My research topic is how different major cultures (such as Chinese, Japanese, African, Arabic, Anglo-Saxon or

European continental) react to the phenomenon of stuttering. The range of my research is not going to stay at
the attitude towards stuttering in today’s world, chiefly due to the fact that because of globalization the
evaluation and interpretation of stuttering has become similar around the world. Instead, the scope of my
research would be to study the attitude towards stuttering in a more historical scale, then, if possible, to measure
how this attitude has changed since the mixing of different cultures became usual.
Our examined source1 by the ‘CRAAP-test’ was published in 2017 so it can be called up-to date regarding the
fact that present happenings do not influence the facts of the past. To support his arguments, the author, Mark
G. Pitner refers to the original versions of biographies of famous Chinese personages who stuttered that were
published primarily in the second half of the 20 th century. Furthermore, he conducts some reviews from
different scientific journals that study the same topic and were mainly published in the past thirty years.
According to the abstract of our current source, its main purpose is to examine different Chinese personages
who, as a stutterer, were politically important in the early imperial age of China. The author states that there are
many more people mentioned with speech disfluency than later, for example in the Middle Ages. He studies
different words that somewhat express the terms: ‘speech disfluency’ or ‘stuttering’ in traditional Chinese
language. Then, he examines some biographies written about these influencing Chinese personages trying to
understand how the perception and interpretation towards speech impediments in early imperial China was. The
source gives us a detailed overview on this term as there is a seven-century age gap between the two Chinese
personages mentioned who lived the furthest from each other in time. However, it is quite unclear that on what
term did the author choose who to examine and who not to. Furthermore, he studies many medical texts that
diagnose stuttering from that very age. The author does not get much into detailed medical explanations as he
does not have a degree in medicine, although when he does, he struggles to connect the medical information
with the sociological perspective, and that information is not relevant to our studied question.
The source has a clear structure: after a brief introduction, it describes the main topics, which the author tries to
write about. The text is coherent, the paragraphs answer the raised topic sentences. Although the Harvard
reference style is not used in this source, the references are all indicated at the bottom of each page.
Quantitative accuracy (apart from age numbers) is lacking. However, one cannot be quantitative enough when
examining written texts from 2000 years’ time. Regarding qualitative approach, the source seems plausible.
Every Chinese expression which is used is transcripted into Latin letters and translated to English as well. The
source is peer-reviewed.2
Pitner, the author of our examined source has a PhD from Washington University, although it is not accessible
on the Internet that in which realm he has it. However, he is currently an associate professor teaching Asian
History as well as Division of Social & Behavioral Science 3 at the history faculty of Elmira College 4. He has
published a few articles about the intellectual history of China, Confucianism or the history of natural sciences
in China.5 The journal, which published the current article, is funded by the American Oriental Society. The
journal originally publishes articles in the realm of Art and Humanities, and Cultural Studies. In the field of
Cultural Studies, the journal has received Q2 and Q3 ratings for the past ten years, although before that it had
received Q4 for four years successively. It is also worth mentioning that there has been a radical decline in the
number of citations of the current journal in the past few years. However, the number of articles referring to our
studied journal peaked in 2018, right after the publication of our examined article.6
Lastly, the article might have a different purpose besides obviously being academic. When examining the
phenomenon of stuttering, its study can be affected emotionally. The intentions of the author might be to
encourage people with stutter by filtering the sources he uses so as to broadcast a better view of stuttering than
it really existed in ancient China.
1
Mark G. Pitner. “Stuttered Speech and Moral Intent: Disability and Elite Identity Construction in Early Imperial
China.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 137, no. 4, 2017, pp. 699–717. JSTOR,
https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.137.4.0699. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.
2
according to Ulrichsweb
3
meritpages.com
4
regards itself as ’grounded in the liberal arts and sciences’, Elmira College official website
5
meritpages.com
6
scimagojr.com