No one is “pro-politically correct”: Positive construals of political correctness in Twitter conversations

Abstract

This study investigates use of the contested term politically correct (PC) in written conversational exchanges on Twitter. PC is sometimes assumed to be entirely a fabrication by conservatives or the far right, not a label that anyone would voluntarily attach to themselves. This study focuses on discursive instantiations of PC that challenge this assumption by construing PC favorably. To this end, a small set of conversations featuring more-or-less clearly positive construals of PC, selected from an initial material of 184 Twitter conversations containing the target phrase “politically correct,” are analyzed in detail. The aim is to see how such construals appear and function in everyday discourse.