Prime Time 8. Coursebook plus Semester Self-checks, Schulbuch

9 Politically correct education Politically correct language a) What do you think the following words and expressions mean? Which synonyms for them are you familiar with? b) What do you think about the expressions above? Which ones would you use/avoid using? c) Look at the tag cloud below and study the expressions in the word bank. Try to give an explanation of the concept of “politically correct language”. d) What are the arguments for and against politically correct language? What is your view? Reading: The language police a) Before you read the following extract from a book, have a look at the title. What do you expect the text to be about? b) Now read the text and use two colours to underline sentences containing the opinion of the writer and sentences giving examples or supporting evidence. 1 Word bank age-related • behaviour • belief • bias • culture • disability • gender • groups of people • ideas • ideology • language • occu­ pation • offending • policies • race • religion • sexual orientation W mentally challenged African American Native American Caucasian fire-fighter hearing impaired senior citizen womyn flight attendant lacking a formal education mail carrier 2 By the 1990s, publishers had stopped complaining about the adoption process 1 . Their own bias guidelines reflected what California required, and they had become accustomed to its legal compliance review. Every publisher knew the checklist and the criteria, and they came to appreciate the stability of the state’s guidelines. In time, textbooks in every subject area incorporated what California and Texas demanded. Even textbooks in science and mathematics grew fatter as publishers added biographies of mathematicians and scientists who were women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and people with disabilities. Students became used to seeing sidebars about social issues in their textbooks, even when they were irrelevant to the lessons. 1 The term adoption process refers here to a procedure for approval or adoption of instructional materials. But teachers and students never knew about the words and phrases that were revised or deleted before publication. Here are some examples of language that was revised or cut by various publishers before submission to the state adoption process in Texas in 2002: […] A headline in a twelfth-grade history textbook read: “Death stalks a continent: In the dry timber of African societies, AIDS was a spark. The conflagration it set off continues to kill millions.” The editor deleted it with the comment: “Too full of inappropriate issues; too negative, we don’t want to portray Africa as AIDS-ridden.” An article written for a twelfth-grade textbook […] was titled: “Preaching chastity in the classroom: More sex-education classes are teaching kids only about 5 10 15 20 25 30 104 Ideals and reality Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eig ntum des Verlags öbv