Slurs and Their Oppressive History: A Dialogical Account

Mihaela Popa-Wyatt, Jonathan Ginzburg

Abstract: 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.

External IDs:doi:10.1007/s11245-025-10204-5