“The painful monotony of conversations about one and the same thing”: Constitutive signs of thematic discourse on the example of the discussion on political correctness in Germany

The article discusses discourse features identified by its reference to a common object of extra-linguistic reality. The study aims to determine criteria that transform individual thematically related verbal acts into a discursive whole. The object of the research is the discussion about the linguistic implementation of tolerance principles (hereinafter PC discourse), which has been conducted by German society for almost three decades. The article shows how verbal acts, united by the common theme Political Correctness (politische Korrektheit), function as a whole in conceptualizing the object of reference. The empirical basis of the study was the data of the Mannheim German Reference Corpus DeReKo COSMAS II and texts of different genres selected on the basis of thematic relevance: articles from authoritative German newspapers and magazines, blogs, transcripts of the state parliament sessions, a court decision. The study made it possible to identify the specific features of PC discourse in three main parameters. The first parameter is thematic. Throughout its existence, PC discourse has demonstrated substantial rigidity. This feature finds its expression both in the argumentative pattern and in the conceptualization of the key object. Its figurative and associative features were fixed at an early stage in the existence of discourse with the help of evaluative metaphors, many of which have become constant contextual companions of the key concept (e.g. Tugendterror, Diktatur, Denkverbot). The denotative ambiguity of the key concept and the axiological nature of the corresponding concept ensure the minimum content dynamics of PC discourse: any current discussion can be assessed in terms of its compliance with the norms of political correctness, especially since the concept itself does not have a clear definition. Due to this, PC discourse is the interdiscursive platform on which discourses of other topics interact. The second constituent parameter of PC discourse is determined by the nature of its participants. A collective communicative act dedicated to political correctness is not an equal communication between its supporters and opponents. PC discourse is asymmetric, and the consequence of asymmetry is the “occupation” of a key concept by opponents of political correctness. It is in the communicative interaction of supporters and opponents of political correctness that the whole palette of pragmatic meanings of the discursive lexicon is revealed. The third parameter characterizes PC discourse in terms of chronology and the nature of its course. The article provides arguments that allow the first stage of the German national discussion on political correctness to be dated to October 1993. The conducted research reveals the way of functioning of a discourse type based on the analysis of its main parameters. The developed approach can find its application in the analysis of other types of discourse. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References