STYLISTIC MEANS TO DENOTE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE MASS MEDIA DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article deals with political correctness in the mass media discourse. It is pointed out that political correctness occurs in social and political spheres. The main strategies can comprise prevention of expressions that are interpreted as the prejudice against nationalities, gender, sexual minorities, different age groups, offending people with different social statuses, discrimination of the religious beliefs, animals, nature, surrounding, and perceived as offensive for people with physical and mental disabilities, defects and non-standard appearance. Since political correctness has a discursive rather than linguistic character, it is relevant to analyze it on the discourse background. It is shown that the mass media discourse has an informational and psychological influence on the population’s consciousness. The information that is disseminated in media can form the necessary point of view, an opinion about the specific event. The expressive means and stylistic devices used in the media discourse to express correctness are investigated, particularly those based on the metaphorical and metonymical transfer: metaphors, periphrases, euphemisms. Special attention is paid to euphemisms that correspond to the rules of social etiquette and serve as a means of manipulation in the language of politicians and mass media. The correct choice of words is decisive for an image, party representation, voters’ support, and impact on their thoughts. It is identified that repetition of «politely» marked units makes the information be remembered subconsciously and influences mass decisions and actions. It is proved that the main task of using the politically correct expressive means in the mass media discourse consists in preventing negative connotations, direct, categorial evaluation and hiding the information. The investigation involves general scientific methods, methods of linguistic observation, and description.