1. Warning
• This lesson will contain strong language that some
students may find disturbing. It will also contain language
of a sexual nature.
• Student discretion is advised.

2. Taboo words
• Taboo language derives its power to shock or offend from society’s
attitude to certain topics. As social values and practices change, so
too does the power of taboo words and phrases.
• In an age when religion played a central part in people’s lives,
blasphemy was shocking. In today’s secularised society, references
to God and Christ are hardly noticed by most people.

3. Sexual references
• Sexual references may still offend, though even these generally have
less power than formerly. The first use of the F word on national
television (by critic Kenneth Tynan, during a live broadcast, in 1965)
made headline news. The BBC had to apologise. Today, the word is
sometimes seen on T-shirts and a modified form of it appeared as the
logo of a major brand of clothing.
• Harvey and Shalom (1997, Language and Desire) observe that a
problem area is often indicated by the large number of alternative
words for something. These may be categorised into the technical
(sexual intercourse, fornication, carnal knowledge), the euphemistic
(go to bed with, sleep with, have sex with) and the dysphemistic
(fuck, shag, screw, shaft, bonk etc.) Even within this last list, some
words are more acceptable than others. The Sun newspaper uses
bonk but never fuck. The words most likely to cause offence today
are those deemed politically incorrect.

4. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
• This term first appeared in the USA in the 1970s. It refers to the belief that we should
not tolerate the use of language which discriminates against people on the grounds of
gender, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation or physical appearance.
• Although the term political correctness has acquired negative connotations, often
summed up in the phrase “political correctness gone mad”, the movement has been
very influential. Of course, the language changes that have occurred reflect changes in
social values and attitudes to more than just language.
• In the 1960s and 1970s, it was not unusual to hear terms like coon and nigger on
television sitcoms. Reading them here now probably horrifies you more than the words
in the previous section.

5. Political Correctness – Why?
• Removal of sexist/racist etc. words from the lexicon in
order to:
• A) remove pejorative connotations
• B) Raise awareness of the problem with particular words
and therefore awareness of muted groups.
• Deborah Cameron in her penis book Verbal Hygiene
stated that PC language causes anxiety because it
challenges the majority power group’s assumptions and
therefore the main language system is under attack.

6. Sapir Whorf hypothesis/ Linguistic Determinism
• PC is based on the idea from Sapir-Whorf that language
shapes thought. So if we don’t have a word for something
we cannot think thoughts about it.
• Therefore changing a word that has pejorated, can also
change the negative thoughts associated with what it
signifies.

7. Examples in Literature
•This is expertly employed
by George Orwell in 1984
by the creation of
Newspeak.
•He wrote that if there was
no rebellious language then
people would not have
rebellious thoughts.
•This perhaps offers a
cynical view of what PC
could do to language.

8. Evaluation of SW
• The main criticism for this theory is based on Whorf’s
methodology. He based his examples on one
language, Hopi (native American language) and on just
one speaker of the language lending less validity to his
claims that Hopi Indians have no concept of time because
they don’t have past, present or future tenses in their
language.
• Although the theory was quite popularly received at the
time, it has since been replaced by its opposing theory
and is now widely discredited.

9. Linguistic Reflectionism
• Linguistic reflectionism theory is the opposite to linguistic
determinism (or Sapir-Whorf), as this theory suggests that
our thoughts are reflected in language and therefore if we
change language, the racist/sexist etc. thoughts will
prevail.
• The idea was first clearly expressed by 19th century
thinkers, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, who saw
language as the expression of the spirit of a nation. The
early 20th century school of American Anthropology
headed by Franz Boas also embraced the idea

10. • Example- As it never snows in Malta, the Maltese
population do not have a lexical item for this type of
weather.

11. Evaluation
• This reflectionism argument has been criticised for dismissing
the value of trying to shape or change language (PC) for
example, to prevent the use of racist language as it supposes
that the racism is a reflection of the way people think and will
only re-emerge in the newly changed forms.
• This is backed up by Steven Pinker’s idea of the Euphemism
treadmill that states that PC terms will in time gain pejorative
connotations and will need to be replaced.
• E.g. coloured, Afro–American; Afro-Carribean; black etc.
• Reflectionism is also well summarised in a phrase by Deborah
Cameron “In the mouths of sexists, language can always be
sexist” .

12. Sexism
• Sexism is one of the areas where PC has tried to make a
difference by coining more gender neutral terms to
replace biased terms such as chairman
(chair/chairperson) & marked terms such as authoress
(writer).
• Miller & Swift in their “Handbook of non-sexist writing”
advocated practical reforms to improve equality,
mentioning also the pronoun problem (them instead of
he when gender is unknown); job titles (doctor & lady
doctor) & non-parallel treatment (Mr & Mrs, husband
and wife, brother and sister etc)

13. Language is not enough!
• Norman Fairclough stated that changing language is not
enough on its own, we must also change society…
• E.g. there is no point arguing about the word chairman
being sexist, if you’re missing the point that women are
underrepresented in the committee.
• Deborah Cameron agrees with this and calls non-sexist
language policies “lip service” & “cosmetic change”
because they fail to alone reduce women’s oppression.

14. The omnipresent prescriptivists
• PC poses an interesting scenario to the usual
prescriptivist stance. On the one hand PC is a form of
prescription (telling us how we should speak) and
therefore they should be in favour, however introducing
new terms may be seen as an attack on the language
from a Crumbling castle viewpoint and therefore seen as
decay by prescriptivists.
• Descriptivists would see it as a form of prescription and
be against it.

15. Evaluation
• Although the term political correctness has acquired
negative connotations, because some people see PC as
over the top and that “PC has gone mad”. Actually most
of the stories of this madness are just PC myths (e.g. baa
baa rainbow sheep/ black coffee).
• The movement has been very influential. Of course, the
language changes that have occurred reflect changes in
social values and attitudes to more than just language.
• In an essay, please discuss the examples offered in the Q
(you can also introduce some of your own) and stick to
the Section B format – do not RANT!