Saying and doing: a speech act analysis of slurs

Joseph Glover

doi:10.25820/etd.007707

In this dissertation I explore and defend a speech act account of slurs. The main goal is to provide a theory of slurs that can recognize the semantic meaning of all slur words, develop a unique speech act that a speaker performs when they use a slur word, and present two effects or consequences that I take to be constitutive of slurring actions. In the rest of this abstract I will briefly point to the main components of this dissertation. Within philosophy of language, many extant theories of slurs suggest that while slur words present potential problems to other theories within philosophy of language, we can show that slur words are theoretically well-behaved so long as we explain how and why they are offensive, derogatory, or otherwise harmful. This is a sensible route to take given that one of the starting points to an understanding of slurs, both from the point of view of the layperson and from the point of view of the philosopher, is that slur words are offensive in some capacity. If we can explain what makes them offensive, then we have done all that we needed to do. Even though this is a sensible route to go, I argue that many of the philosophers in the literature are mistaken in their attempts at accounting for slurs. For instance, when a philosopher argues that slurs are best explained through semantics, they are arguing that there is something peculiar about the meaning of slurring terms that explains their offensiveness or ability to derogate. On such a view, a slur word refers to a group of people while also saying that they are bad in some way. A major problem with this type of theory is that this requires that part of the meaning of a slur word is a neutral or non-pejorative referential term. This means that slur words depend upon the existence of other words when it is both a contentious and empirical question whether these neutral referential terms exist at all. Certainly, there are many different slur words out there that do not have or need a neutral word at all. A second option is to argue that slur words’ offensive capacities can be explained pragmatically. There are a number of pragmatic mechanisms one can appeal to, but what is common to all is that these philosophers hold that there is no story to tell as far as semantics or meaning is concerned. Instead, they provide an explanation pointing towards how the word is used, who uses it, limitations to its use, or consequences of its use. For instance, Anderson and Lepore (2013a, b) argue that slurs are offensive precisely because they are words that are prohibited. We break a taboo when we use these words. The problem with this is that it fails to recognize that sentences which contain slur words differ in meaning from sentences that do not. This seems obvious, but pragmatic theorists argue that it is only the pragmatic mechanisms that explain the differences between slur words and non-slur words; they are otherwise identical in meaning. Slur words still refer to groups of people and there are other words we can use to refer to those people that are not slurs. The pragmatic theorist takes these to be identical, but certain sentences are true, while others are false depending on whether there is a slur word. Expressivists argue for a position that is somewhat similar. They maintain that slur words are referring terms that are identical in meaning to other referring terms for those same groups. Where they differ is that when one uses a slur word, they assert the semantic content equivalent to the non-slurring word while also expressing a negative attitude towards that group. This attitude is not part of the meaning of the slur words, and it is not triggered through pragmatic means, it is an expression of the speaker’s attitude towards those particular people. The problem with this view is that in one of the most paradigmatic expressivist views (Jeshion 2013a, b), the claim is that the expressed attitude is determined by the semantic content of the slur word. I find this problematic on the grounds that if the attitude is determined by semantics, then it causes expressivist views to collapse into semantic views. If the expressivist view collapses into the semanticist view, then it ends up having all the problems of semantic theories. In place of these views, I argue that we need a speech act view. I draw on the view of JL Austin (1962). His theory starts from a tripartite distinction concerning when someone speaks. First is the locutionary act in which we identify the words one used and their meaning. Second is the illocutionary act in which we identify the action a speaker performed when speaking. Last is the perlocutionary effects in which we find the effects one has by speaking. In my account, I argue that slurs are best explained by making use of all three of these speech act components. This means that I am drawing upon much of the work already present in the literature, such as the semantics of slur words (semantic theories) or the consequences of slur words (pragmatic theories). There are two main aspects to my account that make it unique from all the others. The first is that there appears to be no current account that provides an explicit version of a speech act account as I do. The second is that I develop a unique illocutionary act, the slurring illocutionary act, that a speaker performs when they use a slur. The slurring illocutionary act (SIA) is a speech act that has several crucial components. First, it requires a slur word at the locutionary level. I include this requirement to focus on paradigmatic instances of a speaker slurring and to help distinguish cases of a speaker slurring from similar cases such as a speaker insulting or from cases of a speaker using a non-slur word in a slurring way. Once this prior requirement is in place, I argue that when it comes to a speaker’s intention to perform an SIA and their audience’s uptake of the speech act as an SIA, both intention and uptake are individually sufficient for a speech act to count as an SIA. But, more controversially, I argue that neither intent nor uptake are necessary for a speech act to count as an SIA. This means that every time a speaker uses a slur word in what they say, they will be performing an SIA. I argue for this primarily because of what type of act I take an SIA to be. An SIA is a form of conversational exercitive. An ordinary exercitive is a speech act that changes or reinforces features of the normative landscape; take moral decrees as a clear example. In contrast, a conversational exercitive is a speech act that changes the normative structure of the conversation it occurs in. When an SIA occurs, it modifies the normative structure of the conversation by changing what attitudes the speakers can have towards people or means of reference speakers can use towards groups of people. Making this kind of conversational change does not require any input from the speaker or audience outside of the words they have used. What’s left is the perlocutionary effects. This is where we need to locate a slur word’s offensive and derogatory capacities. Even though I argue that all cases in which a speaker uses a slur are SIAs, not all SIAs lead to offense or derogation. After first characterizing these terms in an intuitive way, I argue that while offense and derogation are common enough effects that many previous theorists have mistakenly thought them to be essential to slurs, they are merely targets that speakers often try to hit when they use slurs. However, there are contexts in which it is perfectly coherent for a speaker to not want to aim at offense or derogation and contexts in which the audience is not offended or derogated. All that being said, when it comes to slurs, we need to make use of all three of these components if we want to have a complete explanation of the nature of slurs and how they function.

Saying and doing: a speech act analysis of slurs

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Details

Metrics