Conclusion

Politically correct changes are occurring in English (and in many other languages) as a reflection of the ideas of tolerance and inclusion. In order to become competent users of English, we need to explore this phenomenon to become proficient users of tolerant and inclusive terms in particular situations.

According to the information which was found in the Internet, people’s attitudes to the whole movement are different. Thus, very few people feel totally positive about PC language reform and think it could change society. Nearly half of them think that it has no positive effect at all and is a waste of time. Some correspondents in this group pointed out that PC terms can be offensive or separating. Besides, the whole movement looks like a shallow ‘feel good’ attempt to avoid dealing with real problems in society. A large proportion of people being asked felt the movement is somewhat positive but has its problems and limitations. On the one hand, changing our labels is a good first step toward changing society. However many of the PC terms are too long and awkward. Moreover, some correspondents think that the movement has gone too far and too fast in its efforts. Finally, they point out that changing the language does not eliminate racism, sexism, etc.

The main aim of the research was to understand the sense of the phenomenon of PC and to find out the use of it in language and speech; to find the information on what PC language and its historical origin, to create a list of PC language, to present some fitting activities on the subject.

So, it can be said that politically correct language is an evident result of the process of globalization that has led to multiculturalism in a broad range of spheres. Although the purpose of this type of language is to protect equal opportunities of different social groups, maintain their integrity, eliminate disparaging, discriminatory, or offensive words and phrases and prevent the existence of stereotypes of any kind, political correctness has more disadvantages than benefits. That is why it is not an absolute must in society despite its growing popularity among politicians and journalists

Politically correct language has a negative psychological effect on people as it divides them into victims and oppressors. For example, it attracts the women’s attention to the fact that for many centuries it was the men who rule the world and discharge many duties through paying too much attention to such words as “policeman”, “businessman”, “fireman” etc.

This may lead to social conflicts and a surge of feminism which in this case could be interpreted as a discrimination of male part of the society.

To sum up, political correctness is not an absolute must in society. If it thrives in future it will lead to serious troubles connected with immiseration of vocabulary, global misunderstanding, feminist abuse and serious social conflicts. On the whole, it could not prevent discrimination but, quiet the contrary, increase it.

To conclude, there are both advantages and disadvantages in PC language movement and there is the need for a more balanced approach to language reform. ‘Language can be used as a WEAPON, by the powerful against the powerless, by the powerless in fighting back. Language reform is one of the many fronts of social reform and hopefully, excesses will not derail good intentions.

All in all, PC changes to language have very positive and humanitarian motivations. In practice, however, PC language might seem like a stifling language tyranny that limits freedom of expression. For example, ‘metabolically challenged’ for ‘dead’ or ‘esthetically challenged’ instead of ‘ugly’. These examples show the ridiculous extremes to which PC can sometimes take language. Such cases are, of course, merely humorous parodies of PC language and are not to be taken seriously.

As it was said above, in our country the problem of PC language is not so urgent (as there were no feminist movement and such racism in it). Nevertheless, there are problems we have in common now and using PC language is one of the ways to solve them.