This essay examines how the Swedish disability movement creates policies involving naming practices as a means for self-presentation. The study takes its departure from two kinds of empirical data: websites of specific disability organizations and an interview with representatives of a national disability organization. Different angles of problems associated with terms for self-description are discussed mainly from a rhetorical-agency perspective. Through the analysis of data, I show how different political goals are connected to naming practices, resulting in ambivalence toward ongoing linguistic innovation processes, especially those with roots in norm criticism.
This work was supported by the Language Council of Sweden