Kristina Boréus, Dept. of Political Science, Stockholm University,
106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Phone: +46 8 16 2632.
Fax: +46 8 674 74 76. E-mail:
Discursive Exclusion in the Public Sphere:
The importance of categorization
1. Discursive exclusion
of groups of people
Groups of people, seen as different, as 'others', get socially
excluded, discriminated against, physically attacked, and persecuted.
In contemporary societies, the public sphere, with the mass media
being of central importance, plays a crucial role for the way
people are categorized and evaluated. I will take the sociological
concept ``social exclusion'' as my point of departure and call
all negative discursive processes, directed against groups of
people, 'discursive exclusion' of these groups. Discursive exclusion
in this sense can range from the manifestation of mild distaste
for a certain group to the most extreme hate propaganda against
it. The verbal and symbolic exclusion that might take place in
the public sphere is normally connected to discrimination in other
areas.
The main purpose of the greater study, of which this paper is
a part, is to develop a model of discursive exclusion of groups
of people in the public sphere and to analyze the components of
such a model and the relation between the components.
The model of discursive exclusion consists of the following components:
(i) Categorization. People are categorized as belonging to certain
groups, for instance blacks or heterosexuals. Categorization is
expressed by the mentioning of certain groups. Usually a category
is given a name, it is lexicalized, by a fixed expression, but
it might also be referred to in other ways. In this paper only
lexicalized categories are discussed. Different sorts of lexicalization
are distinguished: lexicalization by a single noun or by other
sorts of set expressions.
(ii) Contempt. The word is meant to cover different shades of
a negative attitude towards a group of people, from regarding
group members as negligible or worthless, to the strongest aversion.
Contempt might be expressed in many different ways. In this paper,
a distinction is made between expressions of contempt on what
I call the linguistic, the argumentative and the discursive levels.
(iii) Arguing for negative treatment of group members. Examples
of this is when harder punishments, deportation from the country,
or forced sterilization are argued to be adequate ways of dealing
with group members.
According to my definition, discursive exclusion is present in
the public sphere when the components (i) and (ii), (i) and (iii),
or (i), (ii), and (iii) are simultaneously expressed in regard
to the same group. All three components of the model appear in
texts of various sorts.1
Their appearance is due to the language used and the attitudes
held by those who produce the texts (journalists, authors, politicians
and many others). This language-use and these attitudes are connected
to attitudes held in society in general. The focus of attention,
however, of my study is the textual patterns appearing in the
public sphere.
This paper deals with categorization and its relation to the component
of contempt. Categorization in itself is a necessary, but not
a sufficient, mental and verbal act for discursive exclusion to
take place. Are there cognitive-linguistic facts about the categories
we form which are of relevance for the other two components of
the model of discursive exclusion? Is there something like 'dangerous
categorization'? Or can all discursive treatment of categories
be explained only by the ideological context, the ideas in a society
about certain categories of people? Those are important questions
for the overall study. They will be discussed in the light of
the findings presented in this paper.
The paper is composed in the following way. In Section 2, I present
the corpus that is the basis for the empirical studies meant to
shed light on the questions spelled out above. In that section
I also explain the types of category chosen for the empirical
studies. Section 3 deals with the social importance of categorization
and categories. The fourth section poses the questions: what are
the aspects of categories that might be of relevance for discursive
exclusion of people? In what way are these aspects relevant? Some
hypotheses are presented. Section 5 presents the results of an
empirical study dealing with the same questions. In the conclusion,
section 6, I approach the questions about the importance of categorization
for discursive exclusion of groups of people in the light of the
results.
2. Corpus and categories
The overall study is a comparative analysis of a text corpus consisting
of material from the Swedish public sphere at three points in
time: 1932/`33, 1970/`71, and 1994/`95. The entire text corpus
consists of news reporting and debate from newspapers, radio and
television, propaganda from the general elections held at the
three points in time, parliamentary speeches and other materials
from the Swedish parliament, and texts from Swedish encyclopedias.
The idea is to get samples that show general tendencies in the
public sphere at the three points in time.
Nine superordinate categories, based on different (imagined) characteristics
of people were chosen. I analyze how these categories and people
sorted into them are treated in the public sphere, making in-depth
studies of the treatment of a few of them.2
The categories have some traits in common:
(a) They are categories formed in opposition to some standard
of `normality'. They are categories of `others'.
(b) People being categorized into the nine superordinate categories
have been the victims of more or less cruel exclusion and persecution
during the last century, in Europe and elsewhere, continuously
or at times.
(c) All the `others' categories are thought of as minority groups
in their societies. The category woman, often analyzed as the
typical `other', is not studied. A reason for this is that I think
the making of women as `others' might follow a different logic
from the construction of minority groups as `others'.
Among the superordinate categories are the ones based on the following
types of (imagined) facts about people: that they commit crimes,
that they are seen to belong, or not belong, to some ethnic or
national group in a wide sense, or that they have what is considered
to be physical shortcomings, such as handicaps or chronic diseases.
The category, which the material presented in this paper is about,
is one that is usually sorted into the third group mentioned above,
people considered to have physical shortcomings: the category
deaf person. The part of the corpus used for this study is the
one consisting of encyclopedias. This type of text is characterized
by being matter-of-fact rather than rhetorical and meant to be
authoritative and educative. It is experts and scientists in different
fields who speak to the public. The encyclopedic corpus consists
of two encyclopedias published around the first point in time
and three around each of the other two. They are presented in
the appendix, together with a list of the entries that make up
the part-corpus.3
3. The importance of
social categories
By `category' is meant a number of objects that are considered
equivalent (Rosch 1978:30). The categories of interest for this
study are the ones in which human beings are the members. The
social importance of such categorization has been studied by social
anthropology and by sociology.
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman describes how categorization has
been inherent to one of mankind's most disastrous processes of
exclusion (Bauman 1993). He considers the order-making and classifying
activities to be characteristic and constitutive parts of the
modern national state formations. He understands the Holocaust
in this context and uses the term `the gardening state'. It formulated
the criteria for which inhabitants were to be considered useful
plants and which ones weeds to be moved or dispelled of. The gardening
metaphors were, according to Bauman, used explicitly and combined
with medical metaphors, as in this quote from Konrad Lorenz, the
zoologist, in 1940:
There is a certain similarity between the measures which need
to be taken when we draw a broad biological analogy between bodies
and malignant tumors, on the one hand, and a nation and individuals
within it who have become asocial because of their defective constitution,
on the other hand... Any attempt at reconstruction using elements
which have lost their proper nature and characteristics is doomed
to failure. Fortunately, the elimination of such elements is easier
for the public health physician and less dangerous for the supra-individual
organism, than such an operation by a surgeon would be for the
individual organism.4
Categories of people as cultural constructs
It is important not to confuse the activity of categorization
with the actual categories that people use. Much of the work referred
to by Lakoff (1987) suggests that there are universal cognitive
patterns of categorization, one example being the use of basic
level categories. This is not to say that the categories that
people use are natural or unavoidable. Probably there are concepts
that tend to be necessarily universal, because of the shape and
function of the human body. But in the social world, few categories
are obvious. Both Rosch (1978) and Lakoff (1987) are careful to
point out that important parts of the activity of categorization
are culturally dependent. At different times and in different
places different facts, or what is believed to be facts, are used
as the basis for the construction of categories of people. How
different (believed) facts about people are picked out and made
the basis for categorization at different points in time is exemplified
in the empirical study presented below.
Categories are ideologically embedded
Categories are not created out of the blue, but embedded in culture
and language. There are other concepts and ideas `around' that
help shape the categories. By `idea' I mean a more elaborated
understanding of states in the world, such as factual theories
about social patterns, or normative visions of what society ought
to be like. Examples of such embeddedness will be given in the
presentation of the empirical study that follows.
The reshaping of categories
That categories are social constructions means that they, in principle,
can be de- or reconstructed. This, however, does not mean that
individuals, or societies, have free choices at each point in
time: existing categories are more or less deeply rooted in language
and thought and they are connected to other concepts and ideas
that might be more or less conscious and of central importance
to our understanding of ourselves and others. Categories appear
as social realities. But even though free choice does not exist,
there is the possibility of a conscious influence on the categories
through reflection and changes of praxis.
4. The importance of
the variations in different aspects of categories
Categories can be classified according to different aspects. The
aspects discussed in this section are whether a category is lexicalized;
how its sense is related to other categories; its place in taxonomies;
whether the category boundaries are clear or fuzzy and the sort
of facts in the world considered to be the basis of the category.
(The aspects are elaborated on below.) I will concentrate the
discussion on the possible connection between these aspects and
the second component of the model of discursive exclusion, contempt.
In this discussion, `category' refers to the concept, the mental
construct, not to category members as existing people. (Or, to
put it differently, I am discussing the denotation, not the referents,
of the names of categories.)
In broad lines, there are two ways that the varying aspects of
categories might be of relevance for the component of contempt.
One way is a direct connection between the variations in the aspects
of categories and contempt. The possibilities are that what the
category is like (its place in taxonomies, whether its boundaries
are clear or fuzzy etc.) affects the risk of public contempt for
category members emerging; that the existence of public contempt
for a category affects its aspects; and that the aspects of the
category and the public feelings towards category members mutually
affect each other. The other way is by an indirect connection,
the stability of a category. High stability means that the category
persists for a long time. It also means that the category as such
is difficult to challenge or deconstruct. This is of indirect
importance for the component of contempt. If a despised category
is not very stable, there are two main strategies open for the
category members or others who side with them. They might deny
the reasons for the category being despised: Blacks are not less
intelligent than Whites; immigrants are not abusing the well-fare
system. The other main strategy is to challenge the category as
such. It can thus be challenged as unimportant, as based on false
assumptions, or as arbitrary. It could be stated that it is unimportant
as a means of sorting people, a type of criticism that might have
been raised against the use of a category given social importance
in Sweden a few decades ago: illegitimate child. It might be claimed
to be based on false assumptions: women classified as witches
did not really have the characteristics, such as supernatural
powers, that were used as the basis for the categorization. A
category might be criticized as completely arbitrary, which has
been a criticism of the category immigrant, the argument being
that the group of people being so classified in Sweden do not
have more in common then other people living in the country (not
even that they have in fact immigrated, see below). In the case
of stable categories, only the first strategic option exists,
that is, the denial of the reasons stated for a category being
despised.
In the rest of section 4, the aspects of categories here referred
to as lexicalization, sense-relations, the place in taxonomies,
clearness / fuzziness of category boundaries, and the sort of
facts considered the basis of categorization, will be discussed
one by one. In each case I will, firstly, explain the aspect,
then, secondly, discuss the possible connection directly between
the variations in the aspects of categories and contempt and,
thirdly, discuss the relevance of the aspects for the stability
of categories. What is stated here about the relevance of the
aspects for the component of contempt in the model of discursive
exclusion, and their relevance for stability of categories, should
be considered as hypotheses.
Lexicalization
A category is usually given a name in language, either by a single
noun or by some other sort of more or less fixed expression.
Lexicalization seems to be of direct relevance for public contempt.
It seems a necessary condition for this component of discursive
exclusion to emerge. At least it is difficult to imagine a campaign
in the public sphere against some group that is not named. A category
that is not conventionalized enough to have received a name is
unlikely to be sorted out for discursive exclusion. When it comes
to stability the existence of a set expression in language should
help maintaining the stability of a category.
Sense-relations
Part of the sense of a word consists of its semantic relations
to other words (Lyons 1977:204). Examples of sense-relations are
opposition and synonymity. A sense-relation of particular importance
in this context is when the category is seen as the negation of
another category which expresses some type of normality standard.
Thus the category criminal is the negation of law-abiding (citizen).
The categories defined by their deviance from the standard are
felt to be more significant and therefore often linguistically
marked by being fixed in language by a certain noun or expression,
while their counter-parts are not. There are murderers, thieves
and drunken drivers, but not their counter-part categories of
let-livers, respecting-privat-propertyers and sober drivers.
This aspect is hard to handle abstractly. On the one hand, a standard
is connected to norms of what is natural and proper. On the other
hand, there are admired deviations from the standard as well:
there are heroes, beauties, geniuses, and so on. It seems that
what is sorted out as being special also tends to be considered
as either especially good or especially bad. A negation-of-the-norm
category seems to be at risk.
I can see no reason why this sort of category should be either
particularly stable or unstable.
The place in taxonomies
A taxonomy is a system by which categories are related to one
another by means of class inclusion. Each category within a taxonomy
is entirely included within one other category, unless it is the
highest level category, but is not exhaustive of that more inclusive
category (Rosch 1978:30). The category dove is included in the
category bird, which in its turn is included in the category animal.
All categories can probably be constructed as both on a level
above and a level below some other category in some hierarchy.
dove is likely to be thought of as a category on the level below
next to bird in most contexts but might be sorted in under main
course on a menu. That taxonomies are constructions that vary
with the context is an important fact about them. But also important
is that there are standard such constructions that we easily think
of. A dove would, from my own cultural horizon, mostly be thought
of as a type of bird, but sometimes as a main course. A beagle,
on the other hand, would be thought of as a sort of dog and never
as a main course.
The theory about basic level categories states that categories
on one particular level have a special meaning to us. This has
been shown in series of experiments (Rosch 1978). The following
list is a summary of in what ways basic level categories are said
to be special. The list can also be treated as a list of criteria
of `basic levelness'. It is based on Lakoff (1987:46), (even though
he does not describe it as a list of criteria). I have sorted
the criteria into four groups.
Criteria to do with physical action or motor cognition:
(1) The basic level is the highest level at which a person uses
similar motor actions for interacting with category members.
Criteria to do with perceptual cognition of category members:
(2) It is the highest level at which category members have similarly
perceived overall shapes.
(3) It is the level at which subjects are fastest at identifying
category members.
Criteria to do with prototypical and conceptual cognition:
(4) It is the highest level at which a single mental image can
reflect the entire category.
(5) It is the level at which most of our knowledge is organized.
Criteria to do with language:
(6) It is the level with the most commonly used labels for category
members.
(7) It is the first level named and understood by children.
(8) It is the first level to enter the lexicon of a language.
(9) It is the level with the shortest primary lexemes.
(10) It is the level at which terms are used in neutral contexts.
The example given by Lakoff, to which I will return in the discussion,
is that the sentence "There's a dog on the porch" can
be used in a neutral context, whereas special contexts are needed
for "There's a mammal on the porch" or "There's
a wire-haired terrier on the porch".
The examples discussed by Rosch (1978) and Lakoff (1987) and the
experiments reported by Rosch (1978) deal with concrete and `simple'
examples like animals, trees, furniture, and toys. But there is
evidence that basic level categories exist for us when it comes
to less concrete and more complex concepts as well. Ungerer &
Schmid (1996:104-109) also mention events, properties, states,
and locations as entities that might be sorted into taxonomies
of categories which can include basic level categories. What is
dealt with here, however, is a different phenomenon again: categories
of people that are to a large extent cultural constructs and much
more abstract than the organisms and concrete objects on which
most of the research on basic level categories seems to be based.
A difference between categories like animal and tree and those
found for example in one of the superordinate categories mentioned
above, the one based on the fact that people commit crimes, is
that the law-breaker category is abstract, while animal and tree
are not. The law-breaker category is abstract in that it is constructed
according to an abstract phenomenon, i.e. the law. This means
that we use our senses in a much more indirect way when we determine
whether or not an individual should be included in the law-breaking
category than when we judge whether an individual should be included
in a category like tree. This difference between concrete categories
and the more abstract categories discussed here makes some of
the ten criteria based on Lakoff irrelevant. I will return to
this question when I discuss the possible basic levelness of the
category deaf person and other related categories.
Basic level categories and categories on other taxonomic levels
have different meanings for us. This might be of direct relevance
for the component of contempt in the model of discursive exclusion.
Basic level categories might be connected to emotion. They are
learned early in life when emotions are possibly especially strong.
They are connected to the categorizer's body in the sense that
they represent typical motor actions. You can make mental pictures
of members of basic level categories. In short, they seem real
and important to us. When the tendency is that the category be
despised, negative emotions might be strengthened by the basic
levelness. The superordinate categories, on the other hand, do
not have a gestalt for us, they evoke no mental pictures, they
are learned later in life, and they indicate no bodily dealing
with members of the category. Therefore, categorization at the
superordinate level can be seen as the most distanced and least
emotional level; emotions go with mental images and bodily reactions.
It is much more difficult to have emotions towards the members
of superordinate categories since they include so many various
sorts of things. You would not as readily be scared of criminals,
at least not in the same way, as of murderers or rapists.
There is the possibility that basic level categories tend to be
more stable than others. This would be for the same reasons that
they might be more emotional to us: they are learned early, have
mental gestalt for us, are connected to physical action, we know
much about them. They seem more real, hence less arbitrary, than
categories on other levels.
Clearness / fuzziness of category boundaries
The boundaries of a category can be seen as more or less clear.
When they are seen as fuzzy, they might be unclear in different
ways: (a) it might be unclear which criteria are the basis for
the category; (b) the criteria might be seen as clear but the
problem consist in deciding when a criterion does or does not
apply, that is, whom to include in the category. Examples of categories
based on relatively clear criteria, in my corpus, are some of
the claw-breaking categories. A murderer is a person who deliberately
caused the death of another person when this killing was not sanctioned
(which it could be for example if it was the carrying out of a
death penalty). The application of the criteria in a certain case
might be unclear: did the action really cause the death of the
other?; was that really the intention of the act? etc. There are
also categories for which the criteria are genuinely unclear.
A prime example in my corpus is the socially very significant
category immigrant. A criterion might be that a person has actually
immigrated, but this is not a necessary criterion. People born
and grown up in Sweden are often called `immigrants', sometimes,
but not always, qualified by the expression `second generation'.
But having immigrated is not a sufficient criterion either: children
adopted from a foreign country are usually not called `immigrants'
and even object to being so classified.
The aspect to do with the clearness/fuzziness of category boundaries
could be thought to interact with public contempt in the following
way. If a category is despised or, even more important, its members
being the victims of arguments in favor of negative treatment,
there would exist a strong inclination for people counting themselves
to the `normal majority' to make the boundaries as clear as possible
between `us' and `them'. This would result in a search for clear
and obvious criteria for category membership.
The degree of clearness/fuzziness of category boundaries would
be important for the issue of stability as well. Clear criteria
and easy application of them should tend to make a category stable.
If the criteria are clear, but there is a problem with their application,
this should be of less importance for the stability of the category,
at least as long as it is not felt that the category boundaries
are next to arbitrary. If the criteria for category inclusion
are unclear in themselves, this should undermine the stability
of a category.
The sort of facts considered as the basis of categorization
It is of special importance whether the category is considered
to rest on biological facts, facts about people that have to do
with their bodies (such as deaf person), or whether it is considered
to be based on social conditions (such as homeless person). The
borderline between such facts is disputed and ideologically loaded,
but at any point in time during the last centuries, some facts
have been seen as clearly belonging to one or the other sort.
The direct relevance of this aspect for the component of contempt
is difficult to judge. It could be expected that biological categories
should evoke less hard feelings since category membership is obviously
not chosen and, therefore, one cannot be held responsible for
belonging to such a category. Against this expectation stand the
well-known traditions of racism and cruel treatment of physically
and mentally handicapped people.
When a category is seen to be biologically based it seems to be
prima facie more stable than when it is socially based. This is
because of the belief that human biology does not change. We know
that society does change and that societies are different. Many
facts connected to the human body are also open to perception
in a way different from social facts. Hence, they seem to us more
natural and therefore less obvious as targets of challenge.
The above discussion of the relevance of the aspects of categories
is summarized in Table 1. (A blank cell means that no hypothesis
about connections was made in the discussion.)
Table 1. Hypotheses about the relevance of some aspects
of categories for the component of contempt in the model of discursive
exclusion.
Aspect of category |
Direct relevance for the model of discursive exclusion | Relevance for stability |
| Lexicalized | Necessary condition | Helps maintain stability |
| Negation of normality standard | Risk of exclusion | |
| Basic level | Might strengthen existing exclusion | Helps maintain stability |
| Superordinate level | Distance kept, less risk of exclusion | |
| Clear boundaries | Might be a consequence of exclusion | Helps maintain stability |
| Fuzzy boundaries | Hinders stability | |
| Socially based | Might either enhance or temper exclusion | |
| Biologically based | Might either enhance or temper exclusion | Helps maintain stability |
The word `deaf' is used in an identical medical meaning as at
the two earlier points in time (see for instance NE 1991:235).
None of the three encyclopedias give a common meaning that differs
from the medical one, that is, the meaning of total lack of hearing
is not qualified as being a special medical sense.
The word `hörselskadad' is still used in two meanings.
In meaning (1) a difference is made between people who turned
deaf or hard of hearing very early in life and those who did so
as adults. The same distinction is made between two categories
of deaf people (these two categories are logically also categories
included in each distinction of `hörselskadad (1)',
respectively, but for the sake of simplicity this is not shown
in Figure 3). The possible distinction between people who turned
hard of hearing early in life and those who did so as adults,
which would be included in the category of hörselskadad
(2) is not lexicalized.
The category at the highest level is interestingly both like and
unlike the category abnormal person in the first period. In the
encyclopedias the word is given a dual meaning:
handicap, in its most general meaning, obstacle, load,
disadvantage. (&ldots;) Originally, the handicap was almost exclusively
seen as a certain defect or disadvantage to do with the characteristics
of the individual, like blindness or lameness.7 Today, there are several
concepts of handicap. The handicap is now seen as related to the
environment and dependent on the demands of the situation: if
the milk packages are difficult to open &ldots; some people get
"handicapped" thereby — that is, unable to cope
with the demands of everyday life because of this obstacle (BBL
1996:406).
All three dictionaries offer this meaning of the word `handikappad'
and they all refer to the distinction made by WHO, World Health
Organization, between impairment, disability, and handicap, handicap
being something that emerges in the relation between society and
the individual. But all of them also use the word `handicapped'
to refer to people with some sort of impairment:
To the category handicapped people in Sweden are usually counted
people with mobility impairments, people who have impaired
hearing or are deaf, people with vision impairments, medically
handicapped people, psychologically and cognitively handicapped
people and, in some contexts, socially handicapped people
(SF 1988:99).
Apart from society creeping in as responsible for the creation
of the category there is another difference to the category abnormal:
heredity is no more a part of the basis for the category. A handicapped
person might suffer from an injury obtained at any stage in life.
There are examples of all the adjectives in Figure 3 being used
in the noun-like manner with the noun left out. The notion of
injury or impairment being part of all the categories, including
the two senses of `handikappad', indicates that they are
still based on the negation of the concept of a normal body and
mind.
The category deaf person stands out as even more basic level-like
than before. It can now be sorted into a taxonomy with superordinate
and subordinate levels. In the third period, it can be argued
that the category deaf person full-fills all the six criteria
of basic levelness that were said to be in principle applicable
to this sort of category. What was said about its basic level-likeness
in the earlier periods still goes. Since sign language is now
a recognized means of communication and it would be widely known
that deaf people use sign language, sign language would now be
part of a mental image of the category (hence creating new possibilities
for the game of charades). Whether this category organizes the
most knowledge and is learnt first by children are empirical questions.
But it seems intuitively very plausible. The word `döv'
is now clearly the oldest one: all the others are of much later
origin in Swedish.
The categories still seem to have clear boundaries, that is to
say there are no uncertainties as to what is the basis for the
categorization. They are also still biological. But society is
creeping into one of the meanings of `handikappad'. This
category is now based on one biological and one social criterion:
people so classified have some sort of impairment and society
demands tasks they cannot full-fill.
This far, I have out-laid the relevant categories made at the
three points in time in the encyclopedic material and described
them in accordance with the aspects of categories listed in Table
1. Summarizing, it can be said that all the categories appearing
in the encyclopedic corpus at all three points in time are lexicalized
in a way seemingly conventionalized; they are in rather obvious
ways negations of normality standards; the all have fairly clear
boundaries, and, except for one of the categories lexicalized
as `handikappad' in the last period, they are based on
exclusively biological `facts'. But they do differ when it comes
to their places in taxonomies. The category deaf person appears
more basic level-like than the others and would therefore, according
to the hypotheses of Table 1, be more stable. The superordinate
categories, especially at the highest levels, would be expected
to to a lesser extent be spoken of with contempt, than would the
other categories. Do these expectations bear out in the encyclopedic
corpus?
When I now turn to the issues of contempt and stability the material
from the three periods will be kept in focus simultaneously.
Do the encyclopedic texts express contempt for the categories
or category members? Contempt for a category might be expressed
in written texts at what I call the linguistic, the argumentative
and the discursive level. At the linguistic level derogative terms
could be used for a category, like `wog' or `nigger'. These terms
serve the double function of referring to a certain group and
showing contempt for it. Terms might also express contempt without
being explicitly derogative.
I have found no evidence that, except for `abnorm' and
`defekt', any of the terms were, or are, derogative. None
of the dictionaries or encyclopedias indicate that they can or
could be used that way. What is derogatory is the use of the words
`abnorm' and `defekt'. The use of these words does
more than give the information that people so classified lack
some sort of capacity which the majority of people develop and
that this lack of capacity is congenital. `Abnormal' is not the
same as `impaired' or even `born with an impairment'. It implies
at the very least that something is found wanting when compared
to what is normal and natural, not only in the sense of most common.
What might also be seen as offensive to deaf people is the entire
construction and naming of the category deaf and dumb. As was
stated above, two out of the three encyclopedias from the second
period call the term `dövstum' `misleading'. NE (1991:237)
and BBL 2000 (1996:251) both call the expression `erroneous' or
`inadequate' and an `obsolete word' for a deaf person, the reason
given for the inadequacy of the expression that most deaf people
do not have any disorder in their organs of speech. (SF 1988 does
not have `dövstum' as an entry.)
The use of the words `misleading', `erroneous', and `obsolete'
about the word vaguely indicates that these authors found the
concept disparaging to deaf people. But the reason given for the
terms being `inadequate' or `erroneous' seems beside the point.
The authors of the encyclopedias of the first period did not state
that the deaf and dumb had failing organs of speech. What they
meant by `dumb' was that a deaf child does not develop `normal'
speech and remains dumb in the sense of not being capable of speaking
orally. A better argument in favor of the judgment of the category
being offensive is that the hearing majority is taken as the standard.
To use a spoken language is obviously not a very `natural' way
of communicating for a person who cannot hear. The `natural' communication
is with the help of producing some sort of visible signs. Hence,
to use the disability to communicate the way the majority does
as one of the building blocks in the categorization is to show
disregard for the way a deaf person naturally communicates. Using
signs instead of speech is a different way of communicating,
neither a lack of the highly valued human capacity to use
language, nor an inferior way of communicating. A parallel
makes the point clearer. Belonging to a linguistic minority of
a country does not mean to have an inferior native language than
the majority, just a different one. To use as a part of the definition
of such a minority that it lacks in knowledge of the majority
language would seem offensive.8
Contempt might also be expressed at the argumentative level. A
category could be associated with negatively evaluated characteristics
or patterns of behavior that are not parts of the definition of
the category. The association could be made by explicit statements.
This is what I call expression at the argumentative level. It
could also be visible in the form of a pattern in a discourse,
contempt expressed at the discursive level: the category could
tend to be mentioned in the context of certain negatively valued
phenomenon but the association not being made by explicit statements.
In the encyclopedic corpus I have identified no expressions of
contempt for categories or category members neither on the argumentative
level, nor on the discursive level. The texts by all words and
expressions containing `deaf' (and having to do with deafness
in the sense of interest in this context) in the eight encyclopedias
have been studied. The descriptions from all three periods are
rather neutral and talks about, among other things, the physical
explanation for deafness, the development of certain methods for
educating deaf children, organizations of deaf people.
The texts by the entry `abnorm' are very short. Nothing
is stated there, apart from the definitions given. By `handikapp'
in the third period I find no expressions of contempt either.
This and related entries have long texts and there seems to have
been conscious efforts made by the authors to fight prejudice
against handicapped people.
Thus, the hypothesis that the superordinate categories would run
less risk of exclusion does not bear out in this material. Contempt
is shown in the first period for the `deaf and dumb' (by the way
the category is named and constructed), but also by the very construction
of a category of abnormal people, which functions as a superordinate
category. Only a more extensive study of the construction and
treatment of different categories could tell whether such `offensive'
constructions are really more rare at the superordinate levels
or if it is the hypothesis that is at fault.
What about stability? High stability was understood as continuity
over time in the definition of a category. A sign of low stability
was taken to be when a category would disappear or the category
boundaries obviously change over time.
There are lots of changes taking place in the categories and the
relation between them over time. A comparison of Figure 1, 2,
and 3 shows that in the midst of de- and reconstruction of categories,
only the category deaf person remains stable. Deaf person is also
the most basic level like category in the material. Thus, the
hypothesis stating that basic level categories would be particularly
stable bears out in this material.
6. Categories
and ideology
The results showing that the category deaf person was more stable
than other, related, categories, could in principle be explained
in two different ways:
(a) It is more basic level-like than the others; hence `linguistic-cognitive'
facts about the category is taken to be the explanation.
(b) Ideological pressure has worked to change the other categories,
but there has not been the same pressure on the category deaf
person; hence ideology is taken to be the explanation.
As a matter of fact, it seems possible to explain the most important
aspects of change and stability in the lexical field discussed
by the pressure of ideas. Here, I will just sketch some components
of such an `ideological explanation'.
The gradual disappearance of the influence of the ideas of eugenics
is important. The strong influence of eugenics in several European
countries, in North America, and in other parts of the world at
the first point in time, the early 1930s, is well known. This
part-corpus and the full corpus give evidence on how the eugenic
ideas were understood and used in the debate. The following quotation
is an illustration from the encyclopedias:
Racial hygiene (Eugenics), the efforts to improve the human race
by practical measures. The word is new but the task ancient; prohibitions
against marriage to foreign people or lower classes, the putting
to death of weak children — in Sparta and elsewhere
— , the liberal use of the death penalty on different sorts
of degenerated individuals are measures that have been used. (&ldots;)
Negative r. still seeks to stop the multiplication of subnormal
individuals through the prohibition of marriage for degenerated
and sickly people — epileptics, people suffering from
syphilis or tuberculosis—, perhaps also through sterilization
(see that word). Positive r. wants, helped by the teachings on
selection, to multiply the human qualities, which are considered
valuable (NF 1932, 492).
In the second period, these ideas are loosing their force but
there are still more than traces of them left (see for instance
`Arvshygien' LU 1966:443). In the third period, none of
the three encyclopedias has `racial hygiene' as an entry, and
they deconstruct the concept of human race, quoting scientists
who find the concept as such misleading.
The objectives of eugenics actually presuppose a category consisting
of the congenitally `abnormal': if the human stock is to be improved
there must be some measurement of better and worse; hence the
`subnormal' individuals must be a category. Exactly what is to
count as abnormality does not follow from this but it seems close
at hand that a congenital lack of one of the five human senses,
as they are traditionally understood, would be counted that way.
When the eugenic ideas gradually came to lack credibility it was
to be expected that this category would also disappear or at least
come to lose in importance. The existence and gradual disappearance
of the category abnormal person is a clear example of how ideas,
in this case a complex set of ideas, including both factual notions
about biology, race, and humanity and normative ideas, embed and
make necessary or redundant a certain category.
The appearance of the `new' group of handicapped/impaired people
in the last period is not quite as easily understood. I think
it has to do with the official policy of `normalizing' life for
people with different sorts of disabilities and the need to plan
those policies, as well as with the development of an international
discourse on the matter. The organizing activities that took place
by people with different sorts of impairments would also have
been of importance.
The deconstruction of the category deaf and dumb should probably
be understood in the light of changing ideas about handicapped
people in general. With emerging ideas of empowerment of suppressed
groups questions about from which angle they should be categorized
are naturally posed. A definition of a group based on the fact
that its members do not behave as the majority (communicate through
speech) is bound to be challenged in the light of such ideas.
In this context, the struggle over the status of sign language
and its eventual gaining of status as an official minority language
would also be of importance.
Thereby ideological pressure in the direction of most of the changes
of the categories that actually took place has been identified.
Was there any such ideological pressure on the category deaf person
or was its stability to be expected from the ideological situation?
An argument in favor of the view that there was no such pressure
is that the basis for the category is not offensive in the same
way as is deaf and dumb. As a matter of fact, the categorization
seems necessary in a struggle for equal rights and opportunities.
For deaf and non-deaf people to live together on equal terms,
parallel education systems, among other things, are required.
Equality presupposes recognition of the needs that only some people
have and that implies a classification of people. Therefore, the
category deaf person could not be deconstructed without serious
consequences for people who cannot hear. Consequently, when ideas
shift in the direction of a less exclusive discourse this does
not create a pressure towards deconstruction of all categories
whose members have been the victims of discursive exclusion, as
well as of discrimination in other spheres. As a minority, deaf
people have probably also striven for an identity as deaf, thereby
guarding the category. What ideological pressure might do, however,
is to relativize the importance of the category, so that people
tend to be sorted into `hearing' and `deaf' people only in particular
circumstances. But the category deaf person would not be deconstructed.
This leaves us with a problem: the ideological embededness of
the categories seems to provide a good enough explanation for
both change and stability in the lexical field under discussion.
That is to say, in this case the aspects of the categories discussed
do not seem to add to the explanation. This means that the question
posed in the beginning of this paper, `Is there dangerous categorization?'
cannot be answered with the help only of the reported study. Still,
it is hoped that a number of case studies along the same line
will create a basis to tackle this and related questions.
References
Andersson, Erik (1994)
Grammatik från grunden Uppsala: Hallgren & Fallgren
Bauman, Zygmunt (1993) Modernity and Ambivalence Cambridge:
Polity Press
Förhammar, Staffan (1991) Från tärande till
närande Stockholm: Almqvist & Wicksell
Hellquist, Elof (1993) Svensk etymologisk ordbok Malmö:
Gleerups
Lakoff, George (1987) Women, fire, and dangerous things
Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press
Lyons, John (1977) Semantics: 1 Cambridge etc.: Cambridge
University Press
Pärsson, Anita (1997) Dövas utbildning i Sverige
1889-1971 Göteborg: Historiska institutionen, Göteborgs
universitet
Rosch, Eleanor (1978) "Principles of Categorization"
in Eleanor Rosch and Barbara Lloyd, eds., Cognition and Categorization
Hillsdale/N.J., N.Y.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 27-48
Ungerer, Friedrich & Hans-Jörg Schmid (1996) An Introduction
to Cognitive Linguistics London, New York: Addison
Wesley Longman
Appendix
Period around 1932/'33
Nordisk Familjebok (NF), `Nordic Encyclopedia for
the Family', in 23 volumes, published 1923-1937: defekt; dövhet;
Dövstumföreningen i Stocholm; dövstumhet; Dövstumlärarnes
pensionsanstalt; Dövstummas allmänna sjuk- och begravningskassa;
dövstumpräster; dövstumundervisning; lomhördhet;
rashygien.
Svensk Uppslagsbok (SU), `The Swedish Encyclopedia', in
30 volumes, published 1929-1937: abnorm; abnormskola; abnormundervisning;
defekt; dövhet; dövstumföreningar; dövstumhet;
dövstuminstitutionerna; dövstumlitteratur; Dövstumlärarnas
pensionsanstalt; dövstumlärarseminarium; Dövstumläraresällskapet;
dövstumpräst; dövstumundervisning; lomhördhet;
rashygien.
Period around 1970/'71
Lilla uppslagsboken (LU), `The Small Encyclopedia',
in ten volumes, published 1966-1969: abnorm; arvshygien; defekt;
dövhet; dövstumhet; dövundervisning; handikappad;
Hörselfrämjandets riksförbund; hörselskada;
hörselvårdsassistent; rasbiologi.
Data, (D), `Facts', in ten volumes, published 1967-1969:
abnorm; defekt; dövstumhet; dövundervisning; handikapp;
lomhördhet; rashygien.
Focus (F), `Focus', in five volumes, published 1970-1971:
abnorm; dövhet; dövundervisning; handikapp; rashygien.
Period around 1994/'95
Stora Focus (SF), `Large Focus', in 17 volumes, published
1987-1990: handikappad; Handikappförbundens centralkommitté;
handikappidrott; hörselskada.
Nationalencyklopedin (NE), `The Swedish National Encyclopedia',
in 20 volumes, published 1989-1996: döv; dövas teckenspråk;
dövhet; dövkonsulent; dövstum; dövundervisning;
handikapp; handikappanpassning; handikappersättning; Handikappförbundens
Centralkommitté; Handikapphistoriska föreningen; handikapphjälpmedel;
Handikappidrott; Handikappinstitutet; handikappolitik; handikappråd;
handikapprörelsen; hörselskada; hörselskadad; Hörselskadades
Riksförbund; hörselvårdsassistent; hörselvårdskonsulent.
Bra Böckers Lexikon 2000 (BBL), 25 volumes published
so far, being published since 1995: dövhet; dövkonsulent;
Dövlärarseminariet å Manilla; döv- och hörselundervisning;
dövstum; handikapp; handikappidrott; handikapporganisationer;
hörselskada; Hörselskadades riksförbund.