Political correctness in political discourse: theory of ideological aspect

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National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute"

International European University

POLITICAL CORRECTNEss IN POLITICAL DIsCOURsE: THEORY OF IDEOLOGICAL AsPECT

YULIIA KARACHUN PhD in Philology, Associate Professor,

Department of Theory, Practice and Translation of the English Language,

NATALIIA DAVYDENKO PhD in Philology, Associate Professor,

Department of Fundamental, Medical and Preventive Disciplines



Анотація

Стаття має на меті висвітлити ідеологічний аспект функціонування політкоректної лексики в сучасному політичному дискурсі. Реалізація поставленої мети вимагала вирішення таких завдань: 1) розширити наукові уявлення про трактування лінгвістичного феномену політичної коректності як соціокультурної та мовно-поведінкової ідеології в політичному дискурсі; 2) на основі введення поняття «ідеологема» розглянути класифікацію політкоректних лексичних одиниць, що вживаються в політичному дискурсі сьогодення.

У дослідженні використано загальнонаукові методи (аналіз, узагальнення, систематизація наукової літератури з проблеми, що розглядається) та спеціальні лінгвістичні методи (метод дистрибутивного аналізу - для виділення основних семантичних груп політкоректної лексики; елементи компонентного аналізу - для виявлення компонентів значення політкоректної лексики; метод лінгвостилістичного аналізу - для вивчення функціональних особливостей політкоректної лексики на ідеологічній основі).

Зазначено, що феномен політкоректності можна розглядати як сукупність лінгвістичних та дискурсивних компонентів організації ідеологічного життя сучасного суспільства. Він здатний забезпечити створення системи цінностей, світогляду і в цілому передбачає конструювання реальності. Це також сприяє поширенню та нав'язуванню суспільству думки з того чи іншого питання, наприклад, у межах політичного дискурсу.

Виокремлено дві основні групи політкоректної лексики, які виконують якісно різні ролі: 1) політкоректна лексика, що включає загальноприйнятні назви соціокультурних явищ; 2) політкоректні ідеологеми, які слугують для формування політкоректного світогляду. Ідеологеми як результат взаємодії мови та ідеології слугують оптимальними засобами утвердження панівного світогляду в тій чи іншій країні, впливають на трансформацію вже існуючого політичного світогляду адресата, явно чи приховано репрезентують основні ідейно-ціннісні установки суспільства. Наголошено, що політично коректні ідеологеми встановлюють стандарти оцінки різнорідних соціокультурних явищ. Стверджено, що ідеологема є характерним елементом глобального політичного контексту, оскільки стосується певної епохи. Адекватне розуміння ідеологеми можливе лише в контексті відповідної ідеології та контексті певного історичного періоду.

Ключові слова: аксіологічний аспект, ідеологема, ідеологія, політкоректна лексика, політична комунікація, політичний дискурс.



Annotation

political ideology correctness ideologeme

POLITICAL CORRECTNEss IN POLITICAL DIsCOURsE: THEORY OF IDEOLOGICAL AsPECT

Yuliia G. Karachun, National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" (Ukraine)

Nataliia V. Davydenko, International European University (Ukraine)

Keywords: axiological aspect, ideologeme, ideology, politically correct lexis, political communication, political discourse.

The article aims to highlight the ideological aspect of functioning politically correct vocabulary in today's political discourse. Realization of the set goal requires solving the following objectives: 1) to expand scholarly ideas about the interpretation of the linguistic phenomenon of political correctness as sociocultural and linguistic-behavioral ideology in political discourse; 2) based on the introduction of the concept "ideologeme", to consider the classification of politically correct lexical units, used in political discourse.

The study employs general scientific methods (analysis, generalization, systematization of scholarly literature on the issue under consideration), and special linguistic methods (method of distributional analysis, used to highlight the main semantic groups of politically correct vocabulary; elements of the component analysis, necessary to identify components of the meaning of politically correct vocabulary; method of linguostylistic analysis, used to study the functional features of politically correct vocabulary based on ideology).

The study emphesizes that the phenomenon of political correctness can be considered as a set of linguistic and discursive components of the organization of the ideological life of modern society. It is able to ensure the creation of a system of values, the worldview, and in general, it involves the construction of reality. It also contributes to the dissemination and imposition of an opinion on one or another issue in society, mostly within the framework of political discourse. Political correctness deals with a situation in society where implicit rules of decency direct the ways of behavior in interactions between people of different races, genders, religions, and other potentially charged groups. It seems that political correctness in political discourse concerns all those areas where the interests of different groups of society collide on the issue of what is considered true or false, and who is considered "friend" or "stranger".

Political correctness as an ideology offers a polar view on social life, highlighting in it "good" ("right") and "evil" ("bad"). Consequently, at the most abstract level, there are concepts that define the basic values of political correctness, as well as their "antipodes," i.e., undesirable, unacceptable phenomena and attitudes that must be eradicated from social life (e.g., tolerant / intolerant, inclusive / exclusive). In general, it can be presented as a "good - evil" model of social life, which works and effectively serves the ideology of political correctness.

Admittedly, the structure of the language of political correctness is not as homogeneous as it is commonly believed. Two broad layers of politically correct lexis that perform qualitatively different roles are considered: politically correct vocabulary, which includes the "acceptable" names of sociocultural phenomena, and politically correct ideologemes that are used to directly form a politically correct worldview. Ideologemes, as a result of the interaction of language and ideology, represent the optimal means for establishing the dominant worldview in the country, influence the transformation of the addressee's already existing political worldview, explicitly or implicitly represent the basic ideological and value attitudes of a society. If politically correct vocabulary itself is an example of the "acceptable" language concerning different matters of life, then the ideologemes of political correctness set standards for assessing heterogeneous sociocultural phenomena. In turn, the attitudes and principles embedded in the ideologemes are implemented in the creation of politically correct vocabulary.

Thus, ideologemes form the core of the linguistic representation of the ideology of political correctness. Their most common word-formation models involve exploiting the suffix -ism, the -free and -phobia components, the words "bias" and "sensitivity".

It can be argued that the ideologeme is a characteristic element of the global political context, since it is a kind of reference to a particular era, its meaning is detached from the direct meanings of the lexical units that make it up. An adequate understanding of the ideologeme is possible only in the context of the corresponding ideology and the context of a certain period of history.



Introduction

Today, research into the process of communication between participants in political activity is of great linguistic interest, which is associated with the challenges of modern society regarding the peculiarities of thinking of certain social groups and individuals, the characteristics of national cultures, and unstable sociocultural events in different countries throughout the world. And under these conditions, political discourse, oriented towards serving the sphere of political communication, is a complex system of signs. Their semantics reflects the reality of the political world, interpreted by a given society [Fairclough, Wodak, 1997]. Рolitical discourse serves simultaneously as the creator and relay of the semantic structures of society - its values, different ideas, opinions, and concepts. It is a political discourse that essentially expresses the entire complex of relationships between an individual and society, and thus, this phenomenon is functionally aimed at forming in recipients a certain fragment of a worldview.

Furthermore, modern political discourse acts as an influential resource of power through which any state and various public institutions represent, legitimize, construct and promote certain images of reality, and identify positions of social subjects in society [Newman, 2004]. In general, political discourse is viewed as meaning and action, correlated with reality, and also as an essential “link", subjectively correlated with a certain group or groups of people.

The challenges of the political situation in the world have transformed political discourse into a subject for extensive interdisciplinary research. Namely, it has been studied by P. Bayley and D.R. Miller [1993], N. Chomsky [2004], A. Davis [1994]; N. Fairclough and R. Wodak [1997], M. Foucault [1995; 2000], J. Gastil [1992], R.T. Lakoff [1990], F. Randour, J. Perrez and M. Reuchamps [2020], R. Szymula [2018], T.A. Van Dijk [2004], R. Wodak [1989] and others. As S. Fedorenko and O. Bezkletna note, “the study of political discourse in terms of linguistics makes it possible to understand which political system is behind this discourse. Linguistic analysis also makes it possible to increase the effectiveness of political practice, to deepen the impact of political speeches on people's ways of thinking. Political discourse itself is aimed at future contexts (while literary one refers to the past, and the mass media - to the present), which are rather favorable: they are difficult to deny, and impossible to verify at present" [Fedorenko, Bezkletna, 2022, p. 359].

Additionally, the growing scholarly interest in political discourse can be considered a social request, aimed at studying not only the specifics of political thought and activities, but also those linguistic and rhetoric means that politicians exploit to affect and change public opinion [Elder, Cobb, 1983; Graber, 1981; Hahn, 1998; Klein, 1998]. And although the vocabulary used in political discourse, in connection with active changes in social and political life, has been the object of attention of many researchers, a number of issues still raise doubts and are the subject of debate. In particular, this relates to politically correct language and its typology, which still provides grounds for studying.

Consequently, the topicality of the study is substantiated, on the one hand, by the growing interest of researchers in modern political discourse, which is deeply ideological by its nature, and, on the other hand, by the insufficient knowledge and complexity of the typology of its politically correct language, depending on certain ideologies.



Aims and objectives

The article aims to highlight the ideological aspect of functioning politically correct vocabulary in today's political discourse. Realization of the set goal requires solving the following objectives: 1) to expand scholarly ideas about the interpretation of the linguistic phenomenon of political correctness as sociocultural and linguistic-behavioral ideology in political discourse; 2) based on the introduction of the concept “ideologeme", to consider the classification of politically correct lexical units, used in political discourse.

Methodology

The study employs general scientific methods (analysis, generalization, systematization of scholarly literature on the issue under consideration), and special linguistic methods (method of distributional analysis, used to highlight the main semantic groups of politically correct vocabulary; elements of the component analysis, necessary to identify components of the meaning of politically correct vocabulary; method of linguostylistic analysis, used to study the functional features of politically correct vocabulary based on ideology).

Literature overview

Today, there is no consensus on what definition the term “political correctness" should have, just as it is difficult to determine the exact time of its origin. According to R. Longley, the term “politically correct" was first used in 1793 in the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision concerning the case on the rights of state citizens. In the 1920s, it was exploited in political debates between the U.S. communists and socialists regarding the newly formed Soviet Union's Communist Party code of beliefs, which American socialists found to be “correct". And in the late 1970s and early 1980s the U.S. moderate-to-liberal politicians employed the term “politically correct" sarcastically to indicate the position of extreme left liberals on certain issues that moderates consider frivolous or of little importance for their purposes. In the early 1990s, conservatives began using the term “political correctness" in a derogatory manner, criticizing the teaching and promotion of what they considered left-liberal ideology “out of control" in American higher education institutions and the liberal media [Longley, 2021].

In turn, W. Satire believes that the prerequisite for the emergence of the term “political correctness" was the expression “correct thinking", which was used by Mao Zedong, a Chinese statesman of the 20th century [Satire, 1993, p. 590].

The term “political correctness" itself is a phenomenon, the study of which cannot be based only on a one-sided approach, since the factors that influenced its development were, for example, political, social, and cultural in nature. Linguists and political scientists are attracted by the phenomenon of political correctness due to its multifaceted and complex nature. Initially, political correctness was introduced to ensure successful communication, which required the selection of special linguistic means in a specific speech situation [Phumsiri, Tangkiengsirisin, 2018, p. 447]. The ideologists of political correctness argue that it is associated with the desire to respect the feelings and dignity of people and is aimed at respecting their rights in all spheres of life, including language. Lexical units that discriminate against people in one way or another have to be replaced, in accordance with the requirements of political correctness [Phumsiri, Tangkiengsirisin, 2018].

Political correctness correlates with politeness, in contrast to which it implies a change in the optics of the view, offering a different, alternative vision of reality [Brown, Levinson, 1987]. It also correlates with tolerance, however, at the same time, its main task is to consolidate in the human mind a tolerant attitude only towards those whom the ideologists of political correctness consider “theirs". Within the phenomenon of political correctness, tolerance presupposes an attitude towards another person as an equally worthy person and expresses the conscious suppression of feelings of rejection caused by everything that signifies something different in another (appearance, manner of speech, tastes, lifestyle, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.). Tolerance presupposes a disposition towards understanding and dialogue with others, recognition and respect for their right to be different [Allport, 1954]. Being to a certain extent correlated with this concept, political correctness, however, is fundamentally different from it. Political correctness, unlike tolerance, does not promote a tolerant attitude towards any other person. Political correctness sets as its main task the consolidation in the human mind of a tolerant attitude only towards those whom the ideologists of political correctness consider “their own".

The term “tolerance" is subordinate to political correctness. It is confirmed by Eco [2002], who, pointing out the negative aspects of political correctness, has emphasized that political correctness intends to inculcate tolerance and recognition of any otherness, religious, racial and sexual, and in all then it becomes a new form of fundamentalism, which canonizes the language of everyday communication to the degree of ritual.

Based on the analysis of scholarly literature, we can assert that the phenomenon of political correctness has been viewed by many researchers (E. Andrews [1996], P. Brown and S.C. Levinson [1987], A. Davis [1994], F. Ellis [2002], N. Fairclough [2003], R.W. Holder [2003], J. Izavcuk [2013], E. Knowles and J. Elliott [1997], T. Lylo [2017], N. Phumsiri and S. Tangkiengsirisin [2018], J.K. Wilson [1995]) as the “correct" version of vocabulary, which eliminates or minimizes discrimination against social groups that are disadvantaged in this or that way. This makes the language of political correctness a special political language, which, due to its linguistic characteristics, stands apart from the majority of existing “political dialects" created by various political forces.

The European Union has declared its values to be respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values, according to the adopted treaty, are common to the totality of member states, which recognize as basic values such as pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men [European Union, 2010]. It should be emphasized that one of such values is political correctness, which emphasizes intolerance of discrimination against minorities.

Holder characterizes political correctness, inherent in modern Western political culture, as a relative phenomenon and “behavioral or linguistic submission to views that are considered an immutable truth" [Holder, 2003, p. 306]. The author points out that political correctness can turn into fascism if it goes beyond the bounds of reason. He points out the difficulty of determining what is correct and notes that it all depends on the rule makers [Holder, 2003]. A similar idea can be traced in the Oxford Dictionary of New Wordsand [Knowles, Elliott, 1997] and the Random House Webster's Dictionary [Flexner, Hauck, 1993]. Its authors of the former emphasize that the goal of political correctness is to avoid discriminatory, offensive language or behavior [Knowles, Elliott, 1997]. This phenomenon is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of New Words as submission to liberal or radical beliefs regarding social issues, characterized by the promotion of accepted ideas and the rejection of language and behavior that is considered discriminatory or offensive [Knowles, Elliott, 1997].

However, the phenomenon of political correctness cannot be narrowed only to the concept of a ban on infringing on the dignity of representatives of certain minorities. It seems that political correctness in political discourse concerns all those areas where the interests of different groups of society collide on the issue of what is considered true or false, and who is considered “friend" or “stranger". In other words, political correctness is the binary oppositions “friend/foe", “true/ false".

Admittedly, the areas of application of political correctness are rather diverse. And the problem of classification of the linguistic phenomenon under study lies mainly in distinguishing groups of politically correct lexis according to these areas, depending on semantic fields (races and ethnic groups, religious denominations, issues on gender, sexual orientation, age, class segregation, etc.) [Izavcuk, 2013; Phumsiri, Tangkiengsirisin, 2018].

The trend towards political correctness is obviously becoming pervasive, drawing into this new “politically correct" space a variety of social categories that require the use of more acceptable and non-oppressive language. All this, of course, has a great influence both on the culture and behavioral models in society, and on the development of the political language as a certain ideological tool, which always serves as a “mirror" of those social events that take place in the society at a certain historic stage, while acting as a certain ideological tool [Zinken, 2003]. In this regard, the findings of Polish philosopher A. Kolakowska are of certain academic interest. She highlights the main characteristics of political correctness as an ideology. She comes to the conclusion that political correctness is: an ideology hostile to culture; dogmatic, although proclaiming tolerance; totalitarian, because it strives to subordinate thinking in all areas of life to its demands; based on abstract principles that override common sense; dividing society into groups with their own, separate interests [Kolakowska, 2012]. Political correctness deals with a situation in society where implicit rules of decency direct the ways of behavior in intercultural interactions, that is, interactions between people of different races, genders, religions, and other potentially charged groups of social identity [Ely, Meyerson, Davidson, 2006, p. 1], based on certain ideologies.

Given the aforementioned, it can be observed that today, politically correct language as one of the requirements in political discourse serves as a tool of social manipulation and ideologization in society. And from the above-mentioned literature review we can draw the conclusion that, although there are many studies on linguistic aspects of politically correct lexis, the ideological manifestation of this type of lexis is still little researched.

Results and discussions

According to the most popular classification of politically correct lexical units based on semantic fields, all these words are subdivided into racial, gender, social and commercial political correctness [Izavcuk, 2013; Phumsiri, Tangkiengsirisin, 2018]. Racial political correctness aims to eliminate racial discrimination and discrimination based on nationality. Gender-neutral and gender-marked lexical units belong to gender political correctness. Social political correctness euphemizes social and everyday phenomena, as well as the physical and mental qualities of a person. Commercial politically correct lexical units mostly fulfil an elevative function, i.e., they illuminate everything from a positive point of view and hyperbolize low or average standards.

Admittedly, the structure of the language of political correctness is not as homogeneous as it is commonly believed. Taking into account previous studies on political correctness (e.g., [Ellis, 2002; Izavcuk, 2013; Lukhanina, 2020; Phumsiri, Tangkiengsirisin, 2018]), we distinguish two broad layers of politically correct vocabulary that perform qualitatively different functions. They are as follows:

1) politically correct vocabulary, which includes the “acceptable" names of sociocultural phenomena. This layer of politically correct vocabulary has been studied according to semantic fields (races and ethnic groups, religious denominations, issues on gender, sexual orientation, age, class segregation, etc.) in great detail;

2) politically correct ideologemes that are used to directly form a politically correct worldview. This lexical group captures the basic values of political correctness, as well as the “evil" that is opposed to these values because it does not correspond to them. In this case, “the ideologeme is described as the key and communicative unit of social and political discourse, as a means of ideological and political influence on sociocultural activities of the public and as a uniting factor of society around the category of the public good.... “Ideologemes also play the role of a substitute for historical facts that are disadvantageous from the point of view of ideological interpretations of a reality" [Lylo, 2017, p. 18].

The difference between the latter layer of politically correct vocabulary and the former one is that the latter one sets and reinforces attitudes and principles, and the former layer presupposes the semantic principle of breaking politically correct vocabulary down into corresponding groups. Let us consider the latter of the above-mentioned groups of politically correct vocabulary.

Ideologemes, being a reflection of linguistic and communication factors, are studied from the position of influence on society and its life activity. They are responsible for the formation and reshaping of meanings, and also act as “representatives", “carriers" of meaning. Ideologemes are considered as tools for identifying social processes and expressing ideology in language. According to T. Lylo, the key functions of ideologemes as “the smallest intelligible units of the essentially antagonistic collective discourse of the social classes" [Jameson, 2002, p. 61] are as follows:

1) “the language presentation of ideology or ideological concepts and, consequently, ideologization of public consciousness";

2) “stabilisation and consolidation of the ideological priorities of society";

3) serving as “a mediator between ideology and the attitude towards ideology" [Lylo, p. 18].

Political correctness as a discursive cultural and behavioral category contains an ideological and behavioral attitude to overcome social conflicts and contradictions, which is implemented through language. The definition states that political correctness includes a set of normative attitudes. Therefore, political correctness assumes the same mechanisms of action for the implementation of these attitudes, which are also characteristic of ideology [Nekhaienko p. 86].

J.D. Margulies [2018], referring to the findings of Louis Althusser, considers ideology as a representation of the imaginary attitude of people to their real conditions of existence. In other words, it is an imaginary worldview, a system of illusions about this world. Ideology exists materially, it is always embodied in specific sociocultural practices and corresponding language as well.

Regarding the concept of idiologeme in terms of politically correct language, its main function is not so much to categorize reality (i.e., to identify a special group of phenomena), but to express evaluation and, more broadly, to affirm values.

In the most general ontological sense, value is a universal multidisciplinary concept that has sociocultural significance in defining objects and phenomena. And this general concept of value has a close connection with the ideologeme, which, due to its nature, is characterized by increased axiology. As values are interpreted as culturally generated invariants of social life in all its diversity; they systematize the environment of human life in the temporal aspect (from past to present and future) and in the axiological aspect, allowing a person to navigate through accepted evaluation criteria, through a system of norms and methods of social recognition. social space, justify meanings. In addition, both ideologeme and value are socially mediated and perform an important function in different spheres of society. In addition to the social and axiological aspects, the concepts of value and ideologeme are similar in that both of them can be attributed to the mental sphere. It is a well-known fact that values allow people to construct their own reality, to build a system of value relations in society. Likewise, ideologemes, being mental constructs, contribute to modeling the way of life in general, and most importantly, the way of people's thinking.

All of the above-mentioned aspects (social, axiological, cognitive) make it possible to build a symbolic triad: value - ideologeme - ideology - in which the last one can act as a generic concept in relation to the first two. T.A. Van Dijk emphasizes evaluativeness as an essential feature of ideology. According to the scholar: “ideologies are systems of social cognition that are essentially evaluative: they provide the basis for judgements about what is good or bad, right or wrong, and thus also provide basic guidelines for social perception and interaction" [van Dijk, 1995, p. 248]. It indicates that the values constituting the ideology of a particular social group may be universal, but in each specific ideology, members of the social group will make their own choice in favor of certain values that will be built into a hierarchical system, meeting the goals and demands of the social group. At its core, for example, the ideologeme “democratic values" in modern media belongs to the category of basic ontological ideologemes that have their own specific ethnospecific content. The use of the ideologeme “democratic values", which is mainly distinguished by its positive connotation, emphasizes its axiological status. Therefore, it can be argued that today, Americans, as pioneers and bearers of the ideas of democratic ideology, are ready to defend, defend and promote their values. However, despite its universal nature, the ideologeme “democratic values" is bipolar, that is, the perception of the democratic values of civilization by different social and ethnic groups is located at opposite poles on the assessment scale. Thus, representatives of other countries (not the United States) often demonstrate a negative attitude towards American democratic intervention, which is expressed in different ways, from sound scepticism to hostile and belligerent sentiments.

Categorization in this context also takes place, but it is pushed to the periphery. In general, politically correct language is characterized by a predominance of evaluation over information content [Lylo, 2017]. This is due to the fact that ideologeme is primarily a means of influence and manipulation. Since political discourse is characterized by the intention to persuade people and direct their actions in the desired direction, the predominance of evaluativeness contributes to achieving this goal.

The function of an ideologeme is not only to categorize reality, but also to express an assessment of a certain phenomenon. For example, the term political correctness is an ideologeme in itself, being part of the lexical field “political correctness", while correctness prevails over information content. The ideologemes themselves not only form the lexical field, but also serve as a theoretical basis for the ideas of political correctness. Today, the substantive principles of political correctness include the ideas of tolerance and multiculturalism. These phenomena are aimed at preventing discrimination and manifestations of intolerance (zero tolerance policy) [Lukhanina, 2020].

An interesting example of an ideologeme, thanks to the U.S. media, is the phrase “deep state". On February 16, 2017, an analytical article entitled “As Leaks Multiply, Fears of a “Deep State" in America" [Taub, Fisher, 2017] appeared on the pages of the leading U.S. newspaper “The New York Times". Almost for the first time, the term “deep state" appeared in the headline of a central newspaper in relation to the specifics of government in the United States. Previously, leading publications had not written so openly about parallel secret structures that actually govern the state without any control from society. Then supporters of Donald Trump began to use the term “deep state" to refer to intelligence and executive branch officials and officials who make policy through leaks to various media outlets. Suspicions of attempts at manipulation especially intensified after information was leaked from government officials to the Washington Post and the New York Times.And today this trend can be widely seen in the American media [Jacobsen, 2021].

Given the above, it can be noted that ideologemes have a “mass character", that is, they are perceived by an equally large group of people, representatives of the same nationality, residents of the same country, people sharing the same political views. An ideologeme is “limited" in time since the understanding and perception of a particular ideologeme can change dramatically over time.

Political correctness as an ideology offers a polar view on social life, highlighting in it “good" (“right") and “evil" (“bad"). Consequently, at the most abstract level, we have concepts that define the basic values of political correctness, as well as their “antipodes," i.e., undesirable, unacceptable phenomena and attitudes that must be eradicated from social life (e.g., tolerant / intolerant, inclusive / exclusive). In general, it can be presented as a “good - evil" model of social life, which works and effectively serves the ideology of political correctness.

As an example, let us turn to the notion “inclusive". Its essence suggests that, firstly, “an inclusive group or organization tries to include many different types of people and treat them all fairly and equally" [Woodford, 2013]; and secondly, an individual should not exclude various social and cultural phenomena as “alien", but, on the contrary, strive to accept them as “one's own". In particular, the idea of inclusive educational curricula is that, firstly, they present the achievements of other cultures (this avoids asserting the dominance of one culture), and secondly, the student is ideally provided with diverse information that is devoid of e evaluation.

The ideologemes form the core of the linguistic representation of the ideology of political correctness. The worldview will remain incomplete if we do not take into account the lexical units that name the varieties of “evil". This layer includes, for example, names of types of discrimination formed using the suffix -ism:

- ableism (policies, behaviours, rules, etc. That results in unfair or harmful treatment of disabled people (= people who have an illness, injury, or condition that makes it difficult for them to do things that most other people can do) and in a continued unfair advantage to people who are not disabled);

- sexism (actions based on) the belief that the members of one sex are less intelligent, able, skilful, etc. than the members of the other sex, especially that women are less able than men);

- ageism (unfair treatment of people because of their age);

- lookism (prejudice or discrimination based on physical appearance and especially physical appearance believed to fall short of societal notions of beauty);

- cakeism (the wish to have or do two good things at the same time when this is impossible);

- elitism (the belief that some things are only for a few people who have special qualities or abilities);

- classism (unfair treatment of or negative opinions about someone based on their social class (= economic and social position), especially because they are thought to be from a low social class) [Woodford, 2013].

It is also worth pointing out that the aforementioned word-formation model in itself does not impose evaluations. In particular, in the English language, there is the term multiculturalism, which, from the point of view of the ideology of political correctness, affirms positive values. In the same manner, compound nouns with the -phobia part should be mentioned, e.g.:

- xenophobia (extreme dislike or fear of foreigners, their customs, their religions, etc.);

- homophobia (harmful or unfair things a person does based on fear or dislike of gay people or queer people (= people who do not fit a society's traditional ideas about gender or sexuality);

- glossophobia (fear of public speaking (= speaking to a group of people) [Woodford, 2013].

In addition, the ideologeme “bias' is used to denote bias and discrimination (gender bias, biased judgment, biased opinion). Along with this ideologeme, the term “sensitivity" is exploited (cultural sensitivity - understanding the characteristics of other cultures, sensitivity rules - rules for combating discrimination) [Lukhanina, 2020].

Finally, a similar function is performed by compound words with the -free component, which indicate freedom from certain prejudices, e.g.:

- guilt-free (allowing you to enjoy something without feeling unhappy that you are doing something bad);

- penalty-free (used in financial arrangements to describe something that has no cost or other disadvantage);

- gluten-free (containing no gluten (= a protein contained in wheat and some other grains) [Woodford, 2013]. The semantic model underlying these complex words presupposes a statement “from the opposite": they indicate the type of “evil" from which a particular subject is free. The negative component in this case is denied, although it is contained in the semantics of the word.



Conclusions

The study concludes that the phenomenon of political correctness can be considered as a set of linguistic and discursive components of the organization of the ideological life of modern society. It is able to ensure the creation of a system of values, the worldview, and in general, it involves the construction of reality. It also contributes to the dissemination and imposition of an opinion on one or another issue in society, mostly within the framework of political discourse. Political correctness deals with a situation in society where implicit rules of decency direct the ways of behavior in interactions between people of different races, genders, religions, and other potentially charged groups. It seems that political correctness in political discourse concerns all those areas where the interests of different groups of society collide on the issue of what is considered true or false, and who is considered “friend" or “stranger".

Political correctness as an ideology offers a polar view on social life, highlighting in it “good" (“right") and “evil" (“bad"). Consequently, at the most abstract level, there are concepts that define the basic values of political correctness, as well as their “antipodes," i.e., undesirable, unacceptable phenomena and attitudes that must be eradicated from social life (e.g., tolerant / intolerant, inclusive / exclusive). In general, it can be presented as a “good - evil" model of social life, which works and effectively serves the ideology of political correctness.

Admittedly, the structure of the language of political correctness is not as homogeneous as it is commonly believed. Two broad layers of politically correct lexis that perform qualitatively different roles are considered: politically correct vocabulary, which includes the “acceptable" names of sociocultural phenomena, and politically correct ideologemes that are used to directly form a politically correct worldview. Ideologemes, as a result of the interaction of language and ideology, represent the optimal means for establishing the dominant worldview in the country, influence the transformation of the addressee's already existing political worldview, explicitly or implicitly represent the basic ideological and value attitudes of a society. If politically correct vocabulary itself is an example of the “acceptable" language concerning different matters of life, then the ideologemes of political correctness set standards for assessing heterogeneous sociocultural phenomena. In turn, the attitudes and principles embedded in the ideologemes are implemented in the creation of politically correct vocabulary.

Thus, ideologemes form the core of the linguistic representation of the ideology of political correctness. Their most common word-formation models involve exploiting the suffix -ism, the -free and -phobia components, the words “bias" and “sensitivity".

It can be argued that the ideologeme is a characteristic element of the global political context, since it is a kind of reference to a particular era, its meaning is detached from the direct meanings of the lexical units that make it up. An adequate understanding of the ideologeme is possible only in the context of the corresponding ideology and the context of a certain period of history.

This article provides the scope for further study within the framework of the corpus-based analysis of politically correct ideologemes in political discourse. As corpus research is of particular importance in linguistics, since corpus data often allows resolving issues of the validity of a theory, and also makes it possible to obtain new scientific data.



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