The phenomenon of political correctness has become an important part of the ideology and practice of the language in American culture, as well as the cultures of Western European countries. Becoming the tool of language policies of Western countries, political correctness helps to avoid relapse and achieve social conflict-free atmosphere in the society.
The phenomena of political correctness is studied recently and widely represented mainly in English literature (E. Andrews, 1996; A. Berman, 2000; WF Buckley, 1996; R. Jenkins, 1994; J. Kalb, 2004; S. Morris, 1999; HS Schwartz, 1997; P. Suber, 2003). Many linguists pay attention to certain aspects of political correctness: gender relations (D.A. Berman, 2000; A. Bodine, 1998; D. Cameron, 1997; J. Coates, 1996; A. Pauwels, 1998; D. Tannen, 1994) ethnic Relations (E. Andrews, 1996; R. Jenkins, 1994), etc.
The researches arose interest in this topic, and the fact that it did not receive sufficient understanding in linguistic studies, especially the Russian-speaking, and some aspects of the issue are not fully developed make the theme actual.
The object of research is the phenomenon of political correctness in modern English-speaking culture.
The subject of the research is the linguistic means of expressing the politically correct ideas in modern English.
The aim of the research is to study the thematic and linguistic aspects of political correctness in modern English-speaking culture sphere.
The scientific novelty of the work is in making the attempt was to analyse the formation of a politically correct vocabulary in modern English.
Nowadays in the foreign literature, particularly in dictionaries, there are quite a large number of definitions of political correctness. At the same approaches used by researchers to analyze it are different. A single definition of the concept of political correctness is missing, however, in most cases, the expression means, above all, the need to be polite, respectful, adhering to the rules and norms of behavior accepted in society. Also, the expression itself and its lexical — semantic variants have implicit value of the policy pursued by the society to eradicate discrimination, prejudice and maintain the rights of certain groups of the population, as well as racial and ethnic politics of multiculturalism. As for political correctness it means, first of all, the language of political correctness.
At present, political correctness is ambiguous phenomenon. There is no consensus in the interpretation of this concept, which is probably due to the wide range of its application in journalism, press, television. However, this phenomenon
cannot be ignored, because it is greatly connected with the changes in the modern society.
Politically correct speech became a matter of hot debate in the 1980s, when many native speakers of English became sensitive to biased terms and phrases that exist in the language. In the previous decade, activists of the feminist movement made the first attempts to diminish differences between men and women in society. They criticized the existing language and culture as «male-dominated» and «patriarchal.» The history of society, as the feminists argued, was written from the male point of view («it’s HIStory, not HERstory»).
The English language was also considered to be full of male-dominating patterns. Utterances like Every teacher plans his lessons referred to teachers in general, and words with the stem «man» (e.g. mankind, chairman) were used to denote both sexes. Inclusive language suggested avoiding the use of male pronouns in the cases when the gender of a person is unknown. Utterances like:” Every student has to pass his exams” were replaced by phrases such as “All students have to pass their exams” or “Every student has to pass his or her exams”. Today we can even see the phrase “Every student has to pass their exams” — which violates traditional rules of subject-verb agreement but conforms to new rules of gender neutrality. General terms containing the segment man, such as mankind and man-made, were made inclusive by using synonyms such as humankind and artificial.
Later, the names of jobs and occupations were revised to become sexually neutral. Speakers of English have found new ways to avoid sex markers: flight attendant (since the terms steward and stewardess are no longer used), sales person (salesman and saleswoman have been outlawed), police officer (instead of policeman) and chairperson or chair (instead of chairman).
In the late 1980s, the rules of political correctness (PC) began to be applied to a broad range of issues-such as race, age, sexual orientation, abilities. As people became sensitive to bias on the basis of race, gender, age, and sexual orientation, they tried to minimize the negative impact of language that reflected these biases. The tendency toward «deracialization» in English provided new names for nationalities and ethnic groups. The words Negro, colored, and Afro-American were replaced by African American; Oriental or Asiatic became Asian or more specific designations such as Pacific Islander, Chinese American, Korean. Indian, a term that refers to people who live in or come from India, was differentiated from terms used for the native peoples of North America such as American Indian, Native American, or more specific terms like Chinook or Hopi.
Changing attitudes about aging made people aware of words that reinforce stereotypes (decrepit, senile) and the need to avoid mentioning age unless it’s relevant. Terms like elderly, aged, old, and geriatric were replaced by older person, senior citizens or seniors.
New non-pejorative terms began to be used to name people with disabilities or illnesses. Blind people were called visually challenged; the deaf were called people with hearing impairments. The terms challenged, differently abled and special were coined to describe people with clinical diagnoses or mental disabilities. Today these words and word combinations are preferred by some people, but they are often ridiculed and are best avoided.
Language changes caused by the phenomenon of political correctness, presented at the lexical, syntactic and morphological levels.
The language changes in accordance with the requirements of political correctness, the most widely represented at the lexical level.
Productive ways of forming of politically correct expressions in modern English are the following:
lexical and semantic change: available — unemployed; guest — a prisoner, insurgent (lit. rebel) — a terrorist; maladjustment (lit. inability to adapt) — a serious mental illness;
This may also include the use of morpheme person instead of man (spokesman — spokesperson — Chairman);
compounding: big-boned — boned, comb-free — bald;
affixation: actron — actor / actress, ageful — aged, pre-womyn — expectant woman.
To avoid references to sexual identity is not recommended to use suffixes -stress/-tress/-ess (as in the stewardess), and others, in terms of political correctness are called gender-enders. Most words with these suffixes are replaced by neutral (flight attendant (flight attendant) in place of steward — stewardess (flight attendant — stewardess).
The formation of compound words: animal companion (instead of pet, pet), wildlife preservation center (instead of the zoo, zoo, wildlife conservation center), community treatment center (instead of prison, jail, detention facility).
Politically correct words can be formed, and in several ways: garbologist (garbage collector) — Scavenger (compounding + affixation), Winterval (winter + (festi) val) (reduction + compounding).
Politically correct changes are occurring in English (and in many other languages) as a reflection of the ideas of tolerance and inclusion. In order to become competent users of English, we need to explore this phenomenon to become proficient users of tolerant and inclusive terms in particular situations.
We have studied different works on language and linguistics, different web sites and pointed out some groups of politically correct lexical units. They are presented in the following table.
| Politically Correct | Politically Incorrect |
| senior citizen | old |
| horizontally challenged | fat |
| impaired/physically challenged | crippled |
| visually impaired | blind |
| hearing impaired | deaf |
| cerebrally challenged | dumb |
| Afro-American | Negro |
| Native American | Indian |
| Hispanic | Mexican |
| sanitation engineer garbage | collector |
| petroleum transfer technician | gas station attendant |
| chairperson | chairman |
| police officer | policeman |
| under-attractive | ugly |
As we can conclude, there are both advantages and disadvantages in PC language movement and there is the need for a more balanced approach to language reform. ‘Language can be used as a WEAPON, by the powerful against the powerless, by the powerless in fighting back. However, I believe language’s true and most noble purpose is to serve as a BRIDGE, as a TOOL for people to communicate with and understand each other. So far as language reform enhances sensitivity and understanding, I endorse it, but when the reform itself becomes repressive it’s time to step back and reassess. I think ‘political correctness’ in language is at this juncture and may recognize it. Language reform is one of the many fronts of social reform and hopefully, excesses will not derail good intentions (taken from the Internet).
All in all, PC changes to language have very positive and humanitarian motivations. In practice, however, some people think that PC language might seem like a stifling language tyranny that limits freedom of expression. For example, ‘metabolically challenged for ‘dead’ or ‘esthetically challenged’ instead of ‘ugly. These examples show the ridiculous extremes to which PC can sometimes take language. Such cases are, of course, merely humorous parodies of PC language and are not to be taken seriously.
As it was said above, in our country the problem of PC language is not so urgent (as there were no feminist movement and such racism in it). Nevertheless, there are problems we have in common now and using PC language is one of the ways to solve them.
Список литературы
- Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary / Cambridge University Press 2008 [Электронный ресурс]. – http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=political.
- Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary/ Random House, Inc., 2009[Электронный ресурс]. – http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/political+correctness.
- Macmillan English Dictionary. Second Edition / Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2009 [Электронный ресурс]. – http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/political-correctness.
- Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus / Philip Lief Group, 2009. [Электронный ресурс]. – http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/political%20correctness.
- 4.Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture. – UK: Longman Group Ltd., 1992.
- Macmillan English Dictionary. – Oxford: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 2002. – 1692 p.
- Politically Correct Language And How to Teach It, Mikhalitsyna Zinaida — Иностранные языки в школе, 2000, №1
- ru.wikipedia.org
- www.wikihow.com
- http://www.studymode.com
To know English today is absolutely necessary for every educated person, for every good specialist. “A person, who knows no foreign language, does not know the native one”. That is why in order to understand oneself and environment one has to study foreign languages.
Kandratovich Aleksandr.
PHENOMENON OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE