Politically Correct Euphemisms and Dysphemisms of Racial and Ethnic Themes in German Press

Abstract

This article is devoted to identifying euphemized and dysphemized vocabulary pertaining to racial and ethnic issues in Germany, as well as conducting a comparative analysis of politically correct glossaries issued by the Alliance 90/The Greens party, the “New German Journalists” union, and guidelines for Berlin police officers. The research corpus consists of 200 articles from German online publications, which yielded 42 euphemistic lexemes and 3 dysphemisms covering the period from 2023 to 2025. The relevance of this study stems from the fact that changes in Germany's ethnic structure are fostering the emergence of new words commonly referred to as ‘politically correct’. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that domestic German studies have yet to provide a linguistic description of politically correct vocabulary or conduct a classification and systematization of racerelated euphemisms and dysphemisms based on the German language material. It has been demonstrated that journalists not only employ politically correct terminology when referring to racial and ethnic groups but also actively expand the synonymic range of these nominations. Furthermore, it has been established that authors construct politically correct euphemistic expressions predominantly through periphrases following specific models. While striving for the sensitive construction of ethnic group identities, journalists meticulously select their linguistic tools; however, this responsible approach is not always accompanied by an update of the authorial lexicon and the inclusion of newer, more acceptable terms.