Programm 80. StuTS

Committing to Slurs
Slurs remain a prominent topic in common ground pragmatics, and perhaps not due to their unique workings, but due to their very ordinary, but strongly exemplified properties. The common ground, as usually understood is taken as the set of propositions mutually accepted or by participants in a conversation and this provides a useful framework for explaining many pragmatic phenomena, including some including slurs. Uttering a slur, in this sense, can mean introducing a denigrating proposition into the common ground, so long as the other party does not protest. When analysing the flow of a conversation then, this question arises: Between two parties where only one uses slurs: How is the non-protesting side not just complicit in the use of slurs, if represented as an assertion, when they are brought up into the common ground, but commit itself to accepting the slurring proposition itself into the common ground as well? This poster explores the conditions under which the acceptance of slurs may in fact be given from non-protesting, while critiquing the strong focus on propositionality that this interpretation of the common ground presupposes. Finally, the poster includes a proposal for an experiment that can empirically validate these findings, all while navigating the rough sea confounding experimental paradigms given by strong words.