Dyslexia in the language of applied linguistics: More ableism- or neurodiversity-like?
Description
The present study investigated the use of terms related to dyslexia in applied linguistics journals to examine the extent to which they are (non)discriminatory in light of the deficit model, ableism, neurodiversity, and the interactional view of disabilities. The corpus for the analysis consisted of 405 papers published in 25 top-ranked academic journals in the language and linguistics field between 1990 and 2023. The analysis considered the ableist, neutral, and neurodiversity language usage related to the terms ‘dyslexia and dyslexic’. We found that most language usage was ableism-like, which led us to propose recommendations for language use that are fairer and without unnecessary labelling of language learners with dyslexia, considering the various effects of dyslexia across languages, identity, and reflexive positioning.