SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE TEACHING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES – A CASE STUDY ON EFL HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE TEACHING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES – A CASE STUDY ON EFL HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Summary/Abstract: Part of the modern mindset, political correctness has become a complex phenomenon which has generated new ways of expression calling into question changes occurring at the linguistic level. Against the background of ongoing controversial viewpoints on the rationale and justification of politically correct language, non-discriminatory language occurrence in English speaking settings is a reality that should not be overlooked in the foreign language teachers’ attempt to build intercultural communication specific skills. Despite its lengthy history, political correctness is still an evasive term, and the propagated linguistic behaviour, which actually reflects the social change, is not universal, as it highly depends on the speaker’s values and beliefs, on the audience, the communication setting and the subject matter. This paper researches and presents a case study showing the attitude of EFL high school teachers on integrating politically correct lexicon into FL classes. Data for the research were collected from 30 high school English teachers via a questionnaire prepared by the authors. We reckon the outcomes of the study are relevant for further attempts to design teachers training syllabi, to adjust academic curricula or to add dictionary entries needed for translations. For the purpose of this study, we consider political correctness or politically correct language, including the abbreviations PC and p.c. only in terms of their linguistic implications, no reference thereto being intended to ridicule, criticize or offend.

• Details
• Contents