Dutch slurs and the descriptive-expressive distinction

Author:

Hogeweg Lotte1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Language and Communication, Radboud University

Abstract

There is a lot of debate about the meaning of slurs, which are words that refer to a certain group of people in a derogative manner. Many scholars (e.g. McCready 2010; Croom 2011; Gutzmann 2015) consider slurs, unlike their ‘neutral’ counterparts, to have both descriptive and expressive content. In this squib, I discuss initial data on the use of Dutch slurs and related terms on Twitter. The Dutch data show that ‘neutral’ labels sometimes seem to behave like slurs to some degree and that some slurs can be used as swear words without (seemingly) conveying any descriptive property. Based on these observations, I suggest that slurs may be part of a continuum of labels, ranging in the degree to which they have descriptive versus expressive content, entailing a gradual distinction between conversational and conventional implicatures in the lexical domain. A gradual view on conventionality in the lexical domain would moreover pave the way for a less fundamental distinction between expressive and social meaning. It is concluded that the debate on slurs would benefit from a broader and more empirical approach to pejorative terms for (groups of) people, as their actual use and interpretation can show a mixture of (degrees of) descriptive, expressive and social meaning.

Publisher

Open Library of the Humanities

Subject

Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics

Reference34 articles.

1. The pragmatics of slurs;Bolinger, Renée Jorgensen;Noûs,2017

2. A persona-based semantics for slurs;Burnett, Heather;Grazer Philosophische Studien,2020

3. Slurring perspectives;Camp, Elisabeth;Analytic Philosophy,2013

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3