Verbal Communication

Sexual Orientation
Discussions of sexual and affectional orientation range
from everyday conversations to contentious political
and personal debates. The negative stereotypes that
have been associated with homosexuality, including
deviance, mental illness, and criminal behavior,
continue to influence our language use.“Supplemental
Material: Writing Clearly and Concisely,” American
Psychological Association, accessed June 7, 2012,
http://www.apastyle.org/manual/supplement/
redirects/pubman-ch03.13.aspx
. Terminology related to
gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) people can be confusing,
so let’s spend some time raise our awareness about
preferred labels. First,
sexual orientation
is the term
preferred to
sexual preference
.
Preference
suggests a
voluntary choice, as in someone has a preference for
cheddar or American cheese, which doesn’t reflect the
experience of most GLB people or research findings that
show sexuality is more complex. You may also see
affectional orientation
included with
sexual orientation
because it acknowledges that GLB relationships, like
heterosexual relationships, are about intimacy and closeness (affection) that is not
just sexually based. Most people also prefer the labels
gay
,
lesbian
, or
bisexual
to
homosexual
, which is clinical and doesn’t so much refer to an identity as a sex act.
Chapter 3 Verbal Communication
3.4 Language, Society, and Culture
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Language regarding romantic relationships contains bias when heterosexuality is
assumed. Keep in mind that individuals are not allowed to marry someone of the
same gender in most states in the United States. For example, if you ask a gay man
who has been in a committed partnership for ten years if he is “married or single,”
how should he answer that question? Comments comparing GLB people to “normal”
people, although possibly intended to be positive, reinforces the stereotype that
GLB people are abnormal. Don’t presume you can identify a person’s sexual
orientation by looking at them or talking to them. Don’t assume that GLB people
will “come out” to you. Given that many GLB people have faced and continue to face
regular discrimination, they may be cautious about disclosing their identities.
However, using gender neutral terminology like
partner
and avoiding other biased
language mentioned previously may create a climate in which a GLB person feels
comfortable disclosing his or her sexual orientation identity. Conversely, the casual
use of phrases like
that’s gay
to mean “that’s stupid” may create an environment in
which GLB people do not feel comfortable. Even though people don’t often use the
phrase to actually refer to sexual orientation, campaigns like
“ThinkB4YouSpeak.com” try to educate people about the power that language has
and how we should all be more conscious of the words we use.
Ability
People with disabilities make up a diverse group that has increasingly come to be
viewed as a cultural/social identity group. People without disabilities are often
referred to as
able-bodied
. As with sexual orientation, comparing people with
disabilities to “normal” people implies that there is an agreed-on definition of what
“normal” is and that people with disabilities are “abnormal.”
Disability
is also
preferred to the word
handicap
. Just because someone is disabled doesn’t mean he
or she is also handicapped. The environment around them rather than their
disability often handicaps people with disabilities.
Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association
, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association, 2010), 71–76. Ignoring the environment as the source of a handicap and
placing it on the person fits into a pattern of reducing people with disabilities to
their disability—for example, calling someone a paraplegic instead of a person with
paraplegia. In many cases, as with sexual orientation, race, age, and gender,
verbally marking a person as disabled isn’t relevant and doesn’t need spotlighting.
Language used in conjunction with disabilities also tends to portray people as
victims of their disability and paint pictures of their lives as gloomy, dreadful, or
painful. Such descriptors are often generalizations or completely inaccurate.
Chapter 3 Verbal Communication
3.4 Language, Society, and Culture
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