THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
In order to investigate the problem we made up a list of questions (see a questionnaire in Appendix) about using different vocabulary in sensitive topics.The results we got are as follows.
1. Nobody called physically disabled people ‘cripples’. A great number of adults (66%) call these people ‘invalids’ but the vast majority of schoolchildren (teenagers) chose the PC variant (physically disabled).
2. The vast majority of respondents (83% of adults and 86% of teens) used ‘mentally challenged’ which shows that they are politically correct.
3. Also, a large proportion of adults (66%) and teens (76%) prefer using ‘African-American’.
4. It was a tricky question as there was not a right answer to choose from. That is why about one fourth of teens and one third of adults chose the less offensive ‘dried apricot’ (uryuk) but a substantial number of them tried to find their own variant. There were the following answers:
-a person of Caucasian nationality -a person of foreign nationality
-a foreigner -an Asian -national man (‘natsmen’) -not a Russian person who came to make money The answers are given from more popular to less ones. Though it is a minority, some people try to sound more politically correct.
5. A minority (one third) of adult respondents think that we should address Russian women as ‘a lady’ (госпожа), though a great number of teens use more usual ‘woman/girl’
6. A vast majority of teens told that they call a shop assistant (there were only female variants) ‘a girl’, while three fourth of adults ‘a shop assistant’ in its usual variant.
7. A large proportion of people being asked (60% adults and 62% teens) prefer using ‘Secretary’ but the rest chose more modern ‘office manager’.
8. Adult respondents were more sensitive about the so called ‘metabolically challenged’ people as two third (65%) of them like using ‘deceased’ while nearly half of teens (54%) use ‘dead’.
In order to investigate the problem we made up a list of questions (see a questionnaire in Appendix) about using different vocabulary in sensitive topics.The results we got are as follows.
1. Nobody called physically disabled people ‘cripples’. A great number of adults (66%) call these people ‘invalids’ but the vast majority of schoolchildren (teenagers) chose the PC variant (physically disabled).
2. The vast majority of respondents (83% of adults and 86% of teens) used ‘mentally challenged’ which shows that they are politically correct.
3. Also, a large proportion of adults (66%) and teens (76%) prefer using ‘African-American’.
4. It was a tricky question as there was not a right answer to choose from. That is why about one fourth of teens and one third of adults chose the less offensive ‘dried apricot’ (uryuk) but a substantial number of them tried to find their own variant. There were the following answers:
-a person of Caucasian nationality -a person of foreign nationality
-a foreigner -an Asian -national man (‘natsmen’) -not a Russian person who came to make money The answers are given from more popular to less ones. Though it is a minority, some people try to sound more politically correct.
5. A minority (one third) of adult respondents think that we should address Russian women as ‘a lady’ (госпожа), though a great number of teens use more usual ‘woman/girl’
6. A vast majority of teens told that they call a shop assistant (there were only female variants) ‘a girl’, while three fourth of adults ‘a shop assistant’ in its usual variant.
7. A large proportion of people being asked (60% adults and 62% teens) prefer using ‘Secretary’ but the rest chose more modern ‘office manager’.
8. Adult respondents were more sensitive about the so called ‘metabolically challenged’ people as two third (65%) of them like using ‘deceased’ while nearly half of teens (54%) use ‘dead’.