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- Title
The Language of AIDS: Public Fears, Pedagogical Responsibilities.
- Authors
Silin, Jonathan G.
- Abstract
This article focuses on the language of AIDS. A language of AIDS has already begun to develop and is shaping the nature of the ongoing conversation. A major factor in the public sense of fear and uncertainty has been the inexact and at times confusing terminology used by medical researchers. However, while the scientific language becomes more refined, popular accounts of the disease are couched within a plague metaphor that makes it appear to be an uncontrollably threatening problem. Emphasizing the mysterious and the unknown, this language fosters the belief that AIDS is at least literally if not morally contagious. According to Martin Heidegger, a philosopher, the unconditioned linguistic responses of children create new ways of expressing and evaluating experience. So too does the new vocabulary and syntax being formulated by people with AIDS. The lexicon of AIDS not only includes AZT and Ribavirin but also acupuncture and visualization. AIDS is not only a question of individual behaviors and social norms. It is also a question of material conditions and resources. Educational efforts need to be assessed with all these questions in mind if their full meanings are to be understood.
- Subjects
AIDS; LEXICON; TERMS &; phrases; METAPHOR; COMMUNICABLE diseases; HEIDEGGER, Martin, 1889-1976; PLAGUE
- Publication
Teachers College Record, 1987, Vol 89, Issue 1, p3
- ISSN
0161-4681
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/016146818708900106