Slurs, roles and power

Mihaela Popa-Wyatt, Jeremy Wyatt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Slurring is a kind of hate speech that has various effects. Notable among these is variable offence. Slurs vary in offence across words, uses, and the reactions of audience members. Patterns of offence aren’t adequately explained by current theories. We propose an explanation based on the unjust power imbalance that a slur seeks to achieve. Our starting observation is that in discourse participants take on discourse roles. These are typically inherited from social roles, but only exist during a discourse. A slurring act is a speech-act that alters the discourse roles of the target and speaker. By assigning discourse roles the speaker unjustly changes the power balance in the dialogue. This has a variety of effects on the target and audience. We show how these notions explain all three types of offence variation. We also briefly sketch how a role and power theory can help
explain silencing and appropriation. Explanatory power lies in the fact that offence is correlated with the perceived unjustness of the power imbalance created.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-28
Number of pages28
JournalPhilosophical Studies
Early online date30 Sept 2017
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 30 Sept 2017

Keywords

  • slurs
  • speech acts
  • conversational score
  • conversational exercitive
  • power
  • roles
  • oppression

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Slurs, roles and power'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this