Representations of disability from the perspective of people with disabilities and their families: a critical discourse analysis of disability groups on Facebook

Table 1.

BlindnessDeafnessPhysical disabilitySave the education of blind people and services to the blind (English)
Blind people unite (English)
Blind people in Tunisia (French)
Blindness, perceptions and prejudice (Greek)I'm just deaf, not an Alien (English)
Be proud of being deaf (French)Respect people with disabilities (Greek)
Friends of people with disabilities (Greek)
A handicap is first of all a human being (French)
Stand by people with special abilities (Greek)
Access to people with disabilities in the city (Greek)
People with disabilities have the same rights with us-do not forget about it!(Greek)
Children with disability (Greek)

Table 2.

Conceptualizations of disabilityBlindnessDeafnessPhysical disabilityMedical model40%18%4%Social model46%40%81%Affirmative model14%42%15%Total (N = 235)100% (72)100% (71)100% (92)

Table 3.

Words for people with blindnessMedical modelSocial modelAffirmative modelWords for non-disabled peopleBlind people
Visually impaired people
People in total darknessBlind peopleBlind peopleThe seeing world Sighted people

Table 4.

Words for people with deafnessMedical modelSocial modelAffirmative modelWords for non-disabled peopleDeaf people
People with hearing lossDeaf people
Deaf community
The world of deaf peopleDeaf people
Deaf world
Deaf communityHearing people
The world of deafness
People without impairments

Table 5.

Words for people with physical disabilityMedical modelSocial modelAffirmative modelWords for non-disabled peopleDisabled people
People with physical disabilityDisabled people
People with physical disability
People with mobility problems/difficulties
Inferior citizens
People with wheelchair
People with special needs
Citizens with disability
FightersDisabled people
People with physical disability
People with special needs
Exceptional people/people withexceptional/unique/ special abilities
Wonderful creatures
People like us‘Normal’ people
The government/ the State/politicians
Words with derogatory meaning (e.g. pigs, brainless people, donkeys, animals, antisocial people, silly people)

Table 6.

Kinds of processesMedical modelSocial modelAffirmative modelMaterial27.4%35.7%6.8%Mental44.3%39.5%39.0%Relational19.9%22.2%49.2%Other8.4%2.6%5.0%Total (N = 1175)100% (360)100% (355)100% (460)

Table 7.

Personal deixisMedical modelSocial modelAffirmative modelFirst singular16.0%25.7%27.9%Second singular5.2%25.2%5.3%Third singular52.6%12.7%32.1%First plural4.7%17.3%17.1%Second plural1.3%10.2%6.5%Third plural20.2%8.9%11.1%Total (N = 235)100% (72)100% (71)100% (92)

Table 8.

Speech actsMedical modelSocial modelAffirmative modelAssertive74.3%52.6%44.9%Expressive23.0%20.4%45.4%Directive2.7%25.6%9.1%Other3.0%1.4%0.6%Total (N = 470)100% (144)100% (142)100% (184)