A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of socio-cultural values in Chinese and English social stories for autistic individuals

Abstract

Social Stories are utilised to educate autistic individuals about appropriate social behaviours and politeness in social contexts. Based on the Theory of Mind (ToM), Social Stories are associated with neurotypicality which suggests human brains function in a similar way. Employing corpus-assisted discourse analysis, the study examines and compares the cultural differences between Chinese Social Stories (CSS) and English Social Stories (ESS) through analysing keywords, frequency of lexical items and collocation of the first-person pronoun. The results reveal that CSS emphasise the Confucian values of politeness, filial piety and hierarchical human relationship, while ESS recognise individual preferences, emotions and the value of fairness. The results enrich the knowledge of the discoursal and rhetorical features of Social Stories in different languages and provide theoretical implications for understanding the concepts of normality, politeness and neurotypicality. This article concludes by arguing that society should adopt the neurodiversity approach towards autistic individuals.

Keywords

Autism / Cultural values / Discourse analysis / Neurodiversity / Social stories

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data Availability

Data will be made available on request.

References

[1] Aldabas R. (2019). Effectiveness of social stories for children with autism: A comprehensive review. Technology and Disability, 31, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3233/tad-180218

[2] Angulo H., Chan M., & DeThorne L. (2019). Life is a stage: Autistic perspectives on neurotypicality. Autism in Adulthood, 1(4), 276-286. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2019.0024

[3] Anthony L. (2022). AntConc (Version 4.20). Waseda University. 〈https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software〉.

[4] Armstrong T. (2015). The myth of the normal brain: Embracing neurodiversity. AMA Journal of Ethics, 17(4), 348-352. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/myth-normal-brain-embracing-neurodiversity/2015-04.

[5] Attwood T. (1998). Asperger’s syndrome: A guide for parents and professionals. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley,.

[6] Baker P. (2006). Using corpora in discourse analysis. Continuum.

[7] Bhatia V. K. (2014). Worlds of written discourse: A genre-based view. Bloomsbury Academic,.

[8] Bledsoe R., Myles B. S., & Simpson R. L. (2003). Use of a social story intervention to improve mealtime skills of an adolescent with Asperger syndrome. Autism, 7, 289-296. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613030073005

[9] Brookes G., & Baker P. (2021). Fear and responsibility: Discourses of obesity and risk in the UK press. Journal of Risk Research, 25(3), 363-378. 〈 https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/myth-normal-brain-embracing-neurodiversity/2015-04〉.

[10] Cage E., Di Monaco J., & Newell V. (2018). Experiences of autism acceptance and mental health in autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48(2), 473-484. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3342-7

[11] Cage E., & Troxell-Whitman Z. (2019). Understanding the reasons, contexts and costs of camouflaging for autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 1899-1911. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-03878-x

[12] Chen, X., & Swartzman L. C. (2001). Health beliefs and experiences in Asian cultures. In S. S. Kazarian, & Eds.), Handbook of cultural health psychology (pp. 389-410). Academic Press.

[13] Cheng W. (2012). Exploring corpus linguistics: Language in action. Routledge,.

[14] Dator, J. (2006). What is fairness? In J. Dator, D. Pratt, & Eds.), Fairness, globalization, and public institutions: East Asia and beyond (pp. 19-34). University of Hawaiʻi Press.

[15] Davis, L. J. (2013). Introduction: Normality, power, and culture. In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability reader (pp. 1-14). Routledge.

[16] Ding, J. (2006). Globalization, fairness, and public institutions:A Chinese perspective. In J. Dator, D. Pratt, & Eds.), Fairness, globalization, and public institutions: East Asia and beyond (pp. 249-267). University of Hawaiʻi Press.

[17] Dunning T. (1993). Accurate methods for the statistics of surprise and coincidence. Computational Linguistics, 19(1), 61-74. https://doi.org/10.5555/972450.972454

[18] Eyal G., Hart B., Onculer E., Oren N., & Rossi N. (2010). The autism matrix: The social origins of the autism epidemic. Polity Press,.

[19] Fein E. (2015). Making meaningful worlds: Role-playing subcultures and the autism spectrum. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, 39( 2), 299-321. 〈 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4457285/〉.

[20] Fontes R., & Pino-Juste M. (2021). Portrayals of autism and social awareness: A scoping review. Advances in Autism, 8(3), 196-206. https://doi.org/10.1108/AIA-02-2021-0014

[21] Golzari F., Alamdarloo G. H., & Moradi S. (2015). The effect of a Social Stories intervention on the social skills of male students with autism spectrum disorder. Sage Open, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015621599

[22] Gray C. A. (2010). The new social story book. Future Horizons.

[23] Greenway C. (2000). Autism and Asperger syndrome: Strategies to promote prosocial behaviors. Educational Psychology in Practice, 16(4), 469-486. https://doi.org/10.1080/713666112

[24] Griffiths S., Allison C., Kenny R., Holt R., Smith P., & Baron-Cohen S. (2019). The vulnerability experiences quotient (VEQ): A study of vulnerability, mental health and life satisfaction in autistic adults. Autism Research, 12(10), 1516-1528. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2162

[25] Gu, Y. (2010). Modern Chinese politeness revisited. In F. Bargiela-Chiappini, & D. Z. Kádár (Eds.), Politeness across cultures (pp. 128-148). Palgrave Macmillan.

[26] Hagiwara T., & Myles B. S. (1999). A multimedia social story intervention: Teaching skills to children with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 14, 82-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/108835769901400203

[27] Handford, M. (2010). What can a corpus tell us about specialist genres? In A. O’Keeffe, & M. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of corpus linguistics (pp. 255-269). Routledge.

[28] Howlin P., & Magiati I. (2017). Autism spectrum disorder: Outcomes in adulthood. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 30(2), 69-76.

[29] Hunston S. (2002). Corpora in applied linguistics. Cambridge University Press,.

[30] Jia M., & Yang G. (2021). Emancipating Chinese (im)politeness research: Looking back and looking forward. Lingua, 251, Article 103028. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2020.103028

[31] Kádár, D. Z., & Pan Y. (2011). Politeness in China. In D. Z. Kádár, & S. Mills (Eds.), Politeness in East Asia (pp. 125-146). Cambridge University Press.

[32] Karim K., Ali A., & O’Reilly M. (2014). A practical guide to mental health problems in children with autistic spectrum disorder: “It’s not Just Their ASD!”. Jessica Kingsley Publishers,.

[33] Ko, C.-S. (2014). Teaching at an early age. In S. Husa, & Eds.), Education as cultivation in Chinese culture (pp. 63-86). Springer.

[34] Kokina A., & Kern L. (2010). Social story interventions for students with autism spectrum disorders: A meta-analysis. Journal of Autism Development Disorder, 40(7), 812-826. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0931-0.PMID:20054628.

[35] Lam P. W. Y. (2018). The discursive construction and realization of the Hong Kong brand: A corpus-informed study. Text & Talk, 38(2), 191-216. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2017-0037

[36] Leslie A. M. (1987). Pretence and representation: The origins of theory of mind. Psychological Review, 94(4), 412-426. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.4.412

[37] Leung C.-H. (2005). Modeling of parenting style: A cross-cultural study of Hong Kong Chinese and Anglo-Australian. Journal of Basic Education, 14(1), 23-48.

[38] Liu, E. Y. (2017). Neurodiversity, neuroethics, and the autism spectrum. In L. S. M. Johnson, & K. S. Rommelfanger (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of neuroethics (pp. 394-406). Routledge.

[39] Mason, S. A. (2013). Social stories. In F. R. Volkmar (Ed.), Encyclopedia of autism spectrum disorders (pp. 2935-2938). Springer.

[40] McEnery T., & Wilson A. (2001). Corpus linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh University Press,.

[41] Milton D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883-887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008

[42] Moudry Quilty K. (2007). Teaching paraprofessionals how to write and implement social stories for students with autism spectrum disorders. Remedial and Special Education, 28(3), 182-189. https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325070280030701

[43] Paiva N. D. (2008). South Asian parents’ constructions of praising their children. Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, 13(2), 191-207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359104507088342

[44] Powell S., & Jordan R. (1997). Autism and learning: A guide to good practice. Fulton.

[45] Reynhout G., & Simpson R. (2001). Understanding the hidden curriculum: An essential social skill for children and youth with Asperger syndrome. Intervention in School and Clinic, 36, 279-286. https://doi.org/10.1177/105345120103600504

[46] Samuels R., & Stansfield J. (2012). The effectiveness of social stories™ to develop social interactions with adults with characteristics of autism spectrum disorder. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 272-285. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-3156.2011.00706.x

[47] Sinclair, J. (2001). Preface (pp. vii-xv). In M. Ghadessy, A. Henry, & R. L. Roseberry (Eds.), Small corpus studies and ELT: Theory and practice. John Benjamins.

[48] Sinclair J. (2003). Reading concordances. Pearson ESL,.

[49] Swales J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press,.

[50] Tobin J., Hsueh Y., & Karasawa M. (2009). Preschool in three cultures revisited: China, Japan, and the United States. University of Chicago Press.

[51] Trommsdorff, G. (1999). Person context relations as developmental conditions for empathy and prosocial action:A cross-cultural analysis. In T. A. Kindermann, & Eds.), Development of person-context relations (pp. 113-146). Lawrence Erlbaum.

[52] Walker N. (2014, September 27). Neurodiversity: some basic terms & definitions [Blog post]. Neuroqueer. 〈http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neurodiversity-some-basic-terms-definitions〉.

[53] Wang Q. (2001). Did you have fun? ”: American and Chinese mother-child conversations about shared emotional experiences. Cognitive Development, 16(2), 693-715. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00055-7

[54] Watts R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge University Press.

[55] Williams R. (1985). Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. Oxford University Press.

[56] Wood E. M. (2021). Mind and politics: An approach to the meaning of liberal and socialist individualism. University of California Press.

[57] World Health Organization. (2023). Autism. Word Health Organization. Accessed August 5, 2023. 〈https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/autism-spectrum-disorders〉.

[58] Yamamoto Y., & Li J. (2011). Is being quiet a virtue or a problem? Implications of a study on Chinese immigrant children in the U.S. Child Research Net Educational Visions. 〈 https://www.childresearch.net/papers/multi/2011_01.html〉.

[59] Yip J. W. C. (2020). Directness of advice giving in traditional Chinese medicine consultations. Journal of Pragmatics, 166, 28-38.

[60] Yip J. W. C. (2023). A genre analysis of Social Stories for individuals with autism spectrum disorders. East Asian Pragmatics, 8(1), 133-154.

[61] Yip J. W. C. (2024). Discourse of online social support: A Study of online self-help groups for anxiety and depression. Springer.