Horn and Camp

Chris Hom argues that slurs, or racial epithets, are not pragmatic (as many people believe to be the case), but rather each slur is semantic, meaning the hatred that comes through each word is built into the word itself. Although Hom does state that both theories have issues, he believes that the semantic strategy “fares better on a number of criteria” (416).

Camp on the other hand argues that slurs do get their hatred from the perspectives of the one who gives the slur, rather than the word itself. Rather than the truth statement of the word, camp is focused more on the attitude that the word is intended depending on the one who uses it.

I agree more with Camp, who seems to argue that the derogatory slurs are derived from the perspective of the person using the word, rather than the word itself. There have been words that are now currently used which are considered to be slurs; however, in the past they had conveyed different meaning and was not considered to be universally derogatory. I agree that slurs are context dependent and words gain their meaning from the perspective or attitude that the person who uses it.