Publications

Publication details [#62082]

Liasidou, Anastasia. 2016. Disabling discourses and human rights law: a case study based on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Discourse 37 (1) : 149–162.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Routledge

Annotation

This paper explores language's symbolic power to establish and transfer disabling discourses, though plentiful rhetoric, on the necessity to restore and protect disabled people's human rights and claims. The role of language and its discursive ramifications has to be examined and problematized in the light of legal mandates and antidiscrimination legislation to stop stigmatizing and exclusionary regimes on the grounds of impairment. This compels a reflective knowledge and persistent examination of the ways in which language is involved in power interactions to build meanings and to legitimize/hide existing power injustices. Critical discourse analysis is employed to debate the role of language in the erection, upkeep, and spread of disabling discourses, taking as an instance the First Cyprus Report on the execution of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.