Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Class Reflections [André Robert]
The slurs unit was definitely helpful in thinking about how slurs function linguistically. Given how slurs seem to "scope out" I had not previously given much thought to how they actually work as words in our language, which having read about them I feel is important to know so that one might have the right attitude towards them. While I didn't fully agree with any of the papers we read about slurs, they did help me to develop what my own thoughts/beliefs about how slurs function were/ Hornsby's "uselessness" idea ended up being closest to how I think slurs function (though she probably could have picked a different word) though I think the other papers had useful things to say about slurs (Hom's emphasis on institutions for example). I found it interesting (and slightly disappointing) that none of the papers on slurs gave an actual argument for why slurs could be "appropriated" rather than just being struck form the language entirely. This has always confused me and is probably why Hornsby's paper ended up being the one I most agreed with.
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I also had not previously given much thought about how things work in our language, the fact that slurs scope out seems to mean that the hearer may have their own commitments on what the speaker utters, thus everyone may have their own attitudes. Hornsby's "uselessness" was also intriguing to me and the whole class it seems, but I haven't thought about the "appropriated" argument for slurs. How might we argue for an appropriated use of slurs depending on what is said or implicated? It may be interesting to see how it may turn out. Maybe something similar to Hornsby.
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