Slurs and Their Oppressive History: A Dialogical Account.
One account of slurring utterances is that they function as a power grab in conversation (Popa-Wyatt and Wyatt in Philos Stud 175(11):2879-2906, 2018). The speaker assigns a powerless role to the target while taking on a dominant role. This establishes a power imbalance in the conversation. However,...
| Publicado en: | Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 103 - 116 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| 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=192011090&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 192011090 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: 192011090 10.1007/s11245-025-10204-5 ppf: 103 ppct: 13 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 397KB tig: atl: Slurs and Their Oppressive History: A Dialogical Account. aug: au: Popa-Wyatt, Mihaela Ginzburg, Jonathan affil: https://ror.org/027m9bs27 Philosophy Department, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK https://ror.org/0223bz716 Université Paris Cité, CNRS, LLF, Paris, France su: Oppression Power (Social sciences) Discriminatory language Discourse theory (Communication) Psychological factors Humiliation sug: subj: Oppression Power (Social sciences) Discriminatory language Discourse theory (Communication) Psychological factors Humiliation keyword: Dialogue Pragmatics Semantics Slur uses Slur words ab: One account of slurring utterances is that they function as a power grab in conversation (Popa-Wyatt and Wyatt in Philos Stud 175(11):2879-2906, 2018). The speaker assigns a powerless role to the target while taking on a dominant role. This establishes a power imbalance in the conversation. However, this power asymmetry creates further conversational effects that differ across the participants. For example, the target is humiliated, while the speaker is not; the speaker's status is elevated while that of the target is diminished. This is the foundation of an act of humiliation. A robust dialogical theory should be able to capture these divergent effects. In this paper, we propose to model this power asymmetry using an existing formal model of dialogue KoS (in: Ginzburg The interactive stance: meaning for conversation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012). Core to KoS is the idea that conversations and interactions are modelled in terms of individual but coupled cognitive states. This framework enables us to model how slurring utterances have differential effects across the speaker and target by capturing these variations through participant-sensitive update rules. We develop a formal account which relates the perceived emotional signals ('Mood') and power relations evolving or already operative in society. However, slurs do more than merely humiliate; they enact sustained oppression over time. To address this, we introduce the concept of oppressive history which draws on two interrelated processes: a cumulative history of slur usage and its emotionally charged impact. 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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