Representation of self and other in everyday life: the language of disability in the handcycle corpus

This paper investigates modes of representation and the construction of identity on the part of people with disabilities, with a focus on the presentation of self (in the terms outlined by Goffman 1959, 1963), particularly the (re)construction of identity on the part of individuals recovering from major trauma. The paper contrasts the framing (in Lakoff’s 1987 sense) of identity by the self and others, highlighting the difference between forms of (self-)representation, and definitions imposed by others, that in some cases take the form of “labelling”. In this connection it is argued that the work of Sir Ludwig Guttman, founder of the Paralympics, contributed to a paradigm shift in social responses to disability, that is evident both in social semiotic terms (Halliday/Hasan 1985) in the development of innovative forms of competitive sport, and in discursive and linguistic terms with the emergence of (self-)representation of identity, marking the transition from a welfare paradigm to a disabled rights paradigm, adopting a concept of social inclusion. Various linguistic features in the texts are analysed in order to cast light on this transition and on the representation of identity in contrast with that assigned by society as a whole.