Slurring Words and Slurring Articulations

Abstract

Abstract Slurs are epithets that denigrate a group simply on the basis of membership, e.g., on the basis of race, ethnicity, origin, religion, gender, or ideology. They provide powerful linguistic weapons, carrying a characteristic pejorative sting or punch, prone to cause offense, outrage, and even injury. So much so, that they can be subject to media censorship, and sometimes even legislation. As to the nature and source of their characteristic sting, the predominant position is to invoke some aspect of meaning—either semantically encoded or pragmatically conveyed. It is because of what a particular slur term means or conveys that it is suitable to be thus weaponized. Consequently, most efforts at understanding pejorative language have been attempts to characterize the meanings and how these meanings compose with the meanings of other sorts of expressions. The few who reject this assumption locate the source of offense in the taboo status of pejorative language. In other words, the slurs themselves and/or their associations are the source of their offensive sting, not their meanings. The chapter challenges both sorts of approaches and defends a novel alternative according to which the source of a pejorative effect is negative associations triggered, not by slurs, but rather, by certain articulations of these expressions—phonological or orthographic. We need to distinguish slurs from their articulations because, surprisingly, the latter can trigger an effect even when the former is not tokened, and even when articulated, a slur can lose its offensive potency if its articulation is standard, or so we will argue.