La interdicción lingüística:estrategías del lenguaje políticamente correcto en textos legales educativos. Selección de deyes educativas (1986-2006)

Abstract

The present dissertation aims to analyse the discursive strategy used by politically correct language in the legal educational field during the last two decades (from 1986 to 2006) in Spain. In order to do so, the phenomenon of linguistic interdiction is studied from an interdisciplinary viewpoint (linguistic and pragmatic), taking into account the different theories which help us to get to a deeper study of the real value of euphemistic and dysphemistic uses. Thus, taboo, euphemism and dysphemism are the preferential objects of study in this dissertation, and for this reason I refer to the different attempts to define and classify these phenomena as well as the different linguistic strategies used in their construction, the causes which motivate their appearance and the purpose which the analysed texts seek. The use of euphemism is pointed out as a privileged strategy to manipulate reality, since its use comes to validate a given perception of reality that sometimes turns out to be untrue. On the other hand, the use of dysphemism in educational texts outside the legal field comes to break this ideal, beautified and sometimes fallacious vision of the educational reality. So, this way it tries to correct the distortion created by the use of euphemistic substitutes in legal texts. These two phenomena are studied in five different areas: the notion of education; academic issues; education for challenged students; educational compensation and social, economic and cultural reality and finally, a last area which I have called �magic words� in education. In these semantic fields I take into account some linguistic uses which go further the mere attempt to represent the world. Politically correct language interprets reality through some given linguistic uses and puts across its peculiar vision of it, being thus determined in a process of correction and construction of reality itself.