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Slurs and register: A case study in meaning pluralism
Author(s) -
DiazLegaspe Justina,
Liu Chang,
Stainton Robert J.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12236
Subject(s) - emotive , register (sociolinguistics) , psychology , content (measure theory) , linguistics , negation , meaning (existential) , social psychology , epistemology , philosophy , psychotherapist , mathematics , mathematical analysis
Most theories of slurs fall into two families: Those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Both offer essential insights, but part of what sets slurs apart is use‐theoretic content. Slurring words belong at the intersection of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang, +vulgar] and always includes [‐polite, +derogatory]. What distinguishes “Chinese” from “chink,” for example, is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but the fact that “chink” is lexically marked as belonging to different registers. Moreover, such facts contribute to slurring being ethically unacceptable.