Euphemisms of Disability in Russian and English within Contemporary Public Communication

Abstract

The article examines euphemisms used to name disability in Russian and English and interprets them as culturally sensitive linguistic tools that mediate between social norms, institutional regulation and personal identity. Drawing on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, linguistic politeness theory and disability studies, the research analyses how euphemistic nominations emerge, stabilise and shift across media discourse, legal and bureaucratic communication, education, and everyday interaction. The study compares the dominant euphemistic strategies in both languages and shows that disability naming tends to move from direct stigmatized labels to person oriented and rights oriented forms, while simultaneously generating new cycles of avoidance, abstraction and bureaucratisation. The empirical basis consists of illustrative examples from contemporary Russian and English public texts, including official documents, journalistic materials and public awareness communication. The analysis demonstrates that euphemisms of disability form a layered system in which lexical choice reflects competing ideologies, including person first versus identity first language, medical versus social models of disability, and charity narratives versus inclusion narratives. It is argued that euphemisms do not merely soften meaning but actively participate in constructing social reality, shaping attitudes to difference, normality and participation. In the context of globalisation and digital media, disability euphemisms circulate across languages, producing convergence in polite formulas but also local divergences rooted in distinct institutional histories and cultural expectations.