Author(s): Anjan Some

Abstract: This article is perhaps the most extensive review of the Disability Literature Analysis System (DLAS), a novel framework developed specifically to study and analyze the literary works that concern disability in a focused and organized manner. Therefore, the focus can be said to be on resolving the problem of incorporating literary studies into disability studies. The thesis offers an organised and comprehensive approach to addressing the issues related to representation of disability or ‘disability narratives’ in works of literature. The current research studies a wide range of contemporary works of disability literature through the lens of qualitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews with relevant authors, as well as quantitative text mining techniques in order to search for specific themes, language, and visual representation. In literature, there are important and illustrative developments in understanding how impairment and sickness are represented including the changes in presentation of character types, development of issues over a period of time and the distortion which author’s attitudes cause on images of disability. This research offers an analytic perspective salient to the specific disability studies in the literature because it provides an alternative scheme that is interesting, practical and illustrative on the benefits of interaction between ‘writing’ and ‘disability’. The study also provides them with the means to undertake in-depth reading of disability related literary texts and criticism and flush out the images of disability crafted by the authors. Lastly, it also creates avenues for future exploration of issues that relate disability studies to literary theory and practices as well as the digital humanities.

Keywords: Disability studies, literature analysis, text mining, content analysis, representation, narrative perspectives, literary criticism, disability rights, inclusive literature, intersectionality, digital humanities, narrative prosthesis, social model of disability, authorial voice, linguistic patterns

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.52.38