UNIT 3 – part 2
LOADED LANGUAGE
and
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
LOADED VOCABULARY
• Highly charged with connotations
– Taboo words
– Swearing (expletives)
– Diminutives, etc.
• Also used to describe deliberately ambiguous or even
contradictory language
– Doublespeak
– Euphemism
Examples of loaded words
• Democracy (used to have strong negative connotations, now
strong positive connotations throughout the western world)
• A concentration camp (very negative)
Doublespeak
• Language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its
actual meaning, leading to ‘communication bypass’.
• Used mainly by governmental, military, or corporate institutions.
• Its form uses euphemisms (‘downsizing’ for ‘firing of many
employees’) or deliberately ambiguous phrases (‘wet work’ for
‘assassination’)
• The Doublespeak campaign – in 1971 the National Council of
Teachers of English in the USA started fighting against it.
• It is language which makes the bad seem good, … or at least
tolerable.’ (from Crystal)
Examples of Doublespeak
• Energetic disassembly (explosion in a nuclear plant)
• To secure an area (kill remaining enemy soldiers)
Euphemisms
• Originally a word used in place of a religious word that should
not be spoken aloud (taboo)
• Now replace certain unpleasant, rough or unsuitable words in
society
Spheres where euphemisms are often used
• Death, illness, physiological functions, old age, sex, religion,
upgrading unwanted professions
Political Correctness
• Started as a good thing – not to harm people who are
disadvantaged, not to discriminate against them, not to give
offence in 1980s, to eradicate prejudice from language.
Sensitive topics, where PC is expected from a speaker
• Racial and ethnic groups
• Gender
• Age
• Illness and disability
• Sexual preference
• Titles