Political correctness and ideology

African-American, horizontally challenged, hearing-impaired – political correctness has become an unalterable part of the English language and an endless source for passionate debates. For modern linguistics, however, these special terms remain rather intangible. Focused on the analysis of language as an abstract system, they pay less attention to the concrete realization of these structures in interaction. According to Giuliano Benassi language in everyday use has raised a number of questions, which seem impossible to answer from an abstract, structural point of view. It is not so much a pre-given set of rules after which interactants follow in language situations but cultural and linguistic beliefs grouped under the notion of ideology. Language is 'biased' – it favors some people according to factors such as gender, ethnic origin and sexual orientation. The way political correctness simply substitutes one term with another (e. g. 'involuntary undomiciled' for 'homeless') will not change anything as long as the ideology connected to it does not change.