Communication and social disadvantage

Factors that contribute to being socially disadvantaged include poverty, social exclusion, material deprivation and low socio-economic status. Among the socially disadvantaged people, we can find e.g.:

• homeless people
• members of some ethnic minority
• immigrants and people from different cultural or religious backgrounds
• people with a social pathology (behavioural disorders, a hazardous sexual life, addictions, etc.)
• former inmates
• children raised in institutionalised foster care
• people with a specific kinds of disability (some Deaf people may consider themselves as a language and cultural minority).
• etc.

In some cases there can be a language barrier, but in fact, many communication problems in people with social or cultural disadvantages follows from the their tendency to create a specific minority subculture. Members of these subcultural groups may often use a special language, expressions different from the majority population language or express themselves in an ethically and culturally inappropriate manner (in some cases, it can be connected even to risky or pathological behaviour).

(Photo by Victoria Borodinova from Pexels)

Read the article on this website (https://www.rcslt.org/-/media/Project/RCSLT/rcslt-social-disadvantage-factsheet.pdf) and write down which areas of one's life may be affected by the situation of social disadvantage: