A Dual Act Analysis of Slurs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Camp
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Conventional Implicature ◽  
Clear Cases ◽  
Perlocutionary Effect ◽  
Communicative Role

Slurs are incendiary terms—many deny that sentences containing them can ever be true. And utterances where they occur embedded within normally “quarantining” contexts, like conditionals and indirect reports, can still seem offensive. At the same time, others find that sentences containing slurs can be true; and there are clear cases where embedding does inoculate a speaker from the slur’s offensiveness. This chapter argues that four standard accounts of the “other” element that differentiates slurs from their more neutral counterparts—semantic content, perlocutionary effect, presupposition, and conventional implicature—all fail to account for this puzzling mixture of intuitions. Instead, it proposes that slurs make two distinct, coordinated contributions to a sentence’s conventional communicative role.

Nina Simone as Poet and Orchestrator

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-147
Author(s):  
Marcus R. Pyle
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Black Body ◽  
Black Female ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Subjectivity ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Nina Simone

How do you fashion an identity in a society that, at every turn, tries to snuff you out? In this article, I address Nina Simone's praxis of renaming and reinvention to demonstrate strategies of resistance. To this point, I analyze the musico-poetic setting of Nina Simone’s songs “Images” (1964) and “Four Women” (1965) to argue that her artistic musical choices sonically orchestrate varying issues of Black female subjectivity, identity, and self-making. In Simone’s songs, she refuses to discount the materiality of the Black body; instead, she envelops the Black body with signifiance and significance. The sonic bearers of semantic content become extensions of the Self—transmutable and heterodox. The compositional and poetic subtleties in these songs claim that the gaze of the Other can potentiate exteriority and freedom—what I term the “exo(p)tic.”

scholarly journals Перцептивное обозначение в  русской народной сказке

2018 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 277-285
Author(s):  
Olga A. Mescheryakova
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Sense Organs ◽  
Cognitive Context ◽  
Other World ◽  
Subtype A

Perceptual notation in the Russian folk fairy-talePerceptual notation captures information received from different sense organs but predicated by the same consciousness of “a perceived human being”. In the cognitive context semantics of sensory nominations reflects elements of the perceptual concept. The fact that the verbalization of its facultative elements depends not only on the type of discourse folklore, genre a tale, but also on its subtype a fairy-tale is claimed to be a hypothesis of this research. It settles that in the Russian folk fairy-tale the semantics of perceptual notation is predicated by the opposition “real — irreal world” and the semantics element “fabulous, belonging to the other world” is a basis of the semantic content of the perceptual notation. Besides that, the perceptual semantics in this type of fairy tales correlates with the aesthetical, axiological views of the folklore community on nature and human beings, reconstructing the folk ideal or ant-ideal. Перцептивне означення у російській народній чарівнiй казціПерцептивне означення фіксує інформацію, що надходить від різних органів чуттів, але обумовлену єдиною свідомістю «людини сприймаючої». У когнітивному плані семантика номінацій сенсорики відображає ознаки перцептивного концепту. Те, що вербалізація його факультативних ознак залежить не тільки від типу дискурсу фольклор, жанру казка, але і від підвиду жанру чарівна казка, становить гіпотезу даного дослідження. Встановлюєть­ся що в російській народній чарівній казці семантика перцептивної номінації обумовлена опозицією «реальний- ірреальний світ» і семантична ознака ‘чудовий, що належить іншому світу’ є основою змісту перцептивного означення. Крім того, в даній групі казок перцептивна семантика співвідноситься з естетичними, аксіологічними поглядами фольклорного соціуму на природу і людину, реконструюючи народний ідеал або антиідеал.

The Birth of New Russian Meanings (the 10th – Beginning of the 13th Centuries)

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 381-410
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Perevezentsev
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

The article examines the development of Christian truths by ancient Russian thinkers in the first centuries after the Baptism of Russia – from the end of the 10th to the 13th centuries. On the one hand, it shows the contradictory process of Christianization of different social groups of ancient Russian society. On the other hand, Russian spiritual and political thought of this period is analyzed, and the semantic content of the first Russian Christian writings is revealed, from the “Words on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev to Vladimir Monomakh’s “Teachings” and Daniel Zatochnik’s “Word”. The research allows us to say that in the course of understanding the main Christian dogmas, Russian spiritual and political thinkers substantiated new and eternal meanings of historical and posthumous existence.

How to put yourself in someone else’s shoes: The role of point-of-view in the interpretation of mixed messages

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-238
Author(s):  
Nikos Vergis
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Affective Factors ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Mixed Messages ◽  
Communicative Role ◽  
The Way

AbstractDoes having a communicative role other than the speaker’s make a difference to the way pragmatic meaning is construed? Standard paradigms in interpersonal pragmatics have implicitly assumed a speaker-centric perspective over the years, however modern approaches have re-considered the role of listener evaluations. In the present study, I examine whether assuming different communicative roles (speaker, listener, observer) results in varying interpretations. A web-based experiment revealed that participants who took the perspective of different characters in short stories differed in the way they interpreted what the speaker meant. In most cases, participants in the role of the listener interpreted speaker meaning in more negative ways than participants in the other roles. The present study suggests that the directionality of the difference (negative inferences under the listener’s perspective) could be explained by taking into account affective factors.

Contested Slurs

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
Renée Jorgensen Bolinger
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Language L ◽  
Linguistic Practices

Sometimes speakers within a linguistic community use a term that they do not conceptualize as a slur, but which other members of that community do. Sometimes these speakers are ignorant or naïve, but not always. This article explores a puzzle raised when some speakers stubbornly maintain that a contested term t is not derogatory. Because the semantic content of a term depends on the language, to say that their use of t is semantically derogatory despite their claims and intentions, we must individuate languages in a way that counts them as speaking our language L, assigns t a determinately derogatory content in L, and still accommodates the other features of slurs’ linguistic profile. Given the difficulty of doing this, there is some reason to give a non-semantic analysis of the derogatory aspect of slurs. The author suggests that rather than dismissing the stubborn as semantically incompetent, we would do better to appeal to expected uptake as moral reasons for the stubborn to adjust their linguistic practices.

The Notion of Approximation in Language

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeki Hamawand
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Semantics ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Dimensions

This paper seeks to explicate the notion of approximation in language: the state of being close or near to a desired number or amount. Approximation is used to reflect a lack of exact knowledge. This paper adopts Cognitive Semantics and attempts to apply two of its fundamental claims to the description of markers denoting approximation. One claim is that all linguistic elements posited in language have semantic content. On the basis of this claim, the paper argues that a marker of approximation has conceptual content of its own which conditions its presence in a construction. Each marker adds semantic import to the construction in which it occurs. The other claim is that the use of a lexical expression is the outcome of the specific construal imposed on a situation. On the basis of this claim, the paper argues that the uses of approximating markers represent different dimensions of construal. Each marker signals a different perspective of the speaker in describing the world. The aim is to show, based on examples, that approximating markers are not random choices. Each marker has a distinct message in the language.

scholarly journals Speech Companions: Evaluating the Effects of Musically Modulated Auditory Feedback on the Voice

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rébecca Kleinberger ◽  
George Stefanakis ◽  
Sebastian Franjou
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Feedback ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Pitch Contour ◽  
Vocal Qualities ◽  
Major Chord ◽  
Minor Chord ◽  
A Minor ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Musical Accompaniment

Changing the way one hears one’s own voice, for instance by adding delay or shifting the pitch in real-time, can alter vocal qualities such as speed, pitch contour, or articulation. We created new types of auditory feedback called Speech Companions that generate live musical accompaniment to the spoken voice. Our system generates harmonized chorus effects layered on top of the speaker’s voice that change chord at each pseudo-beat detected in the spoken voice. The harmonization variations follow predeter-mined chord progressions. For the purpose of this study we generated two versions: one following a major chord progression and the other one following a minor chord progression. We conducted an evaluation of the effects of the feedback on speakers and we present initial findings assessing how different musical modulations might potentially affect the emotions and mental state of the speaker as well as semantic content of speech, and musical vocal parameters.

scholarly journals Zur Digitalisierung analogischer Zeichen im digitalen Zeitalter

2018 ◽  
Vol 142 ◽  
pp. 245-253
Author(s):  
Anna Kapuścińska
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mosaic Structure ◽  
Primary Language ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
News Website

Das Ziel des Beitrags ist, das Phänomen der Digitalisierung von ursprünglich analogischen Zeichen zu diskutieren. Die Diskussion fokussiert zwei Arten von Zeichen, die nach der Distinktion von Goodman analogisch sind. Die einen sind Bilder und die anderen – Texte, betrachtet, in Bezug auf die textlinguistische Konzeptualisierung der Sprache, als primäre sprachliche Zeichen. Das Beispiel eines polnischen Nachrichtenportals bestätigt die These, das die spezifische mosaikartige Struk­tur die inhärenten Merkmale der darin enthaltenen Zeichen beeinflussen kann. Das typographische Schema ist dabei wichtiger als der semantische Inhalt, der auf solche Art und Weise präsentiert wird, die die Perzeptionsfähigkeiten eines durchschnittlichen Empfängers überfordert. Dadurch wird die Bedeutung der Bilder und Texte in der Regel auf die binäre digitale Relation ihrer Anwesenheit oder Abwesenheit im vorprogrammierten Schema beschränkt.On the digitalisation of analogical signs in the digital ageThe aim of the article is to discuss the phenomenon of digitalisation of the originally analogic­al signs. The discussion focusses on two types of signs, which may be considered as analogical based on the distinction by Goodman. One of them are pictures and the other one – texts, treated, according to the textlinguistic conceptualisation of the language, as the primary language signs. The example from a Polish news website confirms the thesis that the specific mosaic structure may exert a considerable influence on the inherent features of the signs, which they contain. The typo­graphic scheme of the mosaic becomes superior to the semantic content, which is presented in a way exceeding the perceptual capabilities of an average receiver. Thus, the meaning of pictures and texts is generally restrained to the binary digital relation of their presence or absence in the preprogrammed schema.

Displacement in Syntax

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Abels
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Morphological Changes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strong Interactions ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Clear Cases ◽  
Canonical Position

Displacement is a ubiquitous phenomenon in natural languages. Grammarians often speak of displacement in cases where the rules for the canonical word order of a language lead to the expectation of finding a word or phrase in a particular position in the sentence whereas it surfaces instead in a different position and the canonical position remains empty: ‘Which book did you buy?’ is an example of displacement because the noun phrase ‘which book’, which acts as the grammatical object in the question, does not occur in the canonical object position, which in English is after the verb. Instead, it surfaces at the beginning of the sentence and the object position remains empty. Displacement is often used as a diagnostic for constituent structure because it affects only (but not all) constituents. In the clear cases, displaced constituents show properties associated with two distinct linear and hierarchical positions. Typically, one of these two positions c-commands the other and the displaced element is pronounced in the c-commanding position. Displacement also shows strong interactions with the path between the empty canonical position and the position where the element is pronounced: one often encounters morphological changes along this path and evidence for structural placement of the displaced constituent, as well as constraints on displacement induced by the path. The exact scope of displacement as an analytically unified phenomenon varies from theory to theory. If more then one type of syntactic displacement is recognized, the question of the interaction between movement types arises. Displacement phenomena are extensively studied by syntacticians. Their enduring interest derives from the fact that the complex interactions between displacement and other aspects of syntax offer a powerful probe into the inner workings and architecture of the human syntactic faculty.

Aliquid amplius audire desiderat: Desire in Abelard’s Theory of Incomplete and Non-Assertive Complete Sentences

Vivarium ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 221-248
Author(s):  
Luisa Valente
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structural Role ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Peri Hermeneias

One of the peculiarities of Peter Abelard’s analysis of incomplete and non-assertive sentences is his use of the notion of desire: in both Dialectica and Glosses on Peri hermeneias the terms desiderium and desidero move to the foreground side by side with optatio, expectatio, suspensio and the related verbs. Desire plays a structural role in Abelard’s descriptions of the compositional way in which the linguistic message is received, changing step by step from incomplete to complete: the person who receives the incomplete message (e.g., ‘Socrates’ or ‘Socrates legens’) desires to get further information through other words since he knows that the purpose of such words or sequences of words (their causa inventionis) is to combine with other words in order to form a complete sentence. On the other hand, the expression of the speaker’s attention to his inner affections renders the same semantic content a different complete sentence (injunction, prayer, or desiderativa oratio).

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