Topics Language

Question I've been thinking about derogatory words for people who belong to specific groups. These words, I think, not only identify these persons, but they also kind of "state" that those persons are bad, inferior, or something like that. For instance, if you would call someone a "boche" (e.g. "She is a boche!"), you would not only be saying that that person is a German citizen, but also that ALL Germans are, say, despicable. Do you think this is a plausible view? And, if it is, don't you think that it is strange that a single word, as apllied to only one person, somehow contains a statement about a whole group of people?

Accepted:
April 15, 2010

Comments

Thanks for your perceptive comment/question. Derogatory words do identify groups. So both 'Wop' and 'Italian' apply to all and only Italians. However, the derogatory words convey more than this. You describe this further things by saying they kind of state that the persons are bad, etc. Philosophers of language have spent some time trying to get clear on this notion of "kind of stating", and so I'll try to give you the flavor of that effort here.

In addition to what we literally say with our words, we now know that we can communicate a great deal more. Sometimes what I leave unsaid carries a lot of meaning: I ask you how you like the painting I just completed and you reply, "Well, it's very colorful." Here you don't actually say or state that the painting is not so great, but your meaning is clear. Philosophers often call this type of meaning, "implicature." Some implicatures, such as this one, depend heavily on context. In other cases, however, our implicatures depend on the conventional meaning of our words. So for instance, the word 'but' suggests a contrast or tension between the two conjunctions it conjoins. My describing a person with the words, "She was poor but honest." would be taken as conveying the idea that there's some contrast or conflict between poverty and honesty. You can see that by noticing that many people might take issue with my speaking that way. For a more obvious case, consider, "Bob was from Newfoundland, but intelligent." Here I didn't *say* or *state* that being a Newfie tends to make you dumb, but I did suggest as much, and this is due to the meaning of the word "but."

This approach sheds light on epithets such as those you mention. The word 'wop' carries as part of its meaning a derogatory attitude toward Italians. In that respect it differs from 'Italian', even though the words apply to the same class of individuals. So too for many other derogatory words.

Is this phenomenon, as you suggest, strange? Note that you said the word 'boche' is applied to only one person, but it's a general term, just like 'German'. So both words have what's called an 'extension' (the set of individuals to which they apply). What I'd suggest is striking, and in need of explanation, is how a word, by virtue of its conventional meaning, manages to express an attitude. But I suspect to understand this, we need to stand back and try to figure out what it is to express anything, not just attitudes. I've tried to do this in a book called '_Self-Expression_'. (http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199283781.do)

Mitch Green