Slurs, Stereotypes and Insults

Abstract

This paper is about paradigmatic slurs, i.e. expressions that are prima facie associated with the expression of a contemptuous attitude concerning a group of people identified in terms of its origin or descent (‘spic’), race (‘nigger’), sexual orientation (‘faggot’), ethnia or religion (‘kike’), gender (‘whore’), etc. Our purpose is twofold: (i) explaining their expressive meaning dimension in terms of a version of stereotype semantics and (ii) analysing their original and most typical uses as insults, which will be called with a neologism ‘insultive’, in terms of a speech act theory.