Politically Correct
Political Correctness ( anglicism of PC) refers almost always to denounce it, an attitude conveyed by politicians and the media, which is to soften excessively formulations that could offend audiences categorical. To its critics, political correctness and puts in place an intellectual straitjacket that any expression of opinion must accept imposing ultimately to adopt a set of ideas. For the American historian Jacques Barzun , "the politically correct do not proclaim tolerance and it does which organizes hatred. "
Summary |
History
United States
For the U.S. the term Political Correctness has a long history. In the nineteenth century and during the long twentieth century it was applied instead to describe the accuracy in legal or political contexts. The words "correct" and "correctness" it had the meaning of "grammar" or "correct under the rules of law, whether civil law or constitutional law. Only later, in the 1980s, he acquired a new meaning, one can express as linguistically consistent in terms of manners and current opinions.
In French-speaking countries
In French the phrase has appeared recently in the very late 1980s, which explains that the only accepted meaning is the latest. There is also a anglicism, both terms have not the same in French and English extension.
The development of its use has been mainly during the 1990s, but his lack of motivation language (see below) because it was never the same extension as used in English speaking countries. This coupled with the fact that in many Francophone countries (with the notable exception of North America) language is generally not an issue as crucial as it can be in many English speaking countries.
Contrary to what many detractors say the politically correct speaking countries of Europe, this expression has never been used in the United States, among the groups supposed to be such in a positive sense. Apparently it was used at the very end of the 1970s and early 1980s in the liberal groups (in the American's term) or left to deride some of the excesses seen in their own groups, but its use to describe specific groups supposed to want to exercise some moral police and purify the language of expressions and terms deemed offensive or demeaning from the beginning was to use own some conservatives, generally close government republican in time (administration Reagan and Bush Sr. ), although several have been pretty close Democratic Party.
The term in France
The phrase "politically correct" has its origin in the French Marxist circles. Evolution At its introduction in France, the term has not met with great success for several reasons, primarily social, cultural and political, in addition to his lack of motivation (language) : These elements, among others, explain the failure of the initial concept in this country. A decade later, at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first century , several developments have changed this situation. The first change is the meaning of the term, which broke free of its Anglo-Saxon layer to become an equivalent of "jargon" has gradually replaced in the public debate in 2006 employment of "waffling" and "politically correct" have roughly the same frequency. His job no longer applies only to the change of normative language but to any situation where a speaker is making a speech consisting of little convoluted and abusing euphemistic circumlocutions. This change of meaning has facilitated the use of the term as it could apply to many more public speeches. Another reason, partly related to the previous language is: unless rapid abandonment, a new word or phrase eventually find their use, sometimes even a whole new meaning to the inverse of its initial use, "politically correct" continuing to appear, at least as quoted in public debate, was by necessity eventually find its place in the language. A main reason for maintaining its initial employment in France is the persistence of its use in the public debate of the United States, so that they regularly mention the phrase when speaking of the state of public debate. His lack of motivation language can also, paradoxically, to use it in context and to target speech much more varied than in its original: as it is difficult for a French speaker to assign a precise and consistent, the expression used to describe any speech comprehension difficult or very cautious in relation to "politics" or periphrastic expression that escapes the understanding of the listener. Contrary to its use in North America, in France the term does not talk about a well-defined (to use the list of article in English: gay rights, feminism, multiculturalism and movement for the rights of disabled ) and instead designate the use of circumlocutions whose meaning is hardly noticeable, a famous example being the one put forward by Claude Allegre , usually translated into: This phrase, often taken as an example of "politically correct" clearly out of the category if we consider the meaning and use U.S. and illustrates its use in France do not match across the Atlantic. This usage will be studied in the next section. Another cause of higher instance , a common evolution of the oldest democracies, including those of Western Europe and North America: increased attention to social inequality, to " minorities " and more generally for people considered living at a disadvantage. This is linked to a broader change in developed societies democratic, we can probably relate to geopolitical upheavals of the mid-1980s, and which might be classified as an increased sensitivity to situations contrary to human rights, Man formal (the Universal Declaration ) and informal (any situation perceived as a violation of human rights, regardless of the rights recognized in the Declaration). That movement, contested by some groups or individuals often ideological convergence with the whistleblower's "politically correct" when they are not the same, gave rise to a term derogatory in origin, the " right Rightism " . However, the impact of this increased attention to people and groups believed to be at a disadvantage is some warping of language, intended to avoid "shock sensitivity" of these people, which was reflected in particular in France, by a multiplication laws, regulations and guidelines to outlaw expressions of public debate or speeches alleged harm these people, or encourage expressions or speech deemed them with comfort. This is particularly true of a set of laws, the Gayssot Act of 13 July 1990 until the law (still in discussion at the time of writing this article) to punish the denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in 2006, involved in a negative way (Gayssot) or positive ( Taubira law of 10 May 2001 ) on how to teach history or . This development has meant that, both by legal obligation by conformism, an inversion occurred in the French media over the last three ages : if at the beginning of the 1990s they tended to deride the appeared "politically correct" (even if you do not then qualified it as well), in the middle of the 2000s the trend was (and remains) rather castigate About considered "politically incorrect" (even if you do qualify and almost never ). This trend has given some legitimacy to stakeholders in the French public debate to denounce a hold of "politically correct" in France, particularly in the media. Termination does not take into account that, in most cases, it is relayed by the same media ... She is mixed. Compared to the beginning of the 1990s, there has been an introduction, albeit limited, of "political correctness" in France, but in the speech broadcast by the media and in public facilities (University, government, government, justice, national representation) and an information symmetrically largest - and audible - this trend, but there is also that in terms of ordinary social life, although in recent years a large proportion of the population has a greater sensitivity to issues discrimination and inequality and a lower tolerance to speech discrimination (including in the form of humor or the joke), there has not been a very strong influence of political correctness or termination. In addition, the warping of the meaning of the term and make his current job, except among the groups and people with an attitude of militant denunciation of political correctness or otherwise of the use of the term, its use is limited and of little significance, and serves almost all groups, whatever their political sensibilities. His current informal jobs are generally consistent with the terms " red herring "," Beating around the bush "and other expressions common to the misrepresentation of" talking without saying anything. " The example illustrates fairly the state of debate in France: if you do a search for occurrences of this circumlocution on the Internet, there are several things that contradict both the discourse on the generalization of the politically correct in France and that on allowance increased contemptuous of political correctness: We may add, in the case of real jobs, that if this formula is very jargon, the analysis "bouncing repository" does not correspond to the "translation" with "balloon" that his critics are but a technical description that can be paraphrased as, "the reference object that will bounce from one player to another." The limit of this example is that it does not designate itself a politically correct formula in a strict sense, but for other more significant examples (circumlocutions person to challenge specific condition or to designate a special mental disabilities, special needs for a physically handicapped) will be the same thing: use real rare and technically possible, use quotation mainly as anti-political correctness, use regular expressions understandable majority, including those of a euphemistic (eg, disabled as an expression of diminished mental mentally retarded). Without prejudice to future developments so we can make the following observations concerning the current situation in France: The case itself the French phrase "politically correct" and is quite comparable to other terms of Anglo-Saxon in use in public debate, and a participant from the class of " false friends ", but their use by social and political take on a meaning different from their Anglo-Saxon. The most obvious example is that of "liberal", "liberalism" in Britain or the United States, it clearly differentiates the use of the term to describe a social attitude, a certain approach to the economy and a body of political doctrines, which have three meanings assimilated, while in France the use of the term in the public debate usually equates to "conservative anti-Jacobin." Similarly, the use and the French sense of "politically correct" has little to do, most often with those in force in North America. United States, criticism of political correctness is in the conservative political discourse. Criticism in France is more diffuse, although it also covers political and media vectors: euphemistic expressions used by politicians and journalists of major newspapers. These euphemistic expressions are intended to identify minorities and indirectly how to represent them. For the sociologist Raymond Boudon , "against the conventional wisdom that tends to blame the politically correct tyranny of the majority, it follows in fact rather the tyranny of the minority. It is verified that, on many subjects, political correctness really hits the public. Because it is made more active minorities and groups that influence the opinion itself. " For this author, the phenomenon can be explained by the effect Olson which identifies a mechanism by which an organized minority and determined to impose its views to a wider group, but disorganized and in which everyone does the calculation implied that the other one his group will take charge of resisting it. If there is no or hardly any, supporters of political correctness, there are critics, however progressive critics of political correctness in that this concept would be the loincloth of reactionary and racist ideas. For Jean-Claude Michea , political correctness reflects the "growing juridification social relations", rising at the expense of common decency championed by George Orwell , that is to say, the basic virtues of life in society . The word "politically" refers both to "policy", which means political meaning of doctrine, both "concerted practice of a State" (as in " public policy "or" scorched earth policy "), rules social (as in " morality police ") and formal rules or legal requirements applicable to the use of a certain object (see the" policy "instruction manuals in English), and" politics "which is equivalent to restricted meaning of "politics" of French contemporary, "for public affairs and government." Conversely, the words "correct", "correctness" have in common usage, a more restricted sense and would result in more "exact", "accuracy". From a linguistic point of view, we can say that the French expression "politically correct" and "political correctness" did not make much sense (if not precisely a linguist), due to the restriction of use of "policy" and the weakening sense of the word "police", "policy", which is only rarely used as a synonym for "civility" as a noun and as adjective or noun, is especially in expressions frozen ("morality police", "civilized manners," "language police"). In contemporary French the term "political" is associated in its current use, and the policy as an instrument of government. The difference is that the understanding of the expression is very different for an anglophone or a francophone: For the first it generally refers to a socially acceptable way to express themselves, while in French it has more the sense of political discourse and normative elusive, formerly was called " waffling. " At the time of acclimation in French, the phrase was intended to point to the same objects as its use in the United States, that is to say a certain "language police" and an abuse of circumlocutions euphemistic. With this issue, outside North America, first we did not find any such policy language, other than the use and sometimes abuse circumlocutions, euphemisms and understatements there was the prerogative of any group easily identifiable. In France in particular, beyond the political orientations of the main political staff (national elected officials, party leaders, governors, cabinet members, parliamentary staff, political advisers) and senior officials had similar training ( ENA , Polytechnique , IEP of Paris ) and range very similar (large body of state and senior management, Court of Auditors , the State Council ), so that it was difficult in the early 1990s, using the term in applications in which we made use in the United States, an instrument for disqualification groups with political and social positions antagonistic to those of its users, and denounced as "language purification" and "morals police." Over time, the term has taken on another meaning, outside North America, thus becoming the equivalent of the oldest "wooden tongue": a speech-based circumlocutions , circumlocutions, euphemisms and idioms, using the technique commonly referred to as "red herring". In XXI century , the term has become much more common usage, but with contrasts between countries. To take the four major French, In this province, usage prefers the term "political correctness", which is more "linguistically correct", since it is an equivalence and not a mere translation word for word. Lebouc George : Tell you the politically correct (Brussels, Racine, 2007). Current Status
Political aspects
Linguistic aspects
Problem of meaning
Uses
Applications of the expression
References
See also
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