Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie… Who hasn't yet been targeted by
“sensitivity readers”
?
A very obscure term if ever there was one, this anglicism designates the people charged by the publishing houses with hunting down any term likely to be perceived as offensive.
Occupying an increasingly important place in the United States,
"sensitivity readers"
modify the content of authors' works.
A practice that could gain ground in France.
So, how to translate this formula?
To discover
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Several designations are used in the press: politically correct expressions such as
“cultural advisers”
,
“sensitivity correctors”
, but also more radical expressions such as
“literary censors”
.
Literally
"sensitive readers"
, that is to say who strongly feel certain phenomena and can be affected by them - according to the definition given by the French Academy to the term
"sensitive"
-, how to call these people recruited according to their membership to a community or their knowledge of "minorities"?
"Minesweeper"
In 2020, the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language proposed the expression
“editorial deminer”
;
“editorial deminer”
, in the feminine;
taken up by the dictionary of the Quebec Office of the French language.
"Deminer"
, in the figurative sense, is a person who puts an end to a conflict, a problematic situation, as can be read in the dictionary of Petit Robert.
An
“editorial deminer”
therefore takes care of defusing any word or phrase, or even entire scenes, which could pose a problem for readers from minority backgrounds.
Words or sentences conveying racist, homophobic, handiphobic, grossophobic stereotypes… Until now, no dictionary, neither the Larousse, nor the Robert, nor that of the French Academy, has mentioned this ambiguous formula.