Discourse on the Linguistic Implementation of the principles of Political Correctness in German Political Linguistics

Abstract

The article dwells upon the discourse on the linguistic implementation of the principles of political correctness (hereinafter PC discourse) in the German political linguistic culture. Like the concept of ‘political correctness’ itself, the key characteristics of the PC discourse came to Germany from the USA. However, Germany has a rich tradition of criticism of language use in politics, including a tradition of public reflection on the use of language by totalitarian ideologies. One might assume that the discussion about the linguistic implementation of political correctness in Germany will become part of this general critical discourse. These considerations served as the starting point for this study. The purpose of the presented article is to identify the specifics of PC discourse in Germany against the back-ground of other phenomena of German political linguistic culture. Discourse is understood as a corpus of texts united by reference to a common object of reality, in other words, a way of speaking about a socially significant topic that is formed in society in a certain historical period. On the basis of this interpretation, the empirical base of the study was compiled, obtained through the continuous sampling method from electronic versions of leading German newspapers and magazines, as well as from linguistic monographs devoted to the linguistic implementation of political correctness. Through the method of descriptive discourse analysis, significant methods of discursive interpretation of political correctness have been identified, which are the specifics of PC discourse. The main technique is metaphorical modeling of political reality. For almost thirty years of its existence, the German PC discourse has developed a stable framework of evaluative metaphors that set the perspective of the vision of political correctness. This framework consists of the metaphorical core, which relates political correctness to the conceptual field of “danger”, and additional metaphorical meanings, which actualize the conceptual field of “game”. The uniformity of the metaphorical frame-work reflects the ritualized nature of the argumentation of both supporters and opponents of political correctness. The latter set the dominant discursive strategy - the strategy of imaginary defense, due to which strong emotional pressure is achieved on the participants in the discourse. The metaphorical framework provides discursive unity, which is especially necessary in the context of the semantic diffuseness of the key concept ‘politische Korrektheit’.