The Autistic Human-container and its Contents : A Multi-lingual Critical Discourse Analysis of Autism Info Materials

Abstract: This thesis examines written autism info materials from web searches and autism expertrecommendations across Germany, Sweden, and the US. Making use of Conceptual MetaphorTheory and Critical Discourse Analysis, the different materials were analyzed with the help of codeschemes by marking down conceptual metaphors and other ideological words. The most commonmetaphors, and alternatives, with their implications for the view on autism, as well as the influenceof the Neurodiversity Movement pushing for a paradigm shift on autism, were analyzed. The mainfindings include the capitalist ideology causing autism to be seen as deficits to be cured through theconceptualization of autists as dysfunctional machines in need of fixing which is made possiblethrough turning autism into a concrete object situated in a human container. This allows theassumption that it is possible to remove ‘the autism’ from its container without altering it. However,especially in expert-recommended sources, the neurodiversity paradigm which aims to shift awayfrom a pathological perspective is finding more foothold which challenges the classical medicalparadigm dominating autism discourses.