SLURS AND THE LEXICON: A RICH-LEXICON APPROACH TO SLURS AND OTHER EVALUATIVE EVALUATIVE EXPRESSIONS
Description
“Bad words” are ubiquitous in natural language. Many times, using such words can produce real harm, by denigrating, silencing, or marginalizing the people they target. One such type of words is slurs (“fag”, "chink", “nerd”, “redneck”, etc.). Derogation by means of slurs is a widespread phenomenon, with a significant social impact. Slurs also pose an interesting challenge to traditional views of meaning due to their double aspect: sentences containing slurs aim both to make descriptive claims about and convey negative evaluations of their
targets. In this, they resemble many other expressions such as thick terms (“courageous”, “balanced”, etc.), dual character expressions (“mother”, “teacher”, etc.), evaluatives (“tasty”, “good”/“bad”, “beautiful”, etc.) and expressives (“ouch”, “damn”). All these otherwise distinct types of expressions exhibit both variation in meaning across contexts and can be used neutrally. Accounting for the double aspect and the various uses of these expressions has proven difficult both for orthodox and alternative semantic views.
In this project, I propose a unitary approach to all the expressions mentioned that addresses this challenge. Focusing first on slurs (specifically, on what in previous work I dubbed “identificatory uses”), I propose to treat them as polysemous. My solution is to appeal to a well-known framework from lexical semantics: "rich-lexicon" theories, according to which the (linguistic) meaning of words consists of various interrelated dimensions, out of which their sense in a particular context is selected. The first main aim of the project is to better situate, compare and flesh out my previous work on slurs. It’s second main task is to test both the polysemy hypothesis and the rich-lexicon
framework with respect to the other expressions mentioned. Concretely, the research will be guided by the following questions:
- Is there additional data that supports the postulation of the identificatory use of slurs or of other neutral uses of slurs?
- What is the best form a rich-lexicon theory should take in application to slurs?
- Can the rich-lexicon framework be applied to other expressions besides slurs?
The research plan I will pursue has several innovative aspects: it focuses on a less discussed type of use of slurs (identificatory); puts forward a novel approach to slurs, according to which they are polysemous; offers a substantive account of polysemy by appeal to a rich-lexicon framework; extends both the novel approach and its implementation to a wide array of different natural language expressions; makes the case for a unitary treatment of the entire evaluative sphere. The project opens up new avenues for research by connecting the current philosophical literature on slurs and the other expressions with that in lexical semantics, pushing the corresponding debates in contemporary semantics ahead.
Current activities
The Semantics and Pragmatics of Slurs, reading group, University of Porto
Planned output
10 research papers
1 monograph
2 workshops
1 international conference
2 edited volumes