Language and representation has Political Correctness gone too far?

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Andrew Burgess

28/10/07

English Essay on Political Correctness

It has been suggested that campaigns for a non-sexist non-racist language are a waste of time because language is never natural. To what extent have you found that vocabulary of English is connected to people’s social values?

In this essay I am going to discuss as to whether language can be changed for the better to impact upon social images and ideas of those using the words. Is political correctness a step too far and whether the language we use in everyday English discriminate towards certain things and people in society? Are minorities discriminated against via the use of language and its connotations attached to the terms and phrases used, or is the lexis used merely being misinterpreted as wrong by nit pickers within the language society? Or does language truly reflect our opinions and thus shape how we see the world?

        Political correctness (PC) is a broad term to describe those people who oppose prejudice in linguistic terms that give particular minority groups a “negative” image within society.  Political correctness has gained bad publicity; therefore the term now has negative connotations and has been perjorated thanks to many academics and organisations of the general public. Activists who enforce political correctness upon society do not call themselves politically correct due to the bad connotations the term has gained.

        Political correctness according to linguists has been around since the turn of the century and was first seen in the 1930’s in print defending the prejudice terms attacking coloured people within society. The term racialist has been around since the turn of the century and was changed to racist in the 1930’s. The term was used to stop and label those who are prejudice and discriminative towards people of a different colour.

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Another term that labelled a different kind of prejudice was the term sexist which was used repeatedly from the 1960’s in particular. Linguist Deborah Cameron researched the history of Political correctness to find that is was ironically against those within the same left wing party describing the differing views in USA. It then exploded into the 1980’s as it rallied the support of countless university academics. The term political correctness was first seen in 1970 in print in the USA. The values for which Political correctness stands for saw its activists using it, who were concerned about the nouns and ...

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This is a complex question with many issues that need to be addressed. The writer has made a good effort to answer the question in full. Good use of technical vocabulary throughout and the essay is structured logically. Evidence of wider reading and research. Some points needed further exploration and exemplification. 3 Stars