Should I Say “Disabled People” or “People with Disabilities”? Language Preferences of Disabled People Between Identity- and Person-First Language

Abstract

The usage of identity- (e.g., “disabled people”) versus person-first language (e.g., “people with disabilities”) to refer to disabled people has been an active and ongoing discussion. However, it remains unclear which semantic language should be used, especially for different disability categories within the overall demographics of disabled people. To gather and examine the language preferences of disabled people, we surveyed 519 disabled people from 23 countries. Our results show that 49% of disabled people preferred identity-first language whereas 33% preferred person-first language and 18% had no preference. Additionally, we explore the intra-sectionality and intersectionality of disability categories, gender identifications, age groups, and countries on language preferences, finding that language preferences vary within and across each of these factors. Our qualitative assessment of the survey responses shows that disabled people may have multiple or no preferences. To make our survey data publicly available, we created an interactive and accessible live web platform, enabling users to perform intersectional exploration of language preferences. In a secondary investigation, using part-of-speech (POS) tagging, we analyzed the abstracts of 11,536 publications at ACM ASSETS (N=1,564) and ACM CHI (N=9,972), assessing their adoption of identity- and person-first language. We present the results from our analysis and offer recommendations for authors and researchers in choosing the appropriate language to refer to disabled people.