The Fritz Marti Lecture with Dr. Ernest Lepore
The Philosophy Department presents the 46th Frtiz Marti Lecture featuring
Dr. Ernest Lepore of Rutgers University
MUC Dogwood Room
Friday, April 18, 2025 | 4:00 PM
Pejorative Language
It’s a platitude that words can harm. But some words are more prone to do so than others; they are pejorative by design. Among those, slurs, which derogate purely on the basis of group membership, are particularly inflammatory. What is the source of this characteristic offensive sting that makes slurs such powerful linguistic weapons? A natural and predominant assumption is that it’s some aspect of their meaning—semantically encoded or pragmatically conveyed. Consequently, most efforts at understanding slurs have focused on their meanings and how they compose with those of other expressions. Even those who reject this majority position trace the offensive sting down to slurring words, arguing that it’s their taboo status, or pejorative tone, that explains their sting. I will argue this is a mistake; the distinctive pejorative effect of slurs—their characteristic sting—is not a matter of meaning, nor even language.
