Politically Correct Language in Public Speeches

Abstract

This diploma paper deals with politically correct language in public speeches. The theoretical part defines political correctness and states two language means of political correctness: euphemism/dysphemism and genderlect. Furthermore, it concentrates on selected areas of linguistic taboo and possible ways of expressing gender-neutrality in the English language. In the practical part, the theory is applied to public speeches in order to prove whether the language means of political correctness correspond to the expressions detected in the data as well as to state the frequency of occurrence of these means.