This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by FAIRCLOUGH, N. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

`Political Correctness': the Politics of Culture and Language

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY n.fairclough{at}lancaster.ac.uk

In this article, I approach the controversy over `political correctness' (PC) in terms of three questions: a socio-historical question, a theoretical question and a political question as follows. (1) Why this apparently increasing focus in politics on achieving social and political change through changing culture and changing language - what has happened socially that can explain the `cultural turn' and the `language turn' in politics, in social and political theory, and in other domains of social practice? (2) How are we to understand the relationships among culture, language and other elements of social life and social practices - how are we to understand the relationship between change in culture and language, and social change? (3) For those who are politically committed to substantive social and political change (whether on the right or on the left), what place can a politics centred around culture and language have in a political strategy which is to have some chance of success? The article concludes with a discussion of strategies and tactics for contesting critiques of `PC'.

Key Words: culture • dialectics • discourse • political correctness

Discourse & Society, Vol. 14, No. 1, 17-28 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0957926503014001927


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S.-Y. Chiang Personal power and positional power in a power-full `I': a discourse analysis of doctoral dissertation supervision Discourse & Communication, August 1, 2009; 3(3): 255 - 271. [Abstract] [PDF]

				P. M. Garrett Protecting Children in a Globalized World: 'Race' and 'Place' in the Laming Report on the Death of Victoria Climbie Journal of Social Work, December 1, 2006; 6(3): 315 - 336. [Abstract] [PDF]

				L. Heracleous and R. J. Marshak Conceptualizing organizational discourse as situated symbolic action Human Relations, October 1, 2004; 57(10): 1285 - 1312. [Abstract] [PDF]