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      Dutch slurs and the descriptive-expressive distinction

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      Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
      Open Library of the Humanities

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          Abstract

          There is a lot of debate about the meaning of slurs, which are words that refer to a certain group of people in a derogative manner. Many scholars (e.g. McCready 2010; Croom 2011; Gutzmann 2015) consider slurs, unlike their ‘neutral’ counterparts, to have both descriptive and expressive content. In this squib, I discuss initial data on the use of Dutch slurs and related terms on Twitter. The Dutch data show that ‘neutral’ labels sometimes seem to behave like slurs to some degree and that some slurs can be used as swear words without (seemingly) conveying any descriptive property. Based on these observations, I suggest that slurs may be part of a continuum of labels, ranging in the degree to which they have descriptive versus expressive content, entailing a gradual distinction between conversational and conventional implicatures in the lexical domain. A gradual view on conventionality in the lexical domain would moreover pave the way for a less fundamental distinction between expressive and social meaning. It is concluded that the debate on slurs would benefit from a broader and more empirical approach to pejorative terms for (groups of) people, as their actual use and interpretation can show a mixture of (degrees of) descriptive, expressive and social meaning.

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          Most cited references32

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          The Logic of Conventional Implicatures

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            Nomina sunt omina: on the inductive potential of nouns and adjectives in person perception.

            Six studies (N = 491) investigated the inductive potential of nouns versus adjectives in person perception. In the first 5 studies, targets were either described by an adjective (e.g., Mark is homosexual) or by the corresponding noun (e.g., Mark is a homosexual) or by both (Study 3). The authors predicted and found that nouns, more so than adjectives, (a) facilitate descriptor-congruent inferences but inhibit incongruent inferences (Studies 1-3), (b) inhibit alternative classifications (Study 4), and (c) imply essentialism of congruent but not of incongruent preferences (Study 5). This was supported for different group memberships and inclinations (athletics, arts, religion, sexual preference, drinking behavior, etc.), languages (Italian and German), and response formats, suggesting that despite the surface similarity of nouns and adjectives, nouns have a more powerful impact on person perception. Study 6 investigated the inverse relationship, showing that more essentialist beliefs (in terms of a genetic predisposition rather than training) lead speakers to use more nouns and fewer adjectives. Possible extensions of G. R. Semin and K. Fiedler's (1988) linguistic category model and potential applications for language use in intergroup contexts are discussed.
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              The Semantics of Racial Epithets

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                (View ORCID Profile)
                Journal
                Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
                Open Library of the Humanities
                2397-1835
                January 2 2023
                September 5 2023
                : 8
                : 1
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Language and Communication, Radboud University
                Article
                10.16995/glossa.9246
                8154f59c-41ef-417d-8f7f-35f12474fc01
                © 2023

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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