generally, there is a dominant
"generative metaphor" which guides thought and action in
professional practice.  This overriding model is generative in
that other concepts follow from it, and it provides the
boundaries of legitimated thought and action in the field. In the
late middle ages, disabled persons were seen as "legitimate
beggars", in contrast to "illegitimate beggars" who faked
disabilities in order to receive social welfare. Early
professional practice centred around examinations by surgeons and
barbers to distinguish these two types. Later, all beggars came
to be seen as a "social menace", and professional practice mainly
consisted of methods of incarceration of disabled persons along
with many other "dangerous classes". In the 18th and 19th
century, medicine became the most powerful human services
profession, and the "disease" metaphor has guided professional
practice until the present day. Other developing professions,
including special education, adopted the pathological disease
model, partly in order to be identified with the power of the
medical model.

     Today, two other generative metaphors are competing for
attention in the field of special education. These are the
"consumer group" metaphor, and the "oppressed minority" metaphor.
Depending on which metaphor is operative, a professional in
special education may view a person with a disability as a
"client", a "consumer", a "victim of social oppression", or an
"advocate for human rights". The generative metaphor used will
orient the professional towards the other person; in the medical
model a professional works on an identified problem, in the
consumer model the professional may work for the person who has
chosen his or her offered services, and in the minority group
model, a professional might work in solidarity with the advocate
for human rights, or might even be seen a source of oppression -
someone who is working against the interests of disabled persons.

     The "consumer" metaphor has been used in recent years,
mainly by disabled adults in the "independent living" movement to
indicate a change from being passive recipients of medically
oriented "treatment", to being active persons who choose what
they want from a range of available services. The purpose of this
metaphor is to increase the sense of personal power for disabled
people, by implying that they can withdraw their "business" if
they are not satisfied or comfortable with services being offered
or the professionals offering their services. This metaphor is
problematic in that it is based on a capitalistic idea of
consumption and demand, which raises the issues of availability
of non-profitable services, and the provision of services for
those who cannot afford them.

         As well, the consumer metaphor is not critical of the
idea of a professional service system, only of the standards of
service of individual professionals. It presents no challenge to
the medical model, except to suggest that a choice of
practitioners is necessary.

     In contrast, a new metaphor is emerging in the field of
special education, which is to see disabled people as members of
a "minority group". (Carnes, 1982; Gliedman and Roth, 1980; Fine
and Asch, 1988). The consequences of this shift are immense as
the assumptions of the medical model are radically challenged by
this new conception. Seeing a disabled person as "sick" leads to
one set of reactions towards that person, whereas the image of
"member of a minority group" leads to another set of reactions.
Defenders of the medical metaphor will argue that it is in place
for humanitarian reasons, but this is not an argument against the
fact that the metaphor empowers professionals rather than
disabled people themselves. The sick role in our society has been
described as follows (Gliedman and Roth, 1980):

1. The patient is exempted from normal role obligations.

2. The patient is not held responsible for his or her state.

3. The state of being sick is considered conditionally legitimate
if -

4. The patient cooperates with the source of help and actively
works to achieve recovery.

5. The sick role will be temporary.

     But the assumption of a sick role for a disabled person,
however humane the intentions, has profound and negative
consequences (Fine and Asch, 1988). First, the role is not
temporary, which ultimately places the "medical tolerance" given
by members of society in question. Second, not only is the
disabled person exempted from normal role obligations and
expectations, he or she is often prevented from fulfilling normal
roles even if the person is capable and willing to do so.
Instead, the disabled person is seen as always needing help and
social support. Third, the sick role requires cooperation of the
disabled person in professional management and intervention of
his or her "case". If the disabled person refuses to obey the
given prescriptions, he or she is seen as rebellious, defensive
and ungrateful. Fourth, the sick role and the medical model
locate the problems faced by a disabled person solely in biology.
This emphasis on the biological rather than the social
environment as a source means that disability is taken in
research studies as an independent variable, as an uncritically
accepted given which results in various consequences. Fifth, when
a disabled person faces problems, it is often assumed that the
person's impairment caused the problems. Sixth, since the sick
role means that the person is not responsible for his or her
state, a disabled person is often seen as a perpetual "victim".
While circumstances which cause disabilities can legitimately be
seen as unfortunate or even tragic, research indicates that the
disabled person often does not consider himself or herself as a
victim, especially if born with an impairment, or if a sufficient
period of time has passed after an accident or onset of a disease
which resulted in an impairment. A related assumption, that
disability is central to a disabled person's self-concept, self-
definition, social comparisons, and reference groups is also an
unfounded consequence of the sick role. This is more likely a
projection of the non-disabled who are preoccupied with the
prospect of disability when they confront a disabled person.

     A different metaphor has a different set of implications.
The emerging "minority group" metaphor shifts the analysis from
sickness to discrimination. The assumptions of this metaphor for
a disabled person also has profound consequences. Being a member
of a minority group means:

1. The person is not automatically exempted from normal role
expectations, but may be prevented from assuming a normal role by
the actions and attitudes of persons not in the minority group.

2. The person is held responsible for his or her actions, but his
or her situation may be limited by lack of opportunities and
barriers.

3. The person has much in common with members of other minority
groups and therefore -

4. The person is able to learn from the history and tactics of
the civil rights movement how to increase his or her freedom and
reduce discrimination.

5. Solidarity with the members of the minority group, and members
of allied minority groups is a source of strength and help, and
it may be necessary to limit the involvement of members of the
majority group (non-disabled) in the decision-making process of
the minority groups actions.

     This is a far different prospect for a disabled person than
playing the sick role. Yet the power of the medical metaphor is
such that this change will not come easily. Each generative
metaphor is supported by a technical vocabulary, or keywords
which extend and support the metaphor. The use of a technical
vocabulary is one of the mechanisms which supports the power of
professionals.

     Keywords. The power of language is such that when a group of
professionals comes to use a particular metaphor systematically
and repeatedly, the metaphor tends to lose its metaphorical
qualities, becoming part of the literal and technical vocabulary.
When such reification takes place, the dominant metaphor becomes
so accepted that criticism of the metaphor is usually not
possible and "such dissent is, in a powerful sense, heretical"
(Brown, 1986, p. 45). The process of social change is often a
battle over the used of metaphors to describe the reality in
question. As words like "deinstitutionalization",
"normalization", "integration", and  "developmentally delayed",
become part of the fabric of a common speech they become keywords
(Williams, 1976) rather than mere technical terms.

     In identifying the keywords of culture and society, Williams
states that his work is the record of an inquiry into a
vocabulary; "a shared body of words and meanings in our most
general discussions..." (p. 15)  Words are chosen by Williams for
inclusion in his study for two reasons: "they are significant,
binding words in certain activities, and their interpretation;
they  are significant, indicative words in certain forms of
thought." (ibid.)  As "elements of an active vocabulary",
keywords of a particular discourse change over time; certain
words which are "taken-for-granted" in discussions of a
particular profession, become archaic as paradigms, power
relations, and perceptions shift.

     The keywords of professionals can be distinguished from the
vernacular speech of everyday life. Keywords are "even more
effective than the mere standardization of the vocabulary and
grammatical rules in their repression of the vernacular because,
having the appearance of common sense, they put a pseudo-
vernacular gloss on engineered reality" (Illich, 1982, p. 8).
Therefore, in the interest of the emancipation of disabled
people, the keywords of special education need to be examined,
especially those that "impute needs". "Many issues cannot be
thought through, and some of them....cannot even be focused
unless we are conscious of the words as elements of the problem."
(Williams, 1976, p. 16)  The analysis of keywords involves
several procedures including the investigation of the origins and
variations through time of the use of a particular word. As well,
because keywords also interconnect and support a world-view, the
connections among keywords needs to be investigated.

     There are many ways to conceptualize special education and
the recipient of special education, the child who is termed
"disabled", "handicapped", "gifted" or having "special needs".
The terms themselves need close scrutiny to see how the concepts
used by special educators reveal the speaker's position and to
enable us to understand the powerful underlying predispositions
that they bring into play. For example, in the past, disabled
persons have been seen at different times as "fools", "freaks",
"entertainers", "subhuman organisms", "a menace", "objects of
pity", "burdens of charity", "holy innocents", or "eternal
children" (NIMR, 1981; Foucault, 1965). The present "official"
view of disabled people is that they are "developing persons", a
view which follows from the "normalization movement" of the late
1960's.

       The term "normalization" shows how important keywords can
radically change in meaning over time. One of the original
reasons given for placing people in asylums "was to adapt them to
`normal life'." (Bockoven, 1956)  This differs considerably from
the definition of "normalization" in the present discourse given
by Wolfensberger (1972), and the actual or reportive definitions
have varied from redecorating wards in the large institutions to
full community living.  Similarly "deinstitutionalization" has
often meant the shifting of residents from the largest
institutions to medium sized institutions or, "Homes for Special
Care" (see Simmons, 1982) where they received minimal attention.
"Integration" has meant everything from disabled children being
in the same building or neighborhood as non-disabled children to
full participation in a regular classroom.

      Perhaps the most controversial keywords in special
education are the labels given to disabled children to designate
a diagnostic category.  The problem of the stigmatizing effects
of labelling has been well documented.  The result is usually an
"inferior status position" although it can also result in
positive discrimination, a "salutary status position".(Wright,
1960)  It is the essentializing quality (Apple, 1979) of labels
that is most often noted. The differentness of one aspect of a
person's body or personality spreads to include all areas.

     Terms which are part of a professional vocabulary are also
evocative, a fact which is not usually thought about in everyday
interactions. For example, the term "gifted", in addition to
labelling someone who fits a certain set of criteria, also evokes
the notion of being given a gift. Here there is the idea that the
child labelled as gifted has received something for free, perhaps
even something not earned or deserved. Certainly, the unconscious
thought in describing someone as gifted may very well be that
they have received more than others, and therefore do not deserve
anything else.

     A shift in the technical vocabulary of special education
often evokes new images. Consider the following list:

Mentally deranged
Mentally insane
Mentally disturbed
Mentally ill
Mentally unbalanced
Mentally defective
Mentally deficient
Mentally retarded
Mentally handicapped
Mentally challenged

     As Lakoff and Johnson (1978) have argued in Metaphors We
Live By, much of our language is based on physical metaphors. In
the above images we can see many examples of this. The images
which are evoked include mind as an orderly arrangement (mentally
deranged, mentally insane, mentally disturbed), mind as an
organism which can be sick or well (mentally ill), mind as an
equilibrium (mentally unbalanced), mind as a machine which can
malfunction, be built improperly or have missing parts (mentally
defective, mentally deficient), mind in a timed race (mentally
retarded, mentally delayed, mentally handicapped), and mind as
being faced with barriers or burdens to overcome (mentally
handicapped, mentally challenged). The keywords of special
education are not simply labels, but are packed with various
concrete images and meanings.

     Signs of difference.  At the most basic level, special
education rests on a foundation of the recognition of signs of
difference. Signs can be verbal cues or non-verbal cues which are
then interpreted in the framework of the dominant professional
metaphor and its technical vocabulary. For example, in the
medical model, the body is "read" for "symptoms" under the power
of a professional "gaze". Diagnosis and treatment follow. The
bodies and the lives of children who have recognized differences
can be regarded as text or stories requiring interpretation.
There are many possibilities of how to view and speak about the
circumstances in which people find themselves, and the reading of
signs of differentness varies from one cultural to the next.

     Some visible of signs of difference are generally taken to
be unambiguous - wheelchairs, white canes, and hearing aids are
physical devices which mark a person as having a disability in
this culture. Other signs are also visible, but more ambiguous,
such as dark glasses, bizarre behaviours, and differences in
speech. These ambiguous signs are open to interpretation, and
often need the intersection of several cues in order to convey a
clear message. Still other signs are invisible, but require the
"confessional technology" of psychological testing for a
difference to be noted and spoken about. The study of signs of
difference is a rich area for future sociolinguistic analysis of
special education.

Conclusion

     A technical vocabulary is essential in the maintenance of a
professional  discourse. It is through the use of words, the
ability to name, classify, and persuade, that professionals gain
their power. Keywords in a professional discourse can impute
needs and assist in the maintenance of power over others. Because
the helping professions define other people's statuses (and their
own), the terms they employ to categorize clients and justify
restrictions of their physical movements and of their moral and
intellectual influence are especially revealing of the political
functions language performs and of the social construction of
categories and attitudes it helps create. Special education
professionals need to examine their own language, in order to
understand their hidden biases and assumptions, and to more clear
about which version of power relations they are supporting.
References

Apple, M. (1979) Ideology and Curriculum. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.

Bockoven, J. (1956) Moral treatment in American psychiatry.
Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, Vol. 124, 167-194.

Brown, J. (1986) Professional language: words that succeed.
Radical History Review, Vol. 34, 33-51.

Carnes, G. (1982) Social Justice through Handicapped Power:
perspectives from England and Sweden. East Lansing, Michigan:
University Center for International Rehabilitation.

Dunn, L. (Ed.) (1973) Exceptional Children in the Schools:
special education in transition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.

Fine, M. and Asch, A. (1988) Disability beyond stigma: social
interaction, discrimination, and activism. Journal of Social
Issues, Vol. 44, No. 1, 3-21.

Foucault, M. (1965) Madness and Civilization. New York: Vintage.
Foucault, M. (1972) The Archeology of Knowledge. New York: Harper
and Row.

Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish: the birth of the
prison. New York: Vintage.

Gliedman, J. and Roth, W. (1980) The Unexpected Minority:
handicapped children in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Jovanovich.

Goffman, E. (1961) Asylums: essays on the social situation of
mental patients and other inmates. New York: Anchor Books.

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1978) Metaphors We Live By. Prentice-
Hall.

NIMR (National Institute on Mental Retardation) (1981)
Orientation Manual on Mental Retardation. Revised Ed. Toronto:
National Institute on Mental Retardation.

Ryan, W. (1971) Blaming the Victim. New York: Vantage.

Scott, R. (1969) The Making of Blind Men. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation.

Simmons, H. (1982) From Asylum to Welfare. Toronto: NIMR.

Tomlinson, S. (1982) The Sociology of Special Education. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Williams, R. (1976) Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and
society. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wittgenstein, L. (1958) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.

Wolfensberger, Wolf. (1972) The Principle of Normalization in
Human Services. Toronto: National Institute on Mental
Retardation.

Wright, Beatrice. (1960) Physical Disability: A Psychological
Approach. New York: Harper and Row.