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.

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.

scholarly journals A System to Assess the Semantic Content of Student Essays

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit Lemaire ◽  
Philippe Dessus
Keyword(s):  
Latent Semantic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
High Dimensional ◽  
High Dimensional Space

This paper presents Apex, a system that can automatically assess a student essay based on its content. It relies on Latent Semantic Analysis, a tool which is used to represent the meaning of words as vectors in a high-dimensional space. By comparing an essay and the text of a given course on a semantic basis, our system can measure how well the essay matches the text. Various assessments are presented to the student regarding the topic, the outline and the coherence of the essay. Our experiments yield promising results.

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.”

سلطة النسق اللغوي بين اللغة العالمة واللغة المؤسسية

2021 ◽  
pp. arabic cover-english cover
Author(s):  
أحمد حساني
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Research ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Traditional Institution ◽  
Institutional System ◽  
The Individual

يندرج هذا البحث ضمن مشروع تأسيسي، وتأصيلي هادف، يسعى إلى تعزيز المقاربة اللسانية البينية للنسق اللغوي بكل مكوناته، والبحث عن قوة الحضور التي يمتلكها، والسلطة التي يمارسها على الفرد منتجِ الخطاب، وعلى الجماعة التي تشكل المجتمع اللغوي؛ حيث إنَّ اللغة قوة فاعلة لها سلطة داخلية وخارجية، تتجلى سلطتها الداخلية في نظامها القواعدي المعقد الذي يوجد بصفة مضمرة في أذهان المتكلمين- المستمعين الذين ينتمون إلى مجتمع له خصوصيات ثقافية وحضارية متجانسة. وتتجلى سلطتها الخارجية في المؤسسة السياسية، والاجتماعية والعرفية التي تكرّس شرعية النسق اللغوي في المجتمع اللغوي. وفي ظل هذا التصور، انصرفت هذه المقاربة إلى التعامل مع النسق اللغوي، من حيث هو سلطة قهرية، والبحث في علاقته باللغة العالمة من جهة، واللغة المؤسسية من جهة أخرى. تسعى هذه الدراسة، حينئذٍ، إلى إيجاد إجابات علميةكافية، عن كثير من الأسئلة التي ما فتئت تشغل بال الباحثين، على اختلاف اهتماماتهم العلمية أثناء اتخاذهم اللغة موضوعًا للتفكير، والبحث المؤسس. نذكر في هذا المقام بعضَها لأهميته: 1- ما القوة الخفية الكامنة في (ما وراء) ممارسة اللغة لسلطتها القهرية لدى الأفراد والمجتمعات؟ 2- كيف شكلت الرواسب الأدائية للكلام هذه السلطة عبر التاريخ ؟ 3- إلى أي حد يمكن للغتين؛ العالمة، والمؤسسية التأثير في مسار النسق اللغوي في مجتمع المعرفة، والنظام المؤسسي في المجتمع؟ This research falls within a constituent, and Authentic project that seeks to enhance Interdisciplinary approach with all components parts of linguistic system to search for the presence power, that possesses the power, that it exercises on the individual who produces the discourse, and on the group; which make up the linguistic community as an effective force language, that has internal and external authority, which reflects its internal authority in its complex grammatical system, that exists implicitly in the minds of speakers - listeners belonging to a society with homogeneous cultural and civilizational privacies. The external authority is manifested in the political, social, and traditional institution; that devotes the legitimacy of the linguistic system in the linguistic community. Under this scenario; the approach went out to deal with the linguistic system in terms of it is a compulsive authority research, and its relationship to the scholarly language on the hand, and the institutional language on the other hand. This intervention seeks to find scientific answers for many questions, that still preoccupy the researchers from different scientific interests during taking the language as a topic of thought and institutional research. We mention certain questions for its importance: 1- What is the hidden power behind language practicing its oppressive authority in individuals and societies? 2- How did the performance remnants of speech shape this authority throughout history? 3- To what extent can the scholarly language and institutional languages influence the path of a linguistic system in the knowledge society, and the institutional system in the community?

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.

scholarly journals Semantic Meaning of Prefixes in Karo Language

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efendi Barus
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Other Hand

The aim of this research is to discuss about the Semantic Analysis of Prefixes in Karo Language which will provide more information about prefixes and also to show the changes of meaning of words which are already influenced by them. The method of doing reseach is by taking some references or text-books in the library, and this types of research is called qualitative research. It is found that the prefixes in Karo language are fourteen types, such as: n_, er_, per_, ter_, i_, me_, pe_, si_, ci_, ki_, ke_, pen_, kini_, se_. By adding the prefixes to the bases, the meanings of the words may change or may not change. For example: galang “big” becomes pegalang “to make bigger size”, deher “near” becomes ndeher “near”., etc. The conclusion is that the formation of word can be done by attaching a prefix to certain base (a noun, an adjective, a verb and an adverb or a numeral). On the other hand, the addition of a prefix to the base may only result in another form of a certain class of word or the change of a word meaning.

scholarly journals “Does Community Make Any Sense?” A Semantic Analysis of the Term “Community” Among Albanian Immigrants and Italian Majority Residents

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terri Mannarini ◽  
Alessia Rochira
Keyword(s):  
Community Psychology ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Diverse Communities ◽  
Albanian Immigrants

Bridging Community Psychology and the Theory of Social Representations, the study was aimed at exploring how the concept of community and sense of belonging to various communities vary across diverse ethno-cultural groups (namely, immigrant and native-born groups) and how the meanings and the experience of community affect or are affected by the relationships that each group establishes with the other group. Participants were 30 native-born Italians and 30 immigrants from Albania lived in an area located in the south-east of Italy. They participated in an open-ended semi-structured interview, which was analysed using T-Lab software. Results indicated that the concept of community and sense of belonging to multiple communities do vary across diverse ethno-cultural groups and that each group is cross-cut by multiple axes of differentiation, one of which is linked to the experience of inter-cultural relations. Furthermore, the findings indicated that the functions served by the diverse communities affect the representations shared by the distinct sub-groups and that the simultaneous orientation of individuals toward multiple communities stimulate the development of a compound and even conflicting sense of attachment towards them. Implications for acculturation processes are discussed.

scholarly journals Struktura znaczeniowa słownictwa anatomicznego w Nowym dykcjonarzu M.A. Troca

2020 ◽  
pp. 119-133
Author(s):  
Beata Kuryłowicz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Medical Terminology ◽  
Uniform Size ◽  
Semantic Relationships ◽  
Anatomical Terminology ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Lexical Field

This article is an attempt to perform a semantic analysis of anatomical vocabulary collected by Michał Abraham Troc in Nowy dykcjonarz, published in Lipsk in 1764. The aim of individual analyses based on the lexical field theory is to demonstrate the meaning of lexemes, to determine their place within a field, as well as to disclose semantic relationships: synonymy, polysemy and hyponymy. The semantic analysis presented in this article clearly demonstrates abundance and differentiation of 18th century anatomical vocabulary, as well as prevalence of native over borrowed words. Among 250 names, only eleven units are borrowings from foreign languages: seven Latin and four German ones. This provides evidence there is a fundamental role of native lexis, especially colloquial vocabulary, in the formation of Polish anatomical terminology, and, more extensively, also medical terminology, in the first phase of its development which continued until the end of the 18th century. Of note is also the non-uniform arrangement of lexemes in individual fields and asymmetry in their number. Selected lexical fields are characterised by non-uniform size, different level of semantic stratification and differentiated degree of generality of words they contain. On the other hand, semantic relations observed in the analysed anatomical vocabulary, especially synonymy and polysemy, confirm there is a differentiation of anatomical lexis, on the other hand, they indicate lack of precision in expressing content by the discussed lexical units.

scholarly journals PSYCHOLINGUISTIC FEATURES OF IMAGINATION AS A COMPONENT OF LUDIC COMPETENCE

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 15-23
Author(s):  
Iuliia Kobzieva ◽  
Iia Gordiienko-Mytrofanova ◽  
Serhii Sauta
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Free Association ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Main Stage ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Gender Identification ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Psycholinguistic Research ◽  
Inner World

Ludic competence is an integral part of the professional competence of would-be psychologists; the psycholinguistic features of imagination are in turn an integral component of the ludic competence. We used the method of applied psycholinguistic research in order to define and explain the psycholinguistic features of imagination as a component of the ludic competence. The main stage of the research was a free association test with the stimulus word “imagination”, as the most elaborated technique of semantic analysis. The psycholinguistic features of imagination as a notion that belongs to the inner world and as a component of the ludic competence were reflected in everyday linguistic consciousness as three core (more than 10 %) semantic clusters: (a) associates that reflect psychological processes and states (54.5 %); (b) associates that are connected with creative activity (25.5 %); and (c) associates that describe the outside world (11 %). Imagination was mostly represented by lexemes with abstract semantics. The semantic content of the word “imagination” did not depend on gender identification. Both male and female respondents showed a positive emotional attitude to the stimulus “imagination” and evaluated it as something positive. Our data confirm that the psycholinguistic experiment and the method of free association, in particular, can be extensively applied beyond linguistics and prove to be rather effective.

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.

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