Кантур Кирило Олександрович

Національний університет «Одеська юридична академія»,

доцент кафедри іноземних мов, кандидат філологічних наук,

м. Одеса, Україна

POLITICALLY CORRECT EUPHEMISTIC LANGUAGE

The theoretical foundation of the Political Correctness (PC) movement is the following: language creates categories for thought, and words can create either opportunities or boundaries. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is a widely accepted part of this theory. The language is a construct that attempts to signify abstract meaning, and any construct will be lacking. The language we use affects not just the messages we communicate, but the fundamental ways we think and act. The problem arises when the linguistic constructs we use influence our way of thinking in negative ways. These negative influences from language can be called politically incorrect.

The PC movement to observe human rights is widely dispersed and obviously includes many more elements than these. Instead of lampooning the idea of PC, we should recognize its theoretical validity and usefulness in promoting social progress.

At its core, the PC movement is not about censorship. People should be allowed to use almost any kind of language that they want to. But the much more important question is what kind of language they should use. The PC movement operates well within the open marketplace of ideas, as enlightened, tolerant people shoot down politically incorrect speech because of its detrimental effects. We need to be able to recognize the kinds of language that can be subtly or openly offensive and oppose their usage. We also need to be able to use language in precise, effective, and non-offensive ways.

According to the theory of Political Correctness, using “inclusive” and “neutral” language, it is based upon the idea that “language represents thought, and may even control thought”; per the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, language’s grammatical categories shape the speaker’s ideas and actions, although moderate conceptions of the relation between language and thought are sufficient to support the “reasonable deduction” of “cultural change via linguistic change”.

Other cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics works indicate that word-choices have significant “framing effects” on the perceptions, memories, and attitudes of speakers and listeners. Are the rights, opportunities, and freedoms of certain people restricted because they are reduced to a stereotype?

Stereotyping largely is implicit, unconscious, and facilitated by the availability of pejorative labels and terms. Rendering the labels and terms socially unacceptable, people then must consciously think about how they describe someone unlike themselves. When labelling is a conscious activity, the described person’s individual merits become apparent, rather than his or her stereotype.

Critics argue that political correctness is censorship and endangers free speech by limiting what is considered acceptable public discourse. Other critics say that politically correct terms are awkward euphemisms for truer, original, stark language, comparing them to George Orwell’s Newspeak. Some critics of political correctness claim that it marginalizes certain words, phrases, actions or attitudes through the instrumentation of public disesteem.

Some critics of political correctness argue that it is a form of coercion rooted in the assumption that in a political context, power refers to the dominion of some men over others, or the human control of human life; by this argument, ultimately, it means force or compulsion. This argument holds that correctness in this context is subjective, and corresponds to the sponsored view of the government, minority, or special interest group that these conservative critics oppose. They claim that by silencing contradiction, their opponents entrench their views as orthodox, and eventually cause it to be accepted as true, as freedom of thought requires the ability to choose between more than one viewpoint. Some conservatives refer to political correctness as “The Scourge of Our Times.”

Over the last some years many journalists and pseudo intellectuals have begun to critically trivialize attempts to transform the language of disability. This has important and ominous implications for the disability rights movement. Critics suggest that the recent and growing use of euphemisms to avoid 'offensive' terminology smacks of calculation and compromise, robs us of more direct and colorful words, and rarely has a lasting effect because new words and phrases quickly take on old meanings.

The first and most important thing to remember about discussions of language and disability is that they arise because disabled people experience discrimination daily and are denied the same rights and opportunities as the rest of the population. Apart from the fact that words can be deeply hurtful to disabled individuals, they have power and are used extensively to justify oppression. The phrase 'special educational needs', for example, frequently justifies the separation of disabled children from non-disabled children into segregated special schools.

Not too long ago in Nazi Germany similar words and phrases were used to justify the attempted genocide of disabled people. This is especially important to give the recent rise of the far right in Germany and the rest of Europe. But such things are rarely mentioned by those who criticize the use of 'politically correct' language. Indeed, most never even refer to the work of disabled people or their organizations. Nigel Rees's book 'The Politically Correct Phrasebook' (1993) ridiculing the use of certain words and phrases, for instance, cites sixty-three references to support his case, none of them are from disabled writers or organizations controlled and run by disabled people. Clearly, the only time euphemisms become an issue is when they are being advocated by the powerless − disabled people.

As the articles by Davis and Findlay in the last issue of Rights not Charity clearly show our choice of language is important. Using appropriate terminology, not only, provides us with a sense of individual and collective identity, but also, reminds non-disabled people of our oppression and our role in society. If currently preferred terms acquire negative meanings then we shall continue to search for new ones until there is no need to do so − until we have real equality.