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Going beyond hate speech: The pragmatics of ethnic slur terms

  • Björn Technau

    Björn Technau is Director of the German Immersion School of New York in Brooklyn. His research interests include the semantics/pragmatics interface, pejoration, multilingualism and sociolinguistics, with a focus on conversation analysis. In 2018, Björn's book on the semantics and pragmatics of offensive words was published with de Gruyter. As a linguist, Björn has held various positions, including Research Associate at the Research Center of Social and Cultural Studies Mainz (SoCuM), Language Consultant at the Goethe-Institut New York, Research Associate at the German Linguistics Department at Mainz University, and DAAD Lecturer at Nanjing University (China).

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Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 21. September 2018

Abstract

Ethnic slur terms (“nigger”, “kike”, “kraut”) and other group-based slurs (“faggot”, “spaz”) must be differentiated from general pejoratives (“asshole”, “idiot”) and pure expressives (“fuck”). As these terms pejoratively refer to certain groups of people, they are a typical feature of hate speech contexts where they serve xenophobic speakers in expressing their hatred for an entire group of people. However, slur terms are actually far more frequently used in other contexts and are more often exchanged among friends than between enemies. Hate speech can be identified as the most central, albeit not the most frequent, mode of use. I broadly distinguish between hate speech (central use), other pejorative uses (mobbing, insulting), parasitic uses (banter, appropriation, comedy, youth language), neutral mentioning (academics, PC), and unaware uses. In this paper, authentic examples of use and frequency estimates from empirical research will help provide accurate definitions and insight into these different modes that purely theoretical approaches cannot achieve.

About the author

Björn Technau

Björn Technau is Director of the German Immersion School of New York in Brooklyn. His research interests include the semantics/pragmatics interface, pejoration, multilingualism and sociolinguistics, with a focus on conversation analysis. In 2018, Björn's book on the semantics and pragmatics of offensive words was published with de Gruyter. As a linguist, Björn has held various positions, including Research Associate at the Research Center of Social and Cultural Studies Mainz (SoCuM), Language Consultant at the Goethe-Institut New York, Research Associate at the German Linguistics Department at Mainz University, and DAAD Lecturer at Nanjing University (China).

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Published Online: 2018-09-21
Published in Print: 2018-06-26

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 5.11.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/lpp-2018-0002/pdf
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