Article published in:
PejorationEdited by Rita Finkbeiner, Jörg Meibauer and Heike Wiese
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 228] 2016
► pp. 167–186
A multi-act perspective on slurs
Maria Paola Tenchini | Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Aldo Frigerio | Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
This paper proposes a semantic interpretation of slurs based on a multi-speech act theory. According to this perspective, when a speaker utters a sentence containing a slur, he or she performs two different speech acts, one of which, following Searle’s taxonomy, is an expressive one. Therefore, slurs have two semantic components, the first being identical with the intension and extension of the corresponding neutral term. The second is an expressive speech act by means of which the speaker expresses derogation and denigration towards the class of individuals designated by the neutral component. This interpretation is in line with those theories which regard slurs as having a mixed semantics. However, unlike these theories, in this proposal slurs are not regarded as a type of conventional implicature.
Keywords: expressives, multi-act theory, pejoratives, slurs, speech acts
Published online: 31 March 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.228.08ten
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.228.08ten
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 04 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.