THE POWER OF WORDS

poetry and the “politically correct”

Abstract

This paper contains a reflection about the power of words and their influence upon human behaviour. Changes in vocabulary, as the result of a posture that has been classified as “politically correct”, are analysed, through literary work and theories of learning and linguistics. One cannot say that changes in language are enough to cause changes in persons’ attitudes - like destroying their prejudices, for instance. However, it can be considered that such linguistic changes have the power of, at least, causing impact, cognitive imbalance, leading to the analyses of their reasons. In consonance with poetry and its capacity for subversion of perceptive/cognitive processes, it seems admissible to think that the changes in words can make some contributions to social change.