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Pragmatics: Online-First Articles

Towards a distinction between non-euphemistic and euphemism-based politically correct expressions

A relevance-theoretic perspective

ORCID logo | Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

This qualitative research is the first attempt to analyse differences in the interpretation of politically correct (PC) expressions by using relevance-theoretic and lexical pragmatics tools. The results suggest that PC language can be non-euphemistic and euphemism-based. Non-euphemistic PC expressions achieve relevance by explicitly communicating their lexically encoded conceptual content. Euphemism-based PC expressions become relevant by communicating some concepts and propositions that are not lexically encoded by them and are inferred logically from the utterance context or/and by accessing encyclopaedic information. These concepts and propositions constitute euphemistic meaning and are recovered at explicit and implicit levels, as well as with varying degrees of strength.

Keywords: PC expressions, euphemisms, relevance, government discourse, speaker’s meaning
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Non-euphemistic PC expressions
    • 4.2Euphemism-based PC expressions
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Sources
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