“If you control language you control yourself, and you probably control other people too” (Hale & Basides, 2013, p.88). Discuss this claim in relation to official uses of PC.

        The official usage of political correctness occurs in a variety of ways. It can happen through introducing new terms to avoid excluding particular groups of people; it can also occur by euphemising linguistic terms, for instance, the attempts to change the name of social groups and institutional departments so as to neutralise referencing to them, and it can also happen by coding the language to hide meanings from other people. This essay highlights political correctness in the official instances and discusses this issue in accordance with the claim of Hale & Basides (2013) that having the ability to control language not just enables that person to control oneself, but it might also lead to controlling other people. Although this idea appears to be practical, language itself affects everyone including those who intend to control others, because language shapes the way in which controlling happens.

Political ambition has always been the force behind euphemism. Euphemising language is the endeavour to moderate those expressions which discriminate against particular groups in society. The people who may affect by derogatory terms are different groups including racial, religious, gender, sexuality, social class, and physical conditions. Those disagreeable terms used instead of a pleasant or neutral term are called dysphemism. Subsequently, euphemism is used to replace and prevent dysphemism through avoiding prejudicial and pejorative terms. Euphemism has always coexisted within language: “the prevalence of the euphemism in the history of languages can hardly be denied” (Strozier, 1966 p. 63). From the very beginning, political correctness was intertwined with euphemism to some extent in the purpose of controlling language, as Allan & Burridge (2006) assert, “the phrase politically correct is now completely entangled with euphemism” (p. 96). Nevertheless, euphemising language in order to control language, and applying power to other people through official uses of political correctness, has been challenged and resisted by some other people.

Although the fundamental idea behind political correctness is to diminish or eliminate discriminatory language, some complain that political correctness has not been effective to eradicate prejudice and improve conditions of those who suffered because political correctness just aims to “camouflage life’s harsh realities” (Halmari, 2011, p. 828). Nonetheless, there has been a growing intention to euphemise further terms following the massive publication in favour of euphemism as a major tool of political correctness. According to Halmari (2011), during the early 1990s, in order to reference people more explicitly and unswervingly the idea of “people first” dominated educational and psychological literature. This led to remodifying nouns to be replaced by post-modifying nouns; for instance, instead of “disabled people” the term “people with disabilities” became the politically correct expression (p. 829).  Since then, euphemism has been used frequently by some politicians as an unreserved tactic to control language.  The famous phrase of Australian politician Pauline Hanson that Australia was “swamped by Asians” (Ahluwalia & McCarthy, 1998, p. 81) dissolves the rigid dichotomy between euphemism and discrimination.  Although political correctness and the intention of controlling language has benefited a lot from euphemism, the relatively huge sphere of euphemism’s utilisation by those seeking power can hardly be defined.  

Language is subject to change in both structural and element levels. English particularly encompasses further changes because it is “the language controlled by the people who use it” (Hale & Basides, 2013, p. 8). Despite the fact that politicians benefit from the official uses of political correctness in various approaches to control language, language itself can also affect power. Language consists of multi-layered associations with power, which is extremely dynamic and inevitably subject to the role of language (Reid & Ng, 1999).  This mediation between language and power and its relation to the claim that controlling language may lead to the control of other people can be discussed more in-depth. In the instance of Australian politician Pauline Hanson, she has euphemised language but meanwhile, her position has been surrounded by the very fundamental rules of language. Hence “language, far from being a simple refection [sic] of power, underpins the creation of power, its maintenance and change” (Reid & Ng, 1999, p. 123). In other words, power exists within language, so it can affect everyone. As far as the official uses of political correctness, irrespective of using any approaches; the position of controlling language have bounded to language instructions.

Political correctness is powerful and it can be effective in either provoking people or in controlling them, but it is quite difficult to streamline the process as a simple way of prescribing to other people how to use language. However, there is strong evidence which suggests that political correctness is effective in controlling language to some extent, and thus governing other people is possible through such means (Fairclough 2003), Pauline Hanson could be an instance. On the contrary, there has been a resilient assertion of how difficult it can be to manage those ‘words that wound’ and enact against discriminatory terms because “language is not a perfect, logical, consistent and transparent linguistic system” (Allan & Burridge, 2006, p. 99). In fact, as time passes a discourse may lead to a complete change of the value or meaning of a term.  To put it differently, euphemising a specific term may have twisted back to dysphemism. According to Allan & Burridge (2006), this cannot just happen through “contamination by the taboos” but also because language itself “is full of vagueness, indeterminacy, variability and ambiguity” (p.99). One way or another, when it comes to language, controlling it is almost inconceivable without having impacted by language itself, and the official uses of political correctness is not an exception. 

In conclusion, one can control itself by controlling language, and controlling language might also lead to governing other people, but the issue becomes more complex when considering the intrinsic characteristics of language. Despite the fact that the lexeme and accepted norms of conventional usage have always been subject to change, but language by itself is effective because the overall interactions are bound to the conventions of language. Language determines the way in which people express how and what they are thinking. Therefore, language shapes the methods by which controlling occurs. To put it another way, power operates within language, particularly in relation to official uses of political correctness.

References:

Ahluwalia, P. & McCarthy, G. (1998). ‘Political correctness’: Pauline Hanson and the construction of Australian identity. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 57(3), 79-85.

Allan, K. & Burridge, K. (2006). Forbidden words: Taboo and the censoring of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://uwsau.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=307385

Fairclough, N. (2003). 'Political correctness': The politics of culture and language. Discourse & Society: An International Journal for the Study of Discourse and Communication in Their Social, Political and Cultural Contexts,14(1), 17-28.

Hale, A. & Basides, H. (2013). The keys to academic English. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.

Halmari, H. (2011). Political correctness, euphemism, and language change: The case of ‘people first’. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(3), 828-840.


Reid, S. & Ng, S. (1999). Language, power, and intergroup relations. Journal of Social Issues, 55(1), 119-139.

Strozier, R. (1966). The euphemism. Language Learning, 16(1‐2), 63-70. Retrieved from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/doi/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1966.tb00809.x/epdf