Introduction.

Modern English is influenced by various extralinguistic processes: world space globalization, political expansion of English-speaking countries, the spread of the tolerance phenomenon towards different categories of people, etc. Obviously, all these processes have an impact on other languages, but a unique position of the English language, which tends to be the most massive means of international communication with more than one billion speakers, makes it particularly susceptible to global political, economic and social events. Thus, the globalization of the world economic space leads to the use of English by an increasing number of people who are not native speakers. Those who speak it as a foreign language contribute to the erosion of its norms at the lexical, grammatical and even pragmatic levels, which gradually leads to its change.

The political domination of the English-speaking countries has made English the only or one of the official languages ​​of almost all international organizations and unions (UN, UNESCO, ASEAN, NATO, OPEC, WTO, etc.). For example, none of the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is among the countries in the inner circle of the English language, where it is native, and, nevertheless, this language is selected as a working language in this organization [1, p. 1-14]. It was difficult to imagine such a situation at the beginning of the previous century, when English had the status of a peripheral-regional language until the translation of the text of the Treaty of Versailles into a language understandable to the British, members of the Entente, in 1919. The rapid career of the English language in the world has led to the expansion of its status framework not only to a macro-intermediary language, but also to the sole language of many international organizations, including the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

The phenomenon of tolerance or political correctness, which originated in the United States in the late 70s - early 80s of the previous century gained worldwide distribution thanks to the English language. In this work, the emphasis is placed on the phenomenon of political correctness, also named by some researchers as communicative correctness [2], linguistic tolerance [3] or linguistic tact [4]. Despite the fact that the category of political correctness is often found in philosophical, cultural and social science discourse, it has received its most vivid expression in the language. Linguistic political correctness can be defined as a careful selection of lexical means in oral and written acts of communication on topics that cause an ambiguous attitude of society.

Research methodology.

The general methodological and epistemological basis of the work is the system-functional approach, which is based on the analysis of the research object as a system, a holistic set of interrelated and interdependent elements functioning within a specific organized, historically established structure – the corpus of Paralympic vocabulary as a part of the lexical-semantic system of the English literary language in the amount of 896 lexical units.

To analyze the evolution of the political correctness phenomenon, the authors use a predominantly retrospective method, which belongs to the corpus of general scientific ones and consists in studying the historical development of this phenomenon from its current state through a consistent reverse reconstruction in the history of the English language. Accompanying general scientific methods are the methods of logic and statistics (analysis, synthesis, inductive, deductive, comparative, introspective, descriptive, system-functional, typological, quantitative, the method of statistical information processing). Specific scientific-linguistic methods include: the field method (for determining the units of Paralympic lexicon that are part of the corresponding lexical-semantic field), etymological (for identifying original English units of Paralympic lexical units and elements formed on the material or from etymons of other languages), the method of linguo-stylistic interpretation, contextual and component analysis.

This methodology with a selected corpus of general and special scientific methods, the leading among which is retrospective due to the diachronic specialization of the work, is designed to fully reflect the genesis of the onomasiological set “Paralympic vocabulary” in the English literary language and thereby trace the evolution of the concept of political correctness.

The results of the research.

Political correctness, from the point of view of E.V. Shlyakhtina, is the value of the English-speaking culture, which is currently being actively internationalized [5, p. 7]. The roots of this phenomenon lie in the ideological attitudes of English-speaking people, their desire for caution in judgments, unwillingness to express an opinion different from the opinion of the majority, the desire to come to a compromise and hide conflict or problem situations [6, p. 403]. Initially, this phenomenon concerned interethnic communication in the global multicultural space. In this context, the phenomenon has a positive impact on the development of interethnic communication, stimulating a respectful attitude towards representatives of other cultures and nations. In the course of its spread, this phenomenon began to cover more and more areas of human life. As a rule, political correctness regulates non-standard situations of interpersonal communication that have a conflict potential due to the differences between certain categories of persons from any standard (people of different races, sexual minorities, representatives of different religions, gender differences, physical or mental deviations from health or beauty standards, etc.). From the point of view of functional stylistics, this is a common means of allegory in the category of paraphrasing and highlighting features. The aim of this group’s expressive means is to create synonymous formulations of a pragmatic nature, realizing a certain social attitude, coherent in time. An allegory underlies political correctness as a logical option to replace a conventional designation with an unacceptable semantic-expressive coloring for a more functional and stylistically more neutral one. It is in the means of allegory that the speaker combines the nominative and expressive functions of linguistic signs.

Currently, the spread of this phenomenon has reached its peak. There are more and more new terms denoting discrimination against people on any grounds, cf.: ableism – harassment of individuals with disabilities, sexism – harassment of individuals on the basis of gender, ageism – harassment of individuals by age, lookism – harassment of individuals who do not meet generally accepted beauty standards, ethnocentrism – harassment of representatives of cultures that are different from the dominant ones, etc. Communication in English is becoming more and more risky, because any message or judgment can be perceived as discrimination expressed in verbal form (verbalharassment or hatespeech). One can note an inclusive nature of the English language, which is expressed in the desire of its speakers to avoid statements that offend the honor and dignity of other people, which leads to the creation of more and more politically correct lexical units and norms of their use.

Nevertheless, the attitude towards the phenomenon of political correctness is becoming more and more ambiguous, despite its wide public involvement. In particular, some dictionaries in the definition of the political correctness term note excessiveness, cf.: language, behavior, and attitudes that are carefully chosen so that they do not offend or insult anyone - used especially when you think someone is too careful in what they say or how they behave [1 **]. Some linguists point to the transformation of this phenomenon into hypercorrectness and even radicalism, speaking of the excessive use of politically correct lexical units, often brought to the point of absurdity. Moreover, there is a lack of unified criteria and norms prescribing the use of tolerant vocabulary. In particular, in the USA they began to avoid not only offensive words, but also all expressions describing people deviating from generally accepted standards [5, p. 13]. Silence about something becomes a common speech act, competing in its eloquence with the formulations considered dysfemistic by North Americans. Returning to the ideological attitudes of English-speaking people who are afraid of everything excessive, in this context the formation of a negative attitude towards political correctness in its exaggerated manifestations becomes obvious.

Nevertheless, there are areas of social life where political correctness is urgently needed. One of them is the attitude towards people with disabilities. The development of medicine and health care, as well as modern technology has led to a more active participation of such people in social life. People with disabilities realize their potential in politics, business, media, sports, which leads to the necessity in the nomination. In the Paralympic discourse this need is most tangible: for more than half a century of the existence of Paralympic competitions, stable traditions of nominating athletes with disabilities have been formed, and the attitude of society towards such events and their participants has significantly changed. Currently, the Paralympic Games are covered in the media as actively as traditional Olympic competitions, which indicates the demand of the audience for this kind of broadcast and publication.

The IPC, as the management authority of the Paralympic events, is also the subject of the language policy, which legislates the norms for the nomination of people with disabilities. As part of its activities, the IPC regularly publishes the standard [1 *], which sets out in detail the codification prescriptions regarding the ways of naming athletes, using definitions to describe them, spelling the names of Paralympic events [7]. However, over the years of the Paralympic Games existence, one can observe a change in the norms of political correctness in relation to athletes with disabilities, which affects, first of all, the content of lexical units used to describe people with disabilities, cf.: cripples, defected people, invalid people, handicapped people, physically-challenged, the disabled, people with disabilities.

According to the IPC, the first Paralympics was held in Rome in 1960, and its predecessors were competitions for people with disabilities called the International Stoke Mandeville Games, organized by the doctors of the same-name hospital in England for the early rehabilitation of World War II participants. It is important to highlight that in the newspapers of the beginning of the 20th century you can find references to the competitions for disabled people called the Cripples' Championships, that were regularly organized in the UK and the USA. These events are not recorded in the historical chronicles of the Paralympic Games, probably due to their politically incorrect name.

Cripple is a lexical unit of Germanic origin that has been used in English for over 18 centuries (the first mentions of this lexeme date back to 950). The word comes from the verb “creep” (to crawl) and was actively used all this time in the meaning of “a person who is unable to walk due to illness or disabilities” [2 **]. In the beginning of the 20th century, this lexical unit acquired a slightly modified meaning: "a person who is unable to walk or move normally due to a back or leg injury." This is evidenced by publications in newspapers of the corresponding period, cf.: A cripple athlete: notable record (1913); The cripples to make race fast (1911); Cripples play basketball (1920). It can be assumed that such headlines were a journalistic trick – a deliberate attempt to shock in order to attract the attention of a larger audience, but the use of this lexical unit in the official name of sports events for athletes with disabilities in various sports disciplines (running, swimming, wrestling, etc.) Cripples' Championships demonstrates the wide distribution of this nomination in English at the beginning of the 20th century and the absence of an offensive connotation in it. It is clear from the texts of many publications that the indicated lexical unit could designate a temporary state; athletes who were injured and dropped out of the competition for one season were also called cripples. Perhaps it was the absence of the component of physical changes irreversibility in the lexeme meaning that deprived it of its tragedy and made it possible to freely use it in relation to any injured person.

Currently, the lexical unit "cripple" as a noun in its direct meaning is considered obsolete and offensive. In modern dictionaries, the following definition is proposed: a person who is unable to walk or move properly through disability or because of injury to their back or legs [2 **]. At the same time, this word is still used in other meanings and functions, which demonstrates only a partial archaization of its meaning, cf.: crippled economy, cripple the entire industry, an emotional cripple.

Another lexical unit regularly used in relation to athletes with disabilities in the first half of the 20th century is invalid (a person who needs other people to take care of them, because of illness that they have had for a long time). Until the middle of the 20th century, this noun was used in the attributive function in all functional styles of language (from scientific to colloquial) to denote the differences between athletes with physical disabilities from healthy athletes. At present, it is considered offensive in the Paralympic discourse, as it “translates the image of a twisted ugly body” [1 *, p. 33]. Nevertheless, in a figurative meaning, the lexeme is still actively functioning, including in the documents of the Paralympic organizations, cf.: invalid password, invalid argument, invalid license.

It should also be noted that the noun "invalid" is not considered offensive by lexicographers in relation to people with disabilities. Modern dictionaries offer the following definition: “a person made weak or disabled by illness or injury” [2 **]. However, according to statistics from The iWeb Corpus, the frequency of this unit use in relation to people with disabilities is about two times lower than the use of another nomination "disabled", which is currently considered politically correct, cf. 76 851 and 142 612 cases of distribution, respectively [3 **].

Perhaps the refusal to use the units "cripple" and "invalid" in relation to athletes with disabilities was influenced by regular Paralympic competitions that started in 1960, where athletes with disabilities demonstrated not only physical achievements, but also exceptional fortitude and courage, which made the use of the above nominations irrelevant in relation to them.

It was the birth of the Paralympic movement in the middle of the last century and its popularization in the media that caused a wave of linguistic experiments in order to find the most appropriate nominations for Paralympic athletes. The aim of native English speakers was to find semantically neutral designata that would describe athletes in terms of strength and independence. To achieve this goal, already existing linguistic means were used, which were re-evaluated and re-semantisized, together with the new ones that were created by derivation.

Among neosemantics, two lexemes can be noted that were most widespread in the 1960s - 1980s: handicapped and disadvantaged

1. The adjective “handicapped” was used in the attributive function in relation to athletes with disabilities, cf.: handicapped runner, handicapped sportsman. Lexicographic reference books offer the following definition: “about a person who has a condition that noticeably limits their ability to function physically, mentally or socially” [2 **]. The lexeme "handicap" has been known in English since the 17th century, and from the middle of the 18th century it was actively used in sports discourse in the context of horse racing (it denoted the additional weight that a horse with a clear physical advantage was burdened with in order to create equal conditions for all participants in the race). At the end of the 19th century in the English language an adjective formed with the suffix -ed appears, and the first cases of its use in relation to people with mental or physical disabilities are noted. During that period this lexical unit was not widespread, but the attention was drawn to it in the middle of the 20th century in the process of an active search for politically correct nominations. This adjective came in handy to demonstrate the additional complexities that an illness or injury can impose on athletes with disabilities as opposed to healthy athletes. Since the 1980s – the heyday of political correctness – the lexical unit acquired the labels "obsolete, offensive" in lexicographic reference books. However, in American English, it is still found in phrases describing an environment designed for people with disabilities, cf.: handicapped-accessible, handicapped parking.

2. The adjective “disadvantaged” has the following meaning: “being in unfavorable conditions, especially with regard to financial or social opportunities” [2 **], but in the second half of the last century, there are attempts to use it in relation to athletes with disabilities, cf. physically disadvantaged, mentally disadvantaged, severely disadvantaged sportsmen. Although these experiments led to the expansion of the meaning (exsemia) of the lexical unit "disadvantaged", they did not receive significant distribution, probably due to the negative connotation of the lexeme "disadvantage", from which the adjective was formed. The Oxford English Dictionary offers the following definition of this lexeme: “unfavorable circumstances or conditions that reduce the chances of success or effectiveness” [3 **]. This content turned out to be unacceptable in the attempt of forming a positive and successful image of a Paralympic athlete with the help of linguistic means.

In the 1980s the search for nominations that meet the criteria of political correctness continued. In American English, the adjective challenged appeared, it was formed from a noun with the help of the suffix. It was first used as a euphemism for physical limitations and diseases. This lexical unit was used in combination with adverbs indicating the type of the disorder, cf.: physically challenged, mentally challenged. The lexical unit became widespread in British English where it was used until the beginning of the 20th century. However, its use then acquired a tinge of irony due to the excessive euphemization of any imperfections in life that it achieved. In the English language, such units as cerebrally challenged, conversationally challenged and follicularly challenged appeared. The iWeb Corpus indicates 166,507 distributions of this lexical unit, while most of the examples (83%) are not related to people with disabilities.

According to statistics from The iWeb Corpus, the most common lexical units for nominating people with disabilities are adjectives 1) impaired and 2) disabled with the number of distribution cases 97,253 and 309,550, respectively [3 **].

1. The lexical unit impaired is formed with the help of the prefix from the verb "impair", meaning "to weaken or damage something". As for the adjective "impaired", the following definitions are given: 1) weakened or damaged – in this meaning, the adjective is directly related to the original verb and is used to characterize inanimate objects, as a rule, systems and structures, cf.: impaired banking system, impaired assets, impaired learning system; 2) affected by alcohol or drugs to the extent of losing control over one's faculties or behavior – in this context the lexical unit is common in North American English, cf.: impaired driving, impaired operation of a motor vehicle; 3) having a disability of a specified kind, cf.: sight-impaired children, memory-impaired residents, mobility-impaired people, sensory-impaired adults [2 **]. From the lexicographic article it is clear that the first two meanings of the lexical unit have a stable negative connotation, and only the third, the last meaning refers to people with disabilities. However, it should be noted that this lexical unit has a wide compatibility: with its help it is possible to create nominations that concretize the type of deviation from which a particular person suffers. Perhaps, it compensates for the negative connotations of the first two meanings.

2. The lexical unit "disabled", the number of distribution cases of which is more than three times greater than the functionality of the unit "impaired", has the following definition: (of a person) having a physical or mental condition that limits their movements, senses, or activities [2 **]. It is formed from the adjective "able", meaning "having the power, skill, means or ability to do something". The lexical unit is created circumfixally using the prefix dis-, which denotes opposition to something, and the suffix -ed, which is used to create past participles or adjectives and has the meaning "affected by". Unlike the name of the adjective “impaired”, the lexical unit “disabled” has great functionality: it does not specify, but, on the contrary, generalizes, denoting a wide range of disorders – from physical to psychological ones. In addition, it lacks the negative connotations that are characteristic of the “impaired” lexeme. This probably explains the significantly higher frequency of its use in both British and American English. This lexical unit is also used in the function of a plural noun in combination with the definite article "the", denoting a group of persons with disabilities, cf.: Medicaid typically covers children, the disabled and certain other vulnerable groups. The iWeb Corpus has 27,062 examples of this kind [3 **]. Nevertheless, lexicographers do not approve of such a use, pointing out that in this case there is the depersonalization of people with disabilities, the attitude towards them as an undifferentiated group, different from others only by their capabilities or their absence [2 **].

Nowadays attitudes towards people with disabilities have changed significantly, especially under the influence of the Paralympic movement, which promotes equal opportunities for various categories of people, regardless of their health status. Athletes participating in the Paralympic Games show excellent results, and their achievements can exceed the results of healthy athletes in the same disciplines. The Paralympic Movement provides people with disabilities with a variety of opportunities for self-realization not only in sport, but also in public, educational and other organizations, which allows such people to show an active life position. This fact had a significant impact on further linguistic experiments with nominations for people with disabilities. As a rule, these changes initially affect Paralympic athletes, and then apply to all other people with disabilities. At the same time, lexicographic reference books do not have time to immediately record the changes taking place in modern English; the latter are reflected, first of all, in the Paralympic documentation. The latest IPC publishing standard recommends to avoid all adjectives that have the form of past participle (handicapped, challenged, impaired, disabled) as it distorts the public's perception of athletes with disabilities, demonstrating their weak, passive, dependent position. As alternative nominations, the constructions “noun + preposition + noun” are proposed, where the first noun denotes a person, and the second denotes a health restriction, cf.: athletes with blindness, sportsmen with disabilities, runners with amputations. Such nominations are often more explicit and unambiguous, they do not hide or embellish reality through hypercorrect euphemistic formulations, but at the same time demonstrate more respect for para-athletes who do not seek to hide their injuries, but have learned to live with them and achieve success. The preposition "with", visually separating the name of the person from the name of the restriction, makes these nominations acceptable both for the athletes and for the society in which they live.

So, the nominations of Paralympic athletes in modern English have stable signs of meiosis as the most common basis for belittling or hiding signs of inferiority (euphemization). It should be emphasized that the evolution of political correctness in the English language took place mainly in the context of the expressive possibilities of descriptive means and the identification of a feature, which in fact determines the phenomenon of political correctness not only as a pragmalinguistic phenomenon, but as a functional and stylistic device, due to the specific characteristics of the socio-cultural environment of Anglophones, within which global tendencies emerge, inter alia in terms of nomination and speech behavior (linguistic pragmatics).

Conclusion.

The social phenomenon of political correctness receives linguistic representation mainly by means of euphemization, which goes back to the logical operation of allegory. In the attempt to find politically correct designations for athletes with disabilities, axiological and pragmatic attitudes are clearly traced – the impact on the worldview of native speakers of the modern English in relation to Paralympic athletes and through them to people with disabilities in general. The main source and motivator of such experiments is the IPC, which serves as one of the subjects of the international politics of the English language. The indicated linguistic pursuit mainly implements the nominative function of the language, which is the third most important function after the integrative (environmental) and performative ones [8, p. 158]. The importance of the basic function of nomination for homoludens (cultural person) is difficult to overestimate: it is through it that cognition of the surrounding world and the intra-environment formation of a personality with its living wage of expressive linguistic means take place. The practice of politically correct nomination of athletes with disabilities in the English Paralympic discourse testifies to a significant evolution of public consciousness in this issue and the willingness of speakers to perceive the world not through a peripheral prism of euphemization, but in its transhumanistic, valuable, positive and anthropocentric explication – as a world of human capabilities and achievements. It is noteworthy that the status of English as a world language contributes to the formation of similar nominative categories in the corresponding and relay (European) languages, creating universal human values ​​and attitudes beyond national and communicative borders. In this case, it is appropriate to talk about a model of the evolution of a linguistic phenomenon, which is transmitted to other literary idioms that actively borrow the linguistic material of the modern English language.