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15. The Golden Gate bridge is vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
16. Belgian government officials are discussing the matter with
their counterparts in France.
17. Able young men and women are still held back from success
by prejudice.
18. Almost all immigrant groups have faced prejudice in their
new countries.
19. Being a Black man, I have to deal with prejudice every day.
20. His view is that the welfare system helps to perpetuate failure
and poverty.
II. Make up a situation with the following words and phrases:
a) vulnerable, prejudice, counterpart, motto, pejorative;
b) bias, outrage, discourse, to be little short of, motto;
c) perpetuate, demeaning, stationery, bias-free, outrage.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Do you think that bias-free societies can possibly exist? Prove
your point of view.
2. Political correctness: virtue or evil? Speculate on the nature of
PC, its positive and negative features.
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENT
Read the following recommendations dealing with the use of
politically correct language and take them into account when
communicating with English-speakers:
Общий принцип политически корректного коммуникативного
поведения сводится к неиспользованию слов и выражений, а
также невербальных действий, подчеркивающих определенные
аспекты идентичности личности (пол, возраст, этническую и
расовую принадлежность, физическое состояние и т. д.).
Инструкции настоятельно рекомендуют использовать формы,
нейтральные с точки зрения указания на пол человека: humanity,
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human beings, human race, people вместо mankind; artificial,
synthetic, manufactured, constructed, of human origin вместо manmade; business executive, business manаger, businessperson вместо
businessman; consumers/they вместо the consumer/he. Предпочти-
тельным также считается обращение Ms. вместо Miss/Mrs.,
помогающее избежать асимметрии по сравнению с обращением к
мужчине Mr. (не указывающим на семейное положение его
носителя). В письмах к официальным лицам рекомендуется
употреблять обращения Mr/Ms. President или нейтральное
приветствие Greetings, т.к. некоторые жен
щины-руководители
наотрез отказываются читать письма, начинающиеся с обращения
Mr. President.
Американские лингвисты также рекомендуют проявлять
политическую корректность по отношению к людям разных
возрастных групп. Например, слова girl и boy не советуют
употреблять о людях старше 13 лет. Подростков нередко
называют young man/young woman, young adults, дабы польстить
их самолюбию. Выражение older person считается более
приемлемым, нежели elder, elderly, senior. Термин senior citizen
официально у
потребляется по отношению к людям старше
65 лет.
Особое внимание обращается на слова и жесты, указывающие
на этническую и расовую принадлежность. Рекомендуется без
необходимости вообще избегать информации такого рода в
контексте: Jim Wong is unusually tall вместо Jim Wong is an
unusually tall Asian; children from low-income families вместо
disadvantaged black children. Если же эта информация должна
присутствовать, следует вдумчиво относиться к ее отбор
у и
использовать формы Afro-American, Black вместо Negro; Native
American вместо Indian, Injun и т. д.
Важной сферой политической корректности является
тематика, имеющая отношение к физическому состоянию людей.
Как и в предыдущих ситуациях, рекомендуется не упоминать о
физических недостатках человека, если эта информация не
составляет суть коммуникации. Если же указание на эту
информацию неизбежн
о, то следует стараться заменить неприят-
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ные, обидные формулы на более мягкие и тактичные: barriers
exist for disabled workers that can handicap them on the job вместо
оn-the-job barriers exist for handicapped workers; Tracy’s epilepsy
has no effect on her job performance вместо an epileptic, Tracy has
no trouble doing her job. В рекламе используются следующие
«привлекательные» формулировки для описания одежды для
людей с избыточным весом: chubette, pretty-plus (о девочках);
husky, husky-plus (о мальчиках); women’s sizes (vs "misses" or
"girls"), adult sizes, mature sizes (о женщинах); portly, stout, mature,
big, adult sizes (о мужчинах); full-figure fashions, hard-to-fit sizes (о
покупателях разных категорий).
Нормы политической корректности должны со
блюдаться и
при разговоре о материальном достатке и социальном положении
людей. Так, например, дорогие вагоны в поездах называются first
class, дешевые — standard. Это же стремление прослеживается в
попытке переименовать некоторые профессии: mortician вместо
undertaker, realtor вместо real estate agent, beautician вместо
hairdresser, shoe rebuilder вместо cobbler, canine control officer
вместо dog catcher, custodial engineer вместо janitor, homemaker и
даже household executive вместо houswife. «Непрестижные»
названия типа secondhand automobi
le dealers заменяются на
reconditioned, rebuilt, repossessed, used; secondhand shop на buyand-sell shop, resale store/shop; damaged или shop-worn на second,
slightly second, slightly hurt, store-used,.
TEXT 2
ARE YOU POLITICALLY CORRECT?
by John Taylor
“Racist”
“Racist!”
“The man is a racist!”
“A racist!”
Such denunciations, hissed in tones of self-righteousness and
contempt, vicious and vengeful, furious, smoking with hatred — such
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denunciations haunted Stephan Thernstrom for weeks. Whenever he
walked through the campus that spring, down Harvard’s brick paths,
under the arched gates, past the fluttering elms, he found it hard not to
imagine the pointing fingers, the whispers. Racist. There goes the
racist. It was hellish, this persecution.
Themstrom couldn’t sleep. His nerves were frayed, his temper raw.
He was making his family miserable. And the worst thing was that he
didn’t know who was calling him a racist, or why. Thernstrom, 56, a
professor at Harvard University for 25 years, is considered one of the
preeminent scholars of the history of race relations in America. He has
tenure. He has won prizes and published numerous articles and four
books and edited the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic
Groups. For several years, Thernstrom and another professor Bernard
Bailyn, taught an undergraduate lecture course on the history of race
relations in the United States called “Peopling of America.” Bailyn
covered the Colonial era. Thernstrom took the class up to the present.
Both professors are regarded as very much in the academic
mainstream, their views grounded in extensive research on their
subject, and both have solid liberal democratic credentials. But all of a
sudden, in the fall of 1987, articles began to appear in the Harvard
Crimson accusing Thernstrom and Bailyn of “racial insensitivity” in
“Peopling оf America.” The sources for the articles were anonymous,
the charges vague, but they continued to be repeated, these ringing
indictments.
Finally, through the intervention of another professor, two students
from the lecture course came forward and identified themselves as the
grievances, they presented the professors with a six page letter.
Bailyn’s crime had been to read from the diary of a southern planter
without giving equal time to the recollections of a slave. This, to the
students, amounted to a covert defense of slavery. Bailyn, who has
won two Pulitzer Prizes, had pointed out during the lecture that no
journals, diaries, or letters written by slaves had ever been found. He
had explained to the class that all they could do was read the planter’s
diary and use it to speculate about the experience of slaves. But that
failed to satisfy the complaining students. Since it was impossible to
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give equal representation to the slaves, Bailyn ought to have dispensed
with the planters’ diary altogether.
Thernstrom’s failures, according to the students, were almost
systematic. He had, to begin with, used the word Indians instead of
Native Americans. Themstrom tried to point out that he had said very
clearly in class that Indian was the word most Indians themselves use,
but that was irrelevant to the students. They considered the word
racist.
Even worse, they continued, Themstrom had assigned a book to the
class that mentioned that some people regarded affirmative action as
preferential treatment. That was a racist opinion. But most
egregiously, Thernstrom had endorsed, in class, Patrick Moynihan’s
emphasis on the breakup of the black family as a cause of persistent
black poverty. That was a racist idea.
All of these words and opinions and ideas and historical
approaches were racist. Racist! They would not be tolerated.
The semester was pretty much over by then. But during the spring,
when Thernstrom sat down to plan the course for the following year,
he had to think about how he would combat charges of racism should
they crop up again. And they assuredly would... And a charge of
racism, however unsubstantiated, leaves a lasting impression. “It’s
like being called a Commie in the fifties,” Thernstrom says “Whatever
explanation you offer, once accused, you’re always suspect.”
He decided that to protect himself in case he was misquoted or had
comments taken out of context, he would need to tape all his lectures.
Then he decided he would have to tape his talks with students in his
office. He would, in fact, have to tape everything he said on the
subject of race. It would require a tape-recording system worthy of the
Nixon White House. Microphones everywhere, the reels turning
constantly. That was plainly ridiculous. Thernstrom instead decided it
would be easier just to drop the course altogether. “Peopling of
America” is no longer offered at Harvard.
Thе New Fundamentalism
When the Christian-Fundamentalist uprising began in the late
seventies, Americans on the left sneered at the Bible thumpers who
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tried to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools, at the
troglodytes who wanted to remove The Catcher in the Rye from public
libraries. They heaped scorn on the evangelists who railed against
secular humanism and the pious hypocrites who tried to legislate
patriotism and Christianity through school prayer and the Pledge of
Allegiance. This last effort was considered particularly heinous. Those
right-wing demagogues were interfering with individual liberties!
They were trying to indoctrinate the children! It was scandalous and
outrageous, and unconstitutional too.
But curiously enough, in the past few years, a new sort of
fundamentalism has arisen precisely among those people who were
the most appalled by Christian fundamentalism. And it is just as
demagogic and fanatical. The new fundamentalists are an eclectic
group; they include multiculturalists, feminists, radical homosexuals,
Marxists, New Historicists. What unites them — as firmly as the
Christian fundamentalists are united in the belief that the Bible is the
revealed word of God — is their conviction that western culture and
American society are thoroughly and hopelessly racist, sexist,
oppressive…
One of the marvels of the new fundamentalism is the rationale it
has concocted for dismissing all dissent. Just as Christian
fundamentalists attack nonbelievers as agents of Satan, so the
politically correct dismiss their critics as victims of, to use the famous
Marxist phrase, “false consciousness.” Anyone who disagrees is
simply too soaked in the oppressors’ propaganda to see the truth. “We
are all the progeny of a racist and sexist society.”
To the politically correct, everything is political.
Ethnic and Ideological Purity
The multicultural and ethnic-studies programs now in place at most
universities tend to divide humanity into five groups — whites,
blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. (Homosexuals and
feminists are usually included on the grounds that, though they are not
a distinct ethnic group, they, too, have been oppressed by the “whitemale” ... and prevented from expressing their “otherness.”) These are
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somewhat arbitrary categories, and in fact, the new fundamentalists
have two contradictory views about just what constitutes an ethnic
group and who can belong.
This obsessive tendency to see oppression everywhere is creating a
sort of New Age caste system. The categories of oppression range
from “classism” and “ageism” to “ableism” (identified as “oppression
of the differently abled by the temporarily able”) and “lookism,”
which was revealed to be “the construction of a standard for beauty/
attractiveness; and oppression through stereotypes and generalizations
оf both those who do not fit that standard and those who do.”
Heightism may be next. In a joke now making the rounds, short
people are demanding to be known as “the vertically challenged.”
But joking isn’t allowed! Even the most harmless, lighthearted
remarks can lead to virulent denunciations. In October, Roderick
Nash, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara,
pointed out during a lecture on environmental ethics that there is a
movement to start referring to pets as animal companions.
(Apparently, domesticated animals are offended by the word pet.)
Nash then made some sort of off-die-cuff observation about how
women who pose for Penthouse are still called Pets (and not
Penthouse Animal Companions). Inevitably, several female students
filed a formal sexual-harassment complaint against him; Susan Rode,
one of the signers, said, “Maybe this will make more people aware in
other classes and make other faculty watch what they say.”
Indeed, making people watch what they say is the central
preoccupation of politically correct students.
CULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS
Look up the following entries in the Dictionary of U. S. Life and
Culture (Жизнь и культура США: Лингвострановедческий
словарь) or other dictionaries and encyclopedias:
affirmative action
Commie
evangelists
Harvard University
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Penthouse
Pledge of Allegiance
preferential treatment
Pulitzer Prize
tenure
The Catcher in the Rye
undergraduate
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why were the two Harvard professors accused of being racists?
Do you think the students’ actions were justified?
2. Whom does Taylor call the “new fundamentalists” on college
campuses?
3. What categories of people does this group include?
4. Why does Taylor refer to them as fundamentalists?
5. What kinds of ‘-isms’ have the ‘politically correct’ invented? On
what grounds?
6. Why does Taylor claim that the climate on today’s college
campus is similar to McCarthyism in the 1950s? What similarities
does he observe?
7. Should people who use politically incorrect terms such as Indian
instead of Native American be censured or reprimanded?
8. Do you find that you have to be careful of what you say on
campus?
9. Do you think that making people ‘watch what they say’ is a
positive or a negative thing?
TEXT 3
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, SPEECH CODES,
AND DIVERSITY
by Alan M. Dershowitz
There is now a debate among the pundits over whether the
“political correctness” (P.C.) movement on college and university
campuses constitutes a real threat to intellectual freedom or merely
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provides conservatives with a highly publicized opportunity to bash
the left for the kind of intolerance of which the right has often been
accused.
My own sense, as a civil libertarian whose views lean to the left, is
that the “P.C.” movement is dangerous and that it is also being
exploited by hypocritical right wingers.
Does this movement for political correctness — this intolerance of
verbal and intellectual diversity — really affect college and university
students today? Or is it, as some argue, merely a passing fad,
exaggerated by the political right and the media?
The media is not exaggerating the problem of political correctness.
It is a serious issue on college and university campuses. As a teacher, I
can feel a palpable reluctance on the part of many students —
particularly those with views in neither extreme and those who are
anxious for peer acceptance — to experiment with unorthodox ideas,
to make playful comments on serious subjects, to challenge politically
correct views and to disagree with minority, feminist, or gay
perspectives.
I feel this problem quite personally, since I happen to agree — as a
matter of substance — with most “politically correct” positions. But I
am appalled at the intolerance of many who share my substantive
views. And I worry about the impact of politically correct intolerance
on the generation of leaders we arе currently educating.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Whom does the author refer to as ‘the left’ and ‘the right’?
2. Why does the author claim that “P.C.” movement is dangerous?
3. How do you understand the term ‘diversity’? What does
diversity mean to you as a Russian? Do you think speech codes on
U.S. campuses help or hinder diversity?
4. The author indicates that students tend “to experiment with
unorthodox ideas, to make playful comments on serious subjects, to
challenge politically correct views and to disagree with minority,
feminist, or gay perspectives.“ In connection with this, would you say
that political correctness limits the freedom of speech?
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5. What do you think is the difference between being a moral
person and being politically correct? Justify your opinion.
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENT
Render the following text in English. Discuss the author’s
attitude towards P.C. Speak about the situation with P.C. in
Russia.
ПОЛИТИЧЕСКАЯ КОРРЕКТНОСТЬ
Татьяна Толстая
Засилье политически корректного языка и соответственно
выражаемых этим языком политически корректных мыслей и
понятий захлестнуло современную американскую культуру. <…>
Идеология политической корректности требует, чтобы любое
публичное высказывание и публичное (а в ряде случаев и
частное) поведение соответствовало неким нормам, в идеале
выражающим и отражающим равенство всего и вся. Во многом
эти требования исходят со стороны агресси
вного феминизма, но
не только. Есть расовая политическая корректность (political
correctness или, сокращенно, PC — «пи-си»), экологическая,
поведенческая, ценностная, какая угодно. Упрощая (но не
слишком), можно сказать, что она базируется на следующем
современном мифе: белые мужчины много веков правили миром,
угнетая меньшинства, небелые расы, женщин, животных,
растения. Белый му
жчина навязал всему остальному миру свои
ценности, правила, нормы. Мы должны пересмотреть эти нормы
и восстановить попранную справедливость.
<…> Можно утверждать, что мужчина всегда морально
дурен — агрессивные феминисты (-ки) это постоянно и делают.
Например: нашей современной культуре навязана идея так
называемой «красоты», то есть представление о том, что люди
неравны в отношении внешн
ей притягательности. Это грех
«смотризма» (lookism). Феминистка Наоми Вульф (сама молодая
и красивая) разоблачила негодяев: она открыла, что идея
«красоты» возникла с развитием буржуазного, индустриального
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