Lexical Silencing: How to Suppress Speech with Negative Words.
This paper will introduce "lexical silencing" as a new linguistic phenomenon, i.e., positive statements about something are made more difficult to express when the only (or the predominant) word for it in a language is a negative word. A good example is the term "political correctness," which carrie...
| Publicado en: | Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 5 - 16 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Mar2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=192011076&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 192011076 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01677411 NM2 jtl: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy issn: 01677411 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2026 vid: 45 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 192011076 10.1007/s11245-024-10124-w ppf: 5 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 717KB tig: atl: Lexical Silencing: How to Suppress Speech with Negative Words. aug: au: Liu, Chang affil: https://ror.org/0220qvk04 School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Minhang Dist, 200240, Shanghai, China su: Political correctness Constraints (Linguistics) Discriminatory language Censorship Public communication Functional linguistics Persuasion (Rhetoric) sug: subj: Political correctness Constraints (Linguistics) Discriminatory language Censorship Public communication Functional linguistics Persuasion (Rhetoric) keyword: Communication and Culture Linguistics Language Lexical silencing Pejoratives Philosophy of language Slurs Speech acts ab: This paper will introduce "lexical silencing" as a new linguistic phenomenon, i.e., positive statements about something are made more difficult to express when the only (or the predominant) word for it in a language is a negative word. A good example is the term "political correctness," which carries negative connotations in English but has no easy alternative to replace it. Suppose a supporter attempts to explicitly endorse it by saying something like "Political correctness should be a fundamental value of the society." Positive statements like this sound somewhat weird and even self-defeating to the hearers, and are therefore difficult to be expressed in the public discourse. Moreover, I will identify at least two linguistic mechanisms of lexical silencing: First, slurs can make it difficult to say something positive about a group because slurs provide the illocutionary force of derogation, which conflicts with forces like praising. Second, what I call "loaded words" (e.g., "political correctness") are not explicitly derogatory like slurs, but they can achieve similar effects by producing perlocutionary effects on the psycho-linguistic process of hearers. This paper will also discuss the various sources of lexical silencing and possible strategies for mitigating them. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy is a copyright of Springer, 2026. All Rights Reserved. item: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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