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The Pragmatics of slurs
Bolinger, Renée Jorgensen
Bolinger, Renée Jorgensen
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Abstract
I argue that the offense generation pattern of slurring terms parallels that of impoliteness behaviors, and is best explained by appeal to similar purely pragmatic mechanisms. In choosing to use a slurring term rather than its neutral counterpart, the speaker signals that she endorses the term (and its associations). Such an endorsement warrants offense, and consequently slurs generate offense whenever a speaker's use demonstrates a contrastive preference for the slurring term. Since this explanation comes at low theoretical cost and imposes few constraints on an account of the semantics of slurs, this suggests that we should not require semantic accounts to provide an independent explanation of the offense profile.
Keywords
Date
2017
Type
Journal article
Journal
Nous
Book
Volume
51
Issue
3
Page Range
439-462
Article Number
ACU Department
Dianoia Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
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Controlled