Official Uses of Political Correctness

The widespread intention to avoid using discriminatory language has been going on for decades. Euphemism has been used along with creating alternative terms to blunting the prejudicial undertone in the language. The “attempt to artificially manipulate language use for a social goal” (Hale & Basides 2013, p. 77) is called Political Correctness (PC).  As an established purposeful effort to “camouflage life’s harsh realities” (Halmari, 2011, p. 828), PC dates back to the 1990s.  Since then, PC has expanded extensively and governed the language in various parts of societal discourses including the official uses of language. This essay identifies the approach toward the official uses of PC and discusses the ways in which PC has been utilised as a pretext to manipulate other people’s language use. Although the legacy of equality and use of non-discriminatory language have sustained PC, the idea of prescribing people how to use the language is intrinsically unequal. 

Political correctness is powerful (Hale, 2016); it means that PC can affect people in various ways. Through governing the use of language, PC changes the way in which people think about one another as well as affecting how they perceive themselves. The very fundamental consent of PC as the “idea of appropriateness” (Hale, 2016) was appeared to be sound at the beginning and accepted extensively upon as beneficial.  Nevertheless, the power of PC, in practice, has not been complying its initial intent as Rojas-Lizana (2014) contends “it centres on those who have the power to impose their views and how their discourse is used to perpetuate and ‘normalize’ dominant ideologies” (p. 3).  Consequently, the influence of PC is exploited to manipulate the use of language and PC has utilised in favour of power rather than in avoiding discrimination. Thus, to some extent, PC is being criticised because of various reasons. One of the foremost critiques of PC is that it is imposing an adverse effect on equality, therefore, it has lost its credibility. Allan & Burridge (2006) argue that “something supportive of equal opportunity, tolerance, sensitivity, open-mindedness, courtesy, and decency, become so disparaged?” (p. 91). Discussing the official uses of PC could be of assistance to identify its power and effects in society.

The idea of scepticism and freedom of questioning everything including the official uses of PC is highly important. Emerging as a commanding force of society, PC has been challenged not only through authoritative critiques but also by public resistance “because it is seen as highly arbitrary and imposed, and without wide social conventionality” (Hale & Basides 2013, p. 77). The instance of referencing to gender in a discourse of official language shows a perfect pattern of official uses of PC while resisted by others.  According to Yoong (2014), “term chairman, the male generic, can be used to denote either a man or a woman. But feminists have argued that male generics are not generic at all. Maleness is presumed and women are rendered invisible when it is used” (p. 1). While the resistance based on gender or any other social categories is continuing, the more important issue which still remains experimental is that how far the PC can really improve the social inequality in favour of those who suffered.   

The official uses of PC are more observable in the speech of politicians.  Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the US President said: “Islam is peace” (The Press Secretary of the White House, 2001). In fact, Islam is not peace, it is a religion for worshiping God, and seeks peace after the resurrection rather than in the actual reality of the contemporary world. In some extent the desire of political aspiration has always been the force behind euphemism, therefore, PC is stretched beyond its original intention which was avoiding discrimination. Following the massive publication for euphemism and attempts in bringing syntactic and lexical change in referencing social categories as well as the renaming of various organisation departments and institutions (Halmari, 2011), official uses of PC have been remarkably successful in forcing people to change their linguistic behaviours. 

In conclusion, PC will continue to be utilised as an excuse of manipulating the use of language, unless the intention of prescribing people how to use the language does not replace euphemism.

References:

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

Hale, A. (2016). Week 9 lecture, Western Sydney University

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.

Office of the Press Secretary. (2001). "Islam is peace" says president: Remarks by the president at Islamic centre of Washington, D.C. Retrieved on 23/04/16 from http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html

Rojas-Lizana, I. (2014). Perceived discrimination in LGBTIQ from Australia: A typology of verbal discrimination. Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 11(1), Retrieved on  25/04/2016 from https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/article/view/3303/4363

Yoong, Y. (2014). Pull up a chair, we need to talk about sexist language at work. The Conversation. Retrieved on  25/04/2016 from  https://theconversation.com/pull-up-a-chair-we-need-to-talk-about-sexist-language-at-work-31869