I am inclined to agree with Hornsby's handling of the Inferentialist view of derogatory words. It seems that the use of a derogatory word cannot carry with it some implicit intention to carry every aspect of ideology related to that word. If this were the case, casual use of such words would seem to not function int the way such use does. This would be due in part to this observation by Hornsby; "If speakers involvement with the ideology went so deep as it would need to in order to be implicit in their very use of words, then common understandings would be difficult to preserve (Hornsby, 2001, 137)."
I have trouble with Hornsby's stance on the uselessness of words. Perhaps I am not understanding her use of uselessness, but I think that derogatory words do have some use. This may be erring to much on the side of pragmatic use, but implementation of such words can often be an attempt to evoke some emotion. This is only one example, even with such a limited counterargument I find that I am not convinced by Hornsby's position.
I guess my question is, in regards to the example of the teenager's use of slang, is it actually that different of a barrier? It seems that this result could be attained if we view the barrier as being set in sociolinguistic terms. In some situations that barrier would not exist, given the correct environs and circumstances perhaps you would say "wicked" (or "golly" or whatever).
Perhaps a key difference between a teenager's slang and derogatory words is the neutrality of the words. For derogatory words, we can usually find a neutral counterpart that selects the same referential group. With the case of slang, the word is already neutral because it doesn't seem to offend in the same way. At the very least, it seems difficult to come up with a neutral counterpart to 'wicked'.
ReplyDeleteThe difference that Hornsby uses is questionable though. She says that we cannot endorse the use of derogatory terms, so they are useless. The use of slang is endorsable, so it is non-derogatory. It seems that some people may not have uses at all, but some people do have uses we can endorse, perhaps in art, expression, or social activism. These uses don't need to be offensive either. All in all, I'm not convinced by Hornsby's distinction either.
I somewhat agree with your objection to Hornsby's argument. The distinction that she attempts to make doesn't seem very convincing. I also thought of the barrier of use for slang terms as being sociolinguistic, and that this may also be the case for derogatory terms. We might be able to argue that these words are 'useless' to many of us, but there are plenty of categories of terms that are not necessary for the majority of the population as well; I am reminded of Putnam's description of the "division of linguistic labor", which describes how some individuals may possess knowledge that others do not, and thus use terms that others wouldn't. We can see cases of useless terms throughout language; however, Hornsby's identification of there being some sort of expressive content within slurs that is not contained within their neutral counterparts does make the argument a bit more convincing.
ReplyDelete-- Rigo Acevedo