Language, Ability, and Breast Cancer

Abstract

While previous applied sociolinguistic scholarship has addressed language in a variety of medical and ability-related settings, and while there is now a growing body of research on concerns relating to language and sexuality, discussions about language, ability, and sexuality remain underinvestigated. Focusing on breast cancer, an ailment that affects a sexualized body part, this chapter discusses how patient and caregiver narratives (pathographies) around the condition have crucial implications for concerns about sexuality. In particular, the chapter addresses two metaprescriptive utterances (Lyotard 1984) related to the condition—amputation and prosthesis—with a view to showing how these medicalized terms are singularities that have the power to erase individual voices struggling with the disability of a sexualized body part. This chapter offers an exploration of these concerns to nuance current debates about identity shifts in the contexts of ability and sexuality, while also ushering in concerns about (dis)citizenship.