Person First Language and Dehumanization

If you're not familiar with person first language, it is basically an attempt to speak with a grammatical structure that literally puts the person first. I was first introduced to the idea by a professor of special education in college, so I'm going to give you examples related to that topic. Non-person-first language: autistic child, blind man, downs kids. Person-first language: child with autism, man who is blind, kids who have down syndrome.

What's the difference? The first ones grammatically place the person's humanity after a descriptor--particularly, a descriptor that many people are often wont to thinking of as the whole person. The grammar just confirms and reinforces that thought process. The second set literally puts the noun that implies the person's humanity first; then, the phrases continue to describe an attribute that the person has.

What does person first language do? Does it actually fix anything? I have a lot of friends who know what person first language is but don't care about using it--some even mock advocates of it--because they don't think it matters, and they don't think it really affects anything. By speaking with grammatical structures that put the person first, we are perpetuating a change in the discourse surrounding the discussion of those people and the qualities they hold. Language influences our thoughts, and simultaneously, our language reflects our thoughts. If we have it hard-wired into us to put the person after the descriptor, we begin to think of the person as the descriptor. Using person first language causes us to begin to think of the person as a human who has the quality of the descriptor.

Non-person-first language goes beyond [adjective noun] constructs, though, and when it does so, it becomes arguably more problematic. Using a descriptor as a noun (“blacks,” “gays,” “illegals,” etc.) causes that attribute to encompass the entire identity of a person or group of people. Why is that so problematic? Because that is total dehumanization.

In discussing this topic recently, I had someone bring up the point that certain people or groups might prefer non-person-first language, and this person claimed that we should always respect that. I want to conclude this post by addressing this point, especially because you might be thinking to yourself, "But I've heard them call themselves [gays/blacks/etc.]... So why can't I?"

For one: not everyone is aware of the linguistic and ideological implications of what they say. The widespread use of gender microaggressions like "bitch" among women proves this, but that's a post for another day.

Secondly: Some groups do prefer non-person-first terms and know exactly why they do. For example, many members of the deaf community prefer to be called “the deaf” or “deaf people” rather than “people who are deaf,” since being a part of that community is so integral to their identity. However, even in such cases, the linguistic implication of such a grammatical choice is still one that causes the description to encompass the entire identity of the person, which is frankly still quite dehumanizing.

Non-person-first language linguistically disregards the humanity, complexity, and wholeness of the person. I don't know of many things that matter more than maintaining human dignity. It's easy to hate an attribute. It's much harder to hate a real person.