The Semantics and Pragmatics of Slurs
Katharina Felka (University of Zürich)

February 22, 2017, 2:00pm - 4:00pm
The Philosophical Society

Engelska Parken 2-1077
Thunbergsvägen 3H
Uppsala 751 26
Sweden

This will be an accessible event, including organized related activities

Sponsor(s):

  • Uppsala University

Organisers:

Sebastian Lutz
Uppsala University

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We can communicate things directly as well as indirectly, and often it makes a big difference whether we do it the one way or the other. For instance, if someone says ‘War is war’, then she directly conveys that war is war. Indirectly, she conveys more than this trivial truth, namely that in war everything is allowed. Since the important message is conveyed only indirectly, it is hard to deny it: one must first identify the message and then make it explicit – which is not always an easy task. By conveying a message indirectly, one can thus shield it from being challenged and manage to illicitly add it to the stock of assumptions that constitute the background of our discourse. In current philosophy of language it is therefore much debated what exactly happens when we communicate things indirectly, and whether there are certain expressions whose function consists in achieving this aim. Particularly interesting in this respect are slurs, i.e. expressions that degrade a certain group of people due to their membership in this group (such as ‘chink’, ‘boche’ etc.). In my talk I will investigate the behavior of slurs in indirect speech reports and argue that it supports the view that slurs convey contempt only indirectly. Therefore, I will argue, slurs are an especially effective and thus dangerous mean to add racist or other problematic assumptions to the background of our discourse.

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