Self-Censorship as a Source of Political Correctness (Based on the Frequency of Use of Polish Lexemes)

Abstract

The article attempts to prove the thesis which assumes the existence of the influence of self-censorship on the political correctness of texts archived in Polish digital libraries and other digital databases. For this purpose, the authors use the technique of automatically generating frequency graphs for vocabulary used in texts with the aim of determining the frequency of use of selected lexical units of the Polish language which have not met the conditions of political correctness in the last several dozen years. Approximately a hundred lexical units were analyzed. As a result, graphs showing the decreasing frequency of twenty five politically incorrect lexemes were obtained, especially visible in the 1990s and after the year 2000. On this basis, it is concluded that the source of this tendency is, among others, the self-censorship of the authors of the analyzed texts. Self-censorship can, of course, also be analyzed the other way round, as an effect of political correctness, but it does not matter from the point of view of the purpose of this study. Political correctness certainly reduces a number of topics discussed in the media and information space. At the same time, however, the authors – based on the research results – claim that euphemization, as a product of political correctness, catalyzes detabooization processes, which should be considered a positive phenomenon in the use of language.