Christoph Burger

Political Correctness

Historical Origin of the Concept and

Occurrences in British Newspapers and Magazines.

Seminararbeit an der Universität Wien

eingereicht im WS 2005

Table of contents

1. INTRODUCTION 2

2. `POLITICAL CORRECTNESS′ AND `POLITICALLY CORRECT′ AS TERMS 2

2.1 DEFINITIONS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS (P.C.) 2

2.2 ORIGINS, USAGE AND MEANING OF THE PHRASES THROUGHOUT THEIR HISTORY 3

3. PC AS AN IDEA: SOCIO-HISTORICAL SETTING AND CONCEPTS 4

3.1 THE AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 4

3.2 IDENTITY POLITICS 5

3.3 THE WOMEN′S LIBERATION MOVEMENT 5

3.4 GAY AND LESBIAN LIBERATION 6

3.5 STRUGGLES AGAINST THE DISCRIMINATION ON GROUNDS OF AGE AND DISABILITY 7

4 THE BEGINNING OF THE P.C. DEBATE IN GREAT BRITAIN 7

5. RESEARCH PART 8

5.1 SOURCES AND METHOD 8

5.2 FINDINGS 9

5.2.1 Newspapers 9

5.2.2 Magazines 9

6. CONCLUSION 10

REFERENCES 12

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1. Introduction

In this paper I wil discuss the concept and the historical origin of political correctness

in America and how it managed its way to Great Britain. The discussion wil be

fol owed by a section, describing my own research. The main purpose of this

investigation is to determine if "political correctness" exists in Great Britain and if

there are differences between newspapers and magazines.

2. `Political correctness′ and `politically correct′ as terms

The terms "political correctness" and "political y correct" are very popular and widely

used. This section should provide an overal picture of these terms. After a definition

of the two phrases I wil give a brief overview of the development of both terms

throughout their history.

2.1 Definitions of political correctness (P.C.)

In 1990 and 1991 the political correctness debates started in the USA. These

debates received great attention in the media as a series of articles in Newsweek,

U.S. News and World Report, the New York Times, Time, the Vil age Voice, and

Atlantic Monthly was written. It was also featured in numerous magazine covers and

nationwide talk shows on TV. (c.f. Calhoun 2001: 1337). Due to this great popularity it

has been a "′household word′ in Anglophone North America since the early 1990"

(Auer 2004: 3). Nonetheless it is very hard to define. Schenz (1994: 23) states:

′Political Correctnes′ umfaßt ein teilweise wirres Spektrum

verschiedener Ideologien, Reformbewegungen und Utopien. Es ist

daher schwierig, den Begriff exakt einzugrenzen. Das mag auch der

Grund dafür sein, daß bis heute keine al gemein gültige Definition

vorliegt. Nur wenige Autoren haben überhaupt den Versuch

unternommen, den Begriff genau zu fassen.

The "Col ins Cobuild English dictionary for advanced learners" (Sinclair et al 2001:

1186) gives the fol owing definition:

If you say that someone is political y correct, you mean that they are

extremely careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society,

for example with their attitudes towards sex, race or disability.

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The last definition is very pragmatic. It ignores the historical and political connotations

of this term, which are of great importance to get a basic understanding of the

background of the concept of political correctness. In the next section I wil give a

short summary of the term′s history to provide a more complete picture of "political

correctness".

2.2 Origins, usage and meaning of the phrases throughout their history

According to the linguist Deborah Cameron (cf. 1995: 123 - 130) P.C. emerged from

a political movement situated on university campuses and from ′alternative′ political

or cultural institutions, for instance leftist, feminist, anti-racist or green organisations.

Because there were reasons not to expose their conversation to the public, al their

spoken and most of their written discourse was not mainstream and only "in-group".

One theory proposes that the terms came from the Marxist into the Left movement. In

this time a politician was political y correct if he/she was behaving according to the

party platform. Later the meaning of the term changed and it was only used ironical y

for politicians who behaved too orthodox (cf. Schenz 1994: 27). Some people believe

that the above mentioned meaning change was caused by opponents from outside

the party (ibid). Bonder (cf. 1995: 8) states that the word was created by the New Left

itself, while Cameron (cf. 1995: 126) notes that it could come from the English

translation of "Mao′s Little Red Book" or that there could be a connection to "correct

lineism", a term used in the Communist Party. Even though the exact, pre-New Left

origins of the phrases "political y correct" and "political correctness" remain vague

and doubtful, we know that the commonest meaning of these words on the Left was

that of a sarcastic mirror-image, which is now often used by the Right to describe

them (cf. Cameron 1995: 127). This is also the reason why those people who are

said to be advocates of the political correctness movement insist on the fact that such

a movement does not exist, because it is only their opponents who use this phrase in

that way. (cf. Auer 2004: 15)

The meaning of "political correctness" has been further problematical when the

debate has been taken up in the mass media. According to Cameron (cf. 1995: 127)

it has experienced a process of "discursive drift". For most people these terms were

completely new and they had to deduce it from the context. It is obvious that people

wil come to different inferences about the meaning of a new term they come across

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