A Linguagem Politicamente Correta no Instagram: um estudo a partir da ótica da Política Linguística

Abstract

The politically correct movement has permeated the United States since the end of the 60s, configuring language as the space of action in human behavior in terms of the substitution of terms by others that aim to avoid offenses and discriminations. The present work is part of the area of Political and Linguistic Planning, based on the notion of Spolsky (2004, 2009) and its main objective is to investigate the functioning of the Politically Correct discourse in Instagram posts. To achieve this goal, we have created a corpus with posts that contemplate in its text any indication of the use of Politically Correct and/or the comments about them. We take as theoretical assumption the three components of Spolsky's Language Policy (2004): the language practices that correspond to the language choices that members of a given speech community perform in a more or less conscious way; the beliefs/ideologies that relate to the values attributed to languages and linguistic varieties; and, finally, the management/planning that includes all the efforts made by those who believe in the authority to modify the practices or beliefs of the participants of a given social domain, in particular, social networks. We performed an analysis of qualitative nature in the texts selected and the results obtained in the analysis indicate that: i) the meanings on the terms presented in the posts are constructed historically and socially and can change with time, due to social change factors; ii) management is explicit and may or may not be practiced, depending on "who" is considered in the authority to carry it out and this authorization is related to the ideologies in force in the field; iii) the arguments in favor of the Politically Correct Language (LPC) put it as a mechanism for valuing minority groups; the opposing arguments perceive it as something unnecessary and that contributes to the perpetuation of prejudice, as well as harming freedom of expression.