Skip to main content
Skip to main menu Skip to spotlight region Skip to secondary region Skip to UGA region Skip to Tertiary region Skip to Quaternary region Skip to unit footer

Slideshow

A Study on the Effectiveness of People-First Language

Melissa Gomes

University of Georgia

Abstract

People-First Language (PFL) is a form of inclusive language that attempts to prioritize people’s humanity over their disability by literally putting “people” first. For example, in accordance to PFL one would say “a person with autism” rather than “an autistic person”. However, there is a great deal of debate surrounding the effectiveness of People-First Language. In order to get at the question of effectiveness, I conducted a study in which participants judged the inclusivity of passages on a scale of 1-10. I chose passages related to disabilities and recreated a people-first (PF) version and a non-people-first (NPF) version of the same passages in order to determine whether the use of PFL made any difference on the inclusivity judgments of the participants. Findings suggest that without previous knowledge of PFL, it has no effect on perceived inclusivity.

 

Proceedings of the 4th Annual Linguistics Conference at UGA: 1–19

Published June 3, 2018

 

View this article on Athenaeum

 

Table of Contents Next Article

 

Support Linguistics at UGA

Your donations to the Department of Linguistics will support research and travel opportunities for students and faculty and other initiatives to enhance students' education in linguistics. Please consider joining other friends and alumni who have shown their support by making a gift to our fund. We greatly appreciate your contributions to the success of our programs!  

EVERY DOLLAR CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEPARTMENT HAS A DIRECT IMPACT ON OUR STUDENTS AND FACULTY.