POLITICALLY CORRECT LANGUAGE AS A PRAGMATIC PHENOMENON: DISCURSIVE POWER AND SOCIAL MEANING

This paper examines politically correct (PC) language as a pragmatic phenomenon shaped by discursive power and the negotiation of social meaning. PC language is approached not as a set of lexical substitutions but as a communicative practice through which speakers construct identities, regulate social relations, and align with institutional or ideological norms. Drawing on pragmatic and discourse-analytical frameworks, the study investigates how PC language functions as a mechanism of discursive positioning and social regulation in the Romanian context. A qualitative pragmatic-discursive methodology is employed, with analysis focused on ten authentic examples from Romanian political, institutional, and social media discourse. The findings show that PC language can promote inclusion and reduce offense but may equally operate as a form of discursive power that shapes what can be said and how meaning is interpreted. The paper argues that PC language must be understood as a context-dependent pragmatic practice in which discursive power conditions both expression and interpretation.