Agenda
Lotte Hogeweg: Slurs and the role of speaker characteristics – an experimental approach
The relevance of speaker characteristics is acknowledged in most analyses of slurs (such as ‘the n-word’) as they form a central component of the so-called appropriated uses (e.g. Bianchi 2014, Croom 2014, Rahman 2011). Approaches differ, however, in the role they ascribe to speaker characteristics beyond this particular use. In some approaches, the derogative meaning of slurs is not mediated by knowledge or inferences about the speaker (e.g., Gutzmann 2011). In other approaches, the effect of a slur is dependent on e.g., the speaker’s (assumed) political ideology, or the social group(s) the speaker is (assumed to be) a member of (e.g., Davis and McCready 2020). There are also approaches in which (inferences concerning) the identity or ideology of the speaker not so much mediate the interpretation, but in which this is part of what is conveyed by a slur, i.e., slurs convey social meaning (e.g. Nunberg 2018). Up till now, there has been little empirical research on the relation between the meaning of slurs and the characteristics or social identity of the speaker. In this presentation I will discuss the results of an online self-paced reading experiment that was designed to test the influence of assumed speaker characteristics on the interpretation of slurs on the one hand and the expectations raised by the use of slurs about speaker characteristics on the other hand.
MS Teams meeting:
Vergadering-id: 398 068 459 735
Wachtwoordcode: okcXFg