Kyoko Aizaki – Rikkyo University, Japan
Keywords
Autism Spectrum Disorder, Linguistic Anthropology, Identity, Communication
Abstract
This research explores how the impact of modern Japanese socio-cultural’ perceptions of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) diagnosis reflects the identity of individuals who diagnosed with ASD. ASD is a complex neurological disorder that causes daily language use (pragmatic) problems to be melded into one category, “social communication deficits” (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). However, as it named as a ‘spectrum’ disorder, the severity of the symptom is on a continuum and there is no clear borderline between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal.’ In addition, there is no established procedure for diagnosing ASD in adults among doctors or psychologists. Thus, when people face severe difficulties in interpersonal communication or adjustment with their socio-cultural environment, they wonder if they might have ASD. They then visit doctors by themselves and obtain a diagnosis. Taking these processes into consideration, it is obvious that the decisions make about a diagnosis of high-functioning ASD are directly influenced by their ‘socio-cultural’ situation. It is a truism that (Socio-) cultures are essentially social facts, not individual ones; the values, beliefs, language, rituals, traditions, and other behaviors that are passed from one generation to another within any social group (e.g., Helms & Cook, 1999; Silverstein, 2004). In other words, identities and beliefs of the people are shaped by their culture. This shaping suggests that they need to discuss their socio- cultural context more to understand the identity of individuals who are diagnosed with ASD. Meanwhile, most of previous identity studies of individuals with ASD remain heavily dependent just only on the statements provided by the informants, and they have not concerned relationship between their words in narratives and context which surrounds them. Socio-cultural living environment of individuals with ASD in Japan. Most modern Japanese institutions have a culture which requires communicative competence for all employees beyond their single speciality. One Japanese phrase ‘KY’ (Kuki ga yomenai; the person can’t go with the flow) represents such a culture very well. Thus, a person who is not good at interpersonal communication may be easily dismissed in such a system, even if they have special knowledge, and end up in them needing to receive a diagnose of ASD. Under this trend, the number of individuals who get a diagnosis of ASD after they grow up is rapidly increasing. This research examines identity of adults who are diagnosed as ASD from the situational discourse and such characteristics of Japanese socio-cultural context. The discourse analysis performed draws on social semiotic linguistic anthropology’s communication theory, such as ‘contrastive pairs’ (Silverstein, 2004;Koyama, 2008), which distinguish by comparison of opposite qualities, especially in the phrases by contrast.
Data and Analysis
The data come from conversation between two adults with ASD which collected by the author. The research explores how the individuals diagnosed as ASD who participating conversation engage their discourses to claim identity as ASD.The discourse analysis shows that the participants use contrastive pair phrases frequently, when comparing themselves to a person without ASD. They use being ridiculed or negative words predominantly for describing themselves. On the other hand, when describing persons without ASD, they used positive expressions a lot. As a result, many contrastive pairs occur through the conversation, such as “often being kept distant from others vs. getting along with others”, “not only ASD, also a secondary disease as well vs. very energetic”, “ ‘sperg’; kind of odd; asperger-ish vs. majority; superman. ” By placing two such words side by side, certain interactional texts are constructed by the symbolic oppositional pair. Note what this implies: their comparisons between attributes of themselves and other people without ASD, identified that the participants do not regard ASD is as a continuum and depict their attributes completely differently from others. In doings they clarify the borderline between the identity of individuals who are diagnosed as ASD and the identity of those without it, even if the symptoms are defined as a ‘spectrum’ in the medical field. This implies that individuals who are diagnosed as ASD are aware that they possess some deficiency in common which made them subtly unadaptable to the culture of their community. Thus, their alienated identity as a minority grows in their socio-culrural context, then they draw a clear borderline between themselves and other people who live in their community more completely. The research also articulates major issues regarding this field of study and raises the possibility of applying the theoretical framework of semiotic anthropology to our social issues.
Bibliography
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th Ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Helms, J. E., Cook, D. A. (1999). Using race and culture in counseling and psychotherapy: Theory and process. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Koyama, W. (2008). Kigo no keihu: Syakaikigoronkeigengojinruigaku no Syatei. Tokyo, Sangensya.
Silverstein, M. (2004). “Cultural” concepts and the language-culture nexus. Current Anthropology, 45 (5), 621-652.
Effects of Autism Spectrum Disorder on Multi-Layered Mismatches of Stance-Taking: A Case Study of the First-Meeting Conversation” Human Linguistics Review, 1, 1-15.(2016)
Stance-shifting of an adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Perspective from Conversational Sequence and Alignment” Human Linguistics Review, 2, 29-45.