Una Stojnić: What slurs teach us about language and psychology (and vice versa) (joint work with E. Lepore)

Tuesday April 23 2024 @12:00 (CEST)
Sala B, Edificio de Humanidades, UNED & online

Abstract
Slurs are powerful linguistic weapons, carrying a characteristic sting, prone to cause outrage and even injury. So much so that they can be subject to media censorship and sometimes even legislation. What is the source of this characteristic offensive sting that makes slurs such powerful linguistic weapons? The predominant position argues it’s some aspect of their meaning—semantically encoded or pragmatically conveyed. Consequently, most efforts at understanding slurs have been attempts to characterize their meanings and how these meanings compose with those of other sorts of expressions, in a way that generates the offensive sting. But even those who reject this majority position trace the offensive sting down to slurring words, arguing that it’s their taboo status, or offensive tone, that explains their sting. We argue this is a mistake; the distinctive pejorative effect of slurs—their characteristic sting—is neither a matter of meaning, nor even language.

Bio
Una Stojnić is assistant professor of philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, at Princeton University. Her research aims at understanding and modeling language and linguistic communication, and has been published, among others, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research or Noûs and in her book Context and Coherence, OUP.