Урлапов Павел Сергеевич, Цой Наталья Валентиновна,
Финансовый Университет при Правительстве РФ, г. Омск
Nowadays, in 2016 we can see changes in modern Russian, English and other languages which were happening for decades. Humanity learned how to overcome cultural differences by using a soft language called “euphemisms”. The best example of it can be found in modern American culture, where we are dealing with a bunch of rules in cinema and television. It is impolite to use a number of phrases, words in relation to black ones. And we believe that it is great because it is one of the best ways to reduce stress in society. Politicians love to use euphemisms too. We can pick a lot of examples from American politicians. According to them, CIA does not kill people; they neutralize them or depopulate an area. They also like to call rebels as freedom fighters. Sometimes, a soft language provides double standards, especially in politics, when the American government in times of Arab-Israeli conflict proclaimed Israel army as “commandos” and Arabic army as “terrorists”, even if they are doing the same job – killing each other. We want to admit, that they prefer to use a soft language in politics today. But we can see how language became softer not only in politics, but even in everyday life: false teeth became dental appliances, medicine became medication, the dump became the landfill, car crashes became automobile accidents, house trailers became mobile homes, used cars became previously owned transportation and etc.
We began to think about the theory of a soft language right after reading and listening some foreign writers and even comedians. The main idea is that there are people who would prefer not to face some aspects of reality or the fallout from other people gaining awareness of it. These are the people who will be against use of those phrases and insist that we use more nebulous terminology that separate us from our visceral reactions. George Denis Patrick Carlin, who was the social critic and master of black comedy in one person, tells us about the soft language in the context of American society as a whole. It's rather interesting how the same methods of though control used by "smug, greedy, people ... to conceal their sins"[1] are being used to prevent us from strong reacting on that. He gives us an example with a “shell shock”. Shell shock is a condition, when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum and is about to snap. Then a whole generation went by and the Second World War came along and very same combat condition was called “battle fatigue”. Then, after the war in Korea, in the mass media this combat condition was called operational exhaustion. And then, after the war in Vietnam, this combat condition was called “post-traumatic stress disorder”. As you may see, the condition of soldiers was changed from easy understandable form to something sounds more scientifically accurate. But we have to admit, that scientifically accurate form causes no empathy, which is much more important.
But, since we are studying to be financial managers, we set a goal to find out how a soft language is used in economy and management. Our main idea was to scan newspapers, magazines, journals and books to find out how people describe different situations in economy, business and society. Basically we wanted to learn if euphemisms are really necessary in economy.
And the results of our research are fascinating! We found enormous number of euphemisms in literature and newspapers. But, it is an important thing, they have different origins. Some of them are used because of politics and have a purpose to make situation looks better. Some of them are used to show that economical processes are not as destructive as it may look at the first time. For example, in the book called “The Wall Street Journal. Complete Small Business Guidebook” by Colleen DeBaise, we can find a phrase like “economically disadvantaged firms” [2]. On the one hand, it’s obviously a euphemism which hides the fact that organization is not so profitable, but on the other hand, this elegant way to explain low profits may support a new entrepreneur not to give up, even if they have a “negative cash-flow position”. We can also find some perfect examples in the Russian mass media. In time of notorious events, December 2014, when our national currency fell twice, you were able to see that in case of depreciation of the USD, our Russian newspapers were writing about significant strengthening of Russian Ruble. According to the Vzglyad.ru “USD fell by 1.04 Ruble (…) we can see significant strengthening of Ruble” [3]. As I said before, the reason of using a soft language here is to calm people in time of crisis.
In management the situation is a little bit different. Here we can find a lot of phrases which sound solid but in fact sometimes they are meaningless. For example, an optimization process. In fact, you do not need to add the word process, because optimization is an action, but you can find a lot of speakers who use such phrase as “we are in the middle of an optimization process” or “we are in the process of identifying best conditions”. Laurence J. Peter, Associate Professor of Education, Director of the Evelyn Frieden Centre for Prescriptive Teaching, in his book “The Peter Pyramid”, shows how the soft and non-informative language can work. The main idea of this principle is that selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence"[4]. But, according to him, incompetence can be found in manager’s orders, ideas and his language which being filled with a great numbers of sometimes meaningless euphemisms.
Since Peter’s Principle is universal, you can find the same situation in Russia. But, truth to be told, modern Russian management is copying terminology from the Western countries practices, and, instead of using appropriate Russian words, they prefer to use English euphemisms. So, it’s easy to hear that HR is doing some “headcount optimization” job, which in Russian sounds like “оптимизация численности персонала”. In Russian soft language it takes three words instead of one to tell that somebody got fired! Some financial directors also never cut the budget, they “sequestering” it.
The result is that economic terminology consists of a huge number of euphemisms and this number is growing rapidly. In some cases the soft language helps people to reduce stress and/or make the situation friendlier to the reader, but it also incompetent managers feel convenient. In our opinion, the nature of euphemisms is not as destructive as it may looks but we suggest using less of them if it’s possible.
- Carlin G. Napalm and & Silly Putty / G. Carlin // Hachette Books – 2001. – 288 p.
- DeBaise C. The Wall Street Journal. Complete Small Business Guidebook / C. DeBaise // Crown Publishing group – 2009. – 240 p.
- Деловая газета «Взгляд». «Средневзвешенный курс доллара снизился» [Электронный ресурс]. - Режим доступа: http://www.vz.ru/news/2014/12/2/718146.html
- Peter L.J. The Peter Principle / L.J. Peter // Happer Business – 2013. – 166 p.