Taboo subjects in Polish mass media after 11th September 2001
The author examines the excess of taboo subjects in Polish political press after 11th September 2001. He starts his reflections by recalling studies on the subject in which one can find the division of prohibition language into at least four groups. The author underlines the fact that the linguistic taboo is both old and archaic. Nevertheless, it evolves and is present in different epochs in a new shape. Furthermore, the scope of terms included in the process of tabooing is not constant. This situation is mostly due to television, free market and advertisement. In this paper the author used articles from “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita”. The articles respond to Al-Kaida terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and to the later global anti-terrorist coalition initiated by the USA. Having read more than a thousand of press releases on the USA terrorist attack, the author claims that the globalisation has become a fact with regard to the language of politics and the language of media. Furthermore, the process of political tabooing that can be observed in the examined articles goes along with indirect terms of more and more radical the-day-after views, which has been a result of the profound need to name things directly. The linguistic taboo with respond to subjects and words is strictly related to political correctness commonly practised in the West.