The discursive ordination on deficiency in Brazil: some considerations

Abstract

Through the analysis of texts dealing with disability dating from the twentieth century, the present article sought to recover four terminologies used in the discourse to name deficiencies: idiots, imbeciles, cretins and retarded people. Based on an analytical-reconstructive methodology, the research that originated the text, used documentary sources and thematic bibliographic revision to search for the etymological origin of the referred terms and the reasons for its application by Science. Otherwise, the text seeks to problematize the implications of such terminologies in the treatment and social insertion of the affected individuals, and for that, the contributions of Michel Foucault as a starting point for a critical analysis of the discourse on disability were used. Considering that the discussion of names and adjectives assumes a connotation that goes beyond mere semantic construction, the text concludes that the categories of abnormality used by science throughout the twentieth century, either by its discursive production trajectory or by its condition of materiality, warns of the need to think carefully about the actions and discourses that emerge in the encounter with the disabled subjects.