Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Political Correctness -
Liberal Prescriptivism
- Social Diffusion
- CHANGE FROM ABOVE
- A conscious shift that's imposed upon us
- Introduced by the dominant social
class/media/social and economic aspirations
- Driven by social factors in
response to changes in
attitudes
- Eg: RP to modified RP
- An attempt to minimise and
counter discrimination and
promote equality in our society
- Eg: Gender, Race/ethnicity, Sexuality,
Disability, Nationality, Age,
Employment
- 1970 - 1980s: Huge social and cultural shift
- Jobs/domains traditionally done by white men
were increasingly done by women and ethnic
inmates
- Therefore, Language HAD
to change to accomodate
it
- 2nd Wave of
Feminism
- Eg: Contraceptive pills gave
women more control
- Resistance to PC
- PC promotes
EQUALITY
- Marginalised groups are
recognised
- Challenges DOMINANT groups
- Middle/ Upper class white men
- Anti PC
- States: 'PC is stifling free speech and
freedom of expression'
- Pernicious movement to
undermine PC - 'Urban myths'
created
- Eg: terms like 'blackboard'
banned beacause they were
racist
- This undermines the purpose of PC
(prevent marginalisation of discrimination
against minority roups)
- Anti PC is believed by those
in power - it is an expression
of their fear as Pc doesn't
exist to serve them
- Process that language
undergoes to become
politically correct
- 1: Certain people have their rights,
opportunities, or freedom restricted due to
categorization as members of a group with a
derogatory stereotype
- 2: Categorization is largely
implicit and unconscious. it is
facilitated by the easy
availability of labeling
terminology
- 3: By making the labelling
terminology problematic, people are
MADE to think conciously about
how they describe someone
- 4: Once labelling is a
conscious activity,
individual merits of a
person becomes more
apparent
- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- Linguistic
RELATIVISM/REFLECTIONISM
- Language's grammatical
categories shape its speakers'
ideas and actions
- Steven Pinker : The Game
of the Name
- Words are not thoughts
- Words are arbituary
- There is no real evidence for
connections between names and
objects - Ferdinand de Saussure
- Eg: Dog,
perro, chien,
sag
- They all
mean dog
but they all
sound
different
- Attitudes towards
etymology changes:
'invalid', 'New World'
- BUT, over time,
assosiationsare less
prominent/noticed/contentious
- Terms that are
discarded will be
reintroduced
- Eg: slum - ghetto - slum
- This is called
carousel
- Euphemism treadmill
- Pinker suggests Language
change is driven by politness
- The need not to offend
- Pinker suggests PC
creates
stigmatisation
(people are judged
by the way they use
language
- Overall, Pinker suggests
that whatever PC achieves,
it is only temporary
- PC is necessary as it
attempts to
eliminate prejudice