Ethnophaulism and their usege in the discourse media in the USA

Among the main reasons for the use of ethnic nicknames or ethnophaulisms are usually given stereotypical thinking, prejudices, hostility, the desire to humiliate and ridicule. However, the analysis of numerous episodes of their mentioning in the modern media, literature and movies shows that ethnophaulisms should be considered not only symbols of the cultural and national tragedy, but also a product of speech culture, which in addition to anger and intolerance has a low comic value.It can become a means of compensating social injustice and "ennobling" the social status of ethnic minorities, which is a kind of conflict resolution.

Analysis of the content of modern information resources suggests that in addition to the above reasons for the use of ethnic nicknames in the cross-cultural space of the English-speaking countries, which often remains without attention, yet perhaps the most common of them is cultural ignorance.

The use of ethnophaulism rightly considered a serious social problem with serious implications for the objects that use them.

Ethnic nicknames, which are the product of the speech culture of interethnic communication, certainly deserve the most attention of researchers, because they are the reflection of the social organization, a marker of its development, which can be used in assessing and preventing the escalation of conflicts, as well as in the formation of cross-cultural competence in the community as the basis for effective interaction of different cultures.

The habit to give other ethnic groups nicknames with emotional and expressive evaluation. In many dictionaries of different languages, including their vocabulary, this layer of language, known in linguistics as ethnophaulism, these words are accompanied by notes some of which are "offensive", "derogatory", "disparaging", "humorous", etc., because they have expressive emotional coloring and are predominantly in the spoken language. The basis of such characteristics is the conceptual division of the world: evil - good, alien - his own, stupid - smart. Categorization we (good) - they (bad) associated with explicit or implicit evaluation is aimed at the elevation of their own ethnic group and humiliation, infringement of another's ethnic group.

Media Discourse

For the analysis of the materials we decided to apply a critical discourse analysis. This approach refers to a scientific trend that focuses mainly on the power-political and ideological nature of discourse and makes the subject of research the relations of subordination, inequality, discrimination realized in discourses. The leading representatives of the CDA are Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk, etc. Representatives of the CDA initially viewed their discourse theories as a methodological tool designed to expose the relations of social domination and discrimination encoded in discursive practices.

Discourse in CDA is considered to be a certain way of domination and control in society. An important component of critical discourse analysis is the recognition of the constant change of social norms and regulations, which is a consequence of the transformation of discursive practices.

The growing research and public interest in the CDA in recent years is due to a number of factors. One of them is the emergence in political life of new social movements, which are referred to as "movement for identity", "struggle for recognition", "movement for cultural rights and multicultural citizenship", etc., which received in the United States the common name "identity policy".

The movement for identity formulates the requirements of social, political and legal recognition of subcultures of discriminated social groups, the requirements of racial, ethnic, gender equality. These requirements contain the idea of the need for a radical reevaluation and change of existing socio-cultural and discursive practices of power distribution.

More often, the media, especially television, become the center of public life. Media discourse in the hands of politicians is a powerful resource used to form public opinion, to win the support of the population. At the same time, the use of media language increases the risk of public defamation. An important condition for achieving political success is the reasonableness of the choice of the language of communication with the mass audience through the media (Fairclough & Wodak).

One of the main distinguishing features of the CDA from other theories of discourse is the emphasis on the ideological contexts of the discourse of social communications. The ideologization of discourse is understood as the recognition of the existence of those components in the language that support a certain type of social relations.

The main theoretical and methodological guidelines and features of the CDA in the field of interpretation and analysis of discourse are as follows:

linguistic-oriented approach to discourse analysis;

interpretation of discourse as a communicative action in the form of text and speech;

interpretation of written and spoken discourse as forms of social practice;

dialectical view of the relationship between discourses and social practices, emphasizing their mutual conditionality;

understanding discourse as a verbal representation of relations of ideological domination;

emphasis on criticism and exposure of discriminatory and repressive content of prevailing socio-political discourses;

special attention to the discourses of racism, nationalism, sexism;

consideration of the discourse of elites and media discourse as the main sources of power asymmetry.

Socio-cultural discourse analysis. Leading representatives - Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak. The main attention is on the relationship of changes occurring in the structure of language and in the structure of socio-cultural relations. The main goal is to study the relationship between the use of language and socio-cultural practice. For example, Norman Fairclough in the course of discourse analysis of British University job ads demonstrates the relationship between the textual differences of the considered applications and the changes taking place in socio-cultural practice. Fairclough draws attention to the fact that changes in the University discourse related to the dissemination in the public life of consumer culture. Fairclough explores how discourses of promotion and marketing in promoting consumer culture in the universities and other social institutions and spheres that were previously organized according to different principles.

Socio-cultural discourse analysis is based on the idea that discourse and socio-cultural reality are interconnected: discourse forms society and culture, at the same time it is formed by them; their interrelation is dialectical. This means that each fact of the use of language makes a small contribution to the process of reproduction or transformation of society and culture, including power relations. This is the power of discourse.

To determine whether a certain communicative act makes the ideological work, it is not enough just to analyse the texts. It is also necessary to consider how these texts can be interpreted and perceived and what social impact they produce.

The authors note that discourse is not created outside the context and cannot be understood without it. Statements make sense only when we consider them in the context of a certain situation, if we understand the basic conditions and rules of social and linguistic game, if we relate them to a certain culture and ideology. And most importantly, if we know what event in the past and what previous discourses this discourse relates to.

Socio-cognitive discourse analysis. This direction of the CDA is represented primarily by the research of T. A. van Dijk. Most of his works are devoted to the reproduction of national prejudices and racism in media discourses, institutional discourses and discourses of political elites.

Racism is defined by van Dijk as a system of domination and social inequality. Domination is interpreted as an abuse of the power of one group over another, which manifests itself, on the one hand, in various forms of discrimination or exclusion, forms of questioning people's rights, rigidity towards emigrants and minorities, on the other hand, in prejudices and stereotypical beliefs, i.e. in ideological structures.

The discourse of racism, according to van Dijk, is an activity that links the practice of social discrimination with the ideology of racism. In the discourse of racism, action is carried out through texts and oral statements. The discourse of racism is the communicative-cognitive and socio-institutional channels through which racist prejudices are articulated and reproduced in society. Its conductors are educational institutions, educational literature, daily communication in the family, in working groups.

The main and most influential form of institutionalization of the practice and discourse of racism is the media. The choice of headlines, problems, sources and quotations is seriously biased towards the dominance of the "white" group. The daily life and problems of minorities ("non-whites") are rarely covered in the media. On the contrary, their negative actions (crimes, drugs) are exaggerated, and their contribution to the development of culture and society, in addition to sports and entertainment, is ignored.

The main way of speaking out against such racism of elite groups is to practice consistent and critical anti-racist discourses or alternative discourses of a multicultural type. Without such discursive dissent, it is possible to repeat the horrors of ethnic and racial conflicts and the destructive wars of the twentieth century. In today's world, in Europe and other countries, van Dijk believes, there is no alternative to a multicultural and multi-ethnic society without racism.

One of the examples that we would like to analyze is intentional usage of the n-word by Barack Obama on the “WTF” podcast in Los Angeles in June 2015. While discussing the issue of racism with the host Marc Maron, the then president of the United States intentionally uses the derogatory term.

To analyze the actual speech we will approach the discourse in three dimensions. Firstly, we will analyze the text itself. The analysis of texts covers traditional forms of linguistic analysis - analysis of vocabulary and semantics, the grammar of sentences and smaller units, the sound system and writing system. Secondly, we will study the discourse practice. Finally, we will analyze the sociocultural practice of the issue which is touched upon in the particular communicative act. We will take into consideration different aspects and levels of this issue.

“The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that's still part of our DNA that's passed on. We're not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say `n*****' in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. … Societies don't overnight completely erase everything that happened 200-300 years prior.”

If we take a look at the grammar structures we can see that there are both active (casts shadow, is not the measure, don't erase) and passive structures (is passed on, are not cured). As an unmarked construction, Active Voice is used in those sentences where subject and verb's agent are the same thing, subject or object. This means that in sentences with Active Voice the actors of the action are held responsible, in our case those subjects are `the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination', `not being polite to say n***** in public', `societies'. Thus, people and events in people's past are in some way the reason of continuing racism and discrimination.

However, we also have some Passive constructions which in turn take off some of the blame from people: `the legacy of slavery is passed on' emphasizes the fact that this legacy might not necessarily be some external pressure that is exerted by community, but also a part of their heritage that still lives in them. By saying `we're not cured of it [racism]', Obama presents racism as an illness that still affects society. So he does not blame racism just on one person or groups of people, but presents it as a parasitic organism.

Now we should look a bit closer at the subjects themselves. `the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination', `we', ` societies' - if we take two latter subjects we can see that they are a plural form of pronoun and a collective noun they play a collectivization role by taking the responsibility off of a specific person or group of people, it may even means societies from past years that went through events connected with racism and oppression.

When we are analyzing a piece of speech we need to bear in mind that all words have their own power and the choice of words means a lot, especially when we talk about president's speech. Despite the fact that his talk was on just a podcast everything he said would have been scrutinized. What is more, the president and his speech are believed to be a representation of the country's opinion. Therefore, it is essential to study some of the words separately.

The legacy of slavery: legacy is something left by a predecessor and is passed to the future generations. The legacy of slavery in this case means that slavery which was previously actually passed on from parents to children is now carried by successors as part of the heritage, as something they should not forget for the sake of future.

Jim Crow is the only proper noun that we could encounter in the speech which means that this allusion has an important role. Jim Crow laws is the widespread informal name of the laws on racial segregation in some US States in the 1890-1964. This is a collective term that carries all the hardships that black population have experienced. This allusion immediately evokes images of segregation in the USA.

Discrimination is another abstract noun that is defined as unfair or unequal treatment of something or somebody. Originally it meant `to distinguish', `to differentiate', however, now this word almost always carries the negative connotation of unfairness.

Racism - is a set of ideological beliefs based on the inequality of human races and the decisive influence of racial differences on history and culture.

Now we will turn to the ethnophaulism itself. To understand why there so much controversy and debates surround this word we need to understand where it came from, and why and how it was originally used.

Now we will look closer at the history of the United States of America, at the history of the black population. Black Americans are former slaves whose ancestors were brought to America on the ships of European traders. The beginning of the importation of slaves into the territory of the modern United States of America coincided with the entry of Britain into the era of colonial conquests. The first permanent settlement of English colonists in America--Jamestown -- was founded in 1607. Twelve years later, in 1619, the first ship that brought black slaves to the shores of North America.

The importation of black people and the introduction of slavery were a consequence of the need for labor in southern North America, where large -- scale farming, such as tobacco, rice and other plantations. In the North, where plantation farming was less common due to different economic and climatic conditions, slavery did not exist to the same extent as in the South. However, in the Northern States there were also slaves, mainly domestic servants, agricultural laborers, etc.

The first black slaves were brought to America as indentured workers, but very soon the contracting system was officially replaced by a more profitable slavery system. In 1641 in Massachusetts, the term of service of slaves was turned into life, and the law of 1661 in Virginia made slavery of parents hereditary for children. Similar laws enshrining slavery were passed in Maryland (1663), New York (1665), South (1682) and North Carolina (1715), etc. Black slaves sent to America were mostly residents of the West coast of Africa, smaller part belonged to the tribes of Central and South Africa, as well as North Africa and Madagascar.

On May 17, 1954, as a result of years of struggle between blacks and all democratic forces of the United States, as well as strong pressure from world public opinion, the U.S. Supreme court decided to ban racial segregation in public schools. However, the implementation of this decision was largely left to the black people themselves.

In Washington and some cities in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, and others, there have been notable success. But, in the far South, the reactionary local authorities refused to comply with the Supreme court's decision, creating an extremely tense situation in the southern States. In a number of cities there were serious clashes and to restore order, Federal troops were introduced. Nevertheless, the black people are determined to exercise their rights. On May 17, 1954 more than 50,000 black people from all over the country came to Washington to protest against the anti-black terror in the southern States and to express their solidarity with those fighting for civil rights and freedom.

The events that took place in September 1957 became known all over the world. In Little Rock (Arkansas), where racist Governor Orval Faubus tried to force nine black children out of a school that used to only accept whites. The actions of the Faubus and the excesses of the local Ku-Klux-Klan aroused great indignation throughout the country. Federal troops were sent to Little Rock. For three months, black students went to school under the protection of soldiers, courageously making their way through the system of brutalized hooligans, and finally won a difficult victory.

All decent people are on the side of the black population of the United States and around the world, who understand the struggle of American black people for freedom and equality is part of a common struggle against imperialism, racism, segregation and colonial oppression, which goes around the world.

As for the word itself closed communities always have their own language, many words are distorted and come up with some purpose. Thus, it happened with the word “N***.”The n-word is a used among black population and has a deep meaning - buddy, bro, dude. If communication happens between black guys, and if an African American is called a " n*****" by a white man, then it will be considered an insult.

Negro (black), the Portuguese version of the latin word niger (black), was originally not an inclusive term. It was created by slave owners used it to intentionally isolate and subconsciously infuse inferiority, hoping to further break people by keeping physically captive.

With movements like black lives matter people are constantly trying to draw attention to social issues surrounding black population, especially police brutality towards black people. As we can see, the word has derogatory connotation and is not a neutral language.