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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 20 Oct 2006
Time: 10:47:18 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.15.42
Dear Kristin, Thanks for your post. It reflects some careful thought and analysis. You first asked, "Why does everyone who stutters refer to their dysfluency in a negative context? Or does everyone?" I don't believe everyone does regard stuttering in a negative light. In fact, last evening at our adult group therapy session, participants were asked to talk for a minute about a POSITIVE childhood event that shaped them as an adult. An "older" stutterer told the story of when he first stuttered and when his father made a big issue of it. He said that although many would see this as negative, he now regards his stuttering as a gift. (His story is in my book, "Living With Stuttering: Stories, Basics, Resources, and Hope," in case you'd like to read it.) Of course, many talk about the negative aspects of stuttering, e.g. "That was a bad stutter." (See Peter Reitzes's paper in this conference for a wonderful treatment of those issues.) The basic reason for the negativity, I suppose, is that stuttering is not something that most people would choose to do. It can be very unpleasant. You also asked, "Do you think the reason we are so torn down the middle on what the correct reference should be is because some look at the reference more negatively/positively than others and the real issue is in understanding the context in which the communicator is trying to express? Had you looked into this while composing your research?" You might be right about why the difference, but I think I'd suggest another reason. I believe that people are torn because, as Michael mentioned in his discussion (see the thread), it was/is the Zeitgeist to be politically correct. Once those who seem to have authority and status tell us that we "should" use this or that term in order not to offend someone, we all seem to want to comply. And the more a particular term is used, the more likely one is to feel that any other term might not be acceptable. And, yes, my research does indirectly address the difference between positive and negative attributes. I asked about composer, and in some cases, people preferred the term "composer" to "person who composes." Mainly, though I put in the other anchor terms to serve as a control for two groups of respondents who rated different counterbalanced lists of direct labels and person first labels. I hope I have answered your questions. Thanks again, Ken