English, Department of
Department of English: Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
1973
Citation
Mid-America Linguistics Conference (October 13-14, 1972, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma), pages 78-83
Papers published 1973
Abstract
I have offered evidence that name-calling is a linguistic act which correlates the assumption of a status-relation between speaker and addressee with the use of terms marked (+abusive). To call someone a bastard, for.this reason, is not understood as the attempt to categorize him according to some term whose meaning, in the ordinary sense, is a list of lexical features. Rather it is the attempt to categorize him as without status in relation to the speaker himself, in defiance of his expectations, and because he has himself deserved it by himself invoking such a right over the speaker. This understanding of name-calling would seem to be confirmed by the fact that the relation name-calling-reason is of the same syntactic form as the relation identifying reference-predication, which implies that name-calling is not a proposition of the usual kind, but rather the invocation of a right to make an assertion which has no meaning outside of that invocation. If these things are true, then the kind of analysis represented here would probably apply to other elements in the semantic description of natural language.
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Comments
Copyright 1973, Robert S. Haller. Used by permission