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My Dissertation FINAL EXCLUSIONARY SPEECH AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF COMMUNITY A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy By Cassie Monette Herbert, B.A. Washington, DC June 6, 2017 Copyright 2017 by Cassie Monette Herbert All Rights Reserved ii EXCLUSIONARY SPEECH AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF COMMUNITY Cassie Monette Herbert, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Rebecca Kukla, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This project explores the complex ways language, social power, and identity entwine to structure social interactions and the contours of community boundaries. How an audience takes up discursive moves can constitute who is trusted and taken seriously as a knower and who is held in a position of skepticism. How we signal our identity through language moves can impact the epistemic agency an audience takes us to be employing. Derogative terms, such as racial slurs and words like ‘slut’ or ‘lame,’ target social groups, are connected to a history of oppression against that group, and using these terms can structure interactions with group members in complex ways. The words we use can, even unwittingly, subtly alienate and outgroup members of already vulnerable groups. Each chapter draws on speech act theory to serve as an entry point into the extraordinarily complex ways our discursive practices structure our social world and normative interactions. I begin by examining ‘risky’ speech and how distorted responses to such speech can impact community constitution. To do this, I develop an account of two different kinds of speech acts – accusations and reports – and explore the performative structure of each. In the next chapter I offer a pragmatic account of discursive signaling. Discursive signaling is when we use linguistic moves to call into salience particular aspects of our identity in a given context, which structures how we and those around us understand and navigate those moments and iii situations. In the third chapter I develop an expanded conceptual taxonomy of harmful speech. I argue that there is a multidimensional continuum of terms, which I term derogatives, that share some or all of the features of paradigmatic slurs. In the fourth chapter, I explore the pragmatics of reclamation projects. I argue that the performative structure of reclamation makes the projects precarious and open to causing harm. In the final chapter, I offer an account of the perlocutionary effects of mentioning slurs. I argue that slurs act as a powerful mechanism for priming pernicious implicit biases about the targeted group. I offer practical guidance for how to navigate talking about slurs. iv I am profoundly grateful for things that haven’t happened: I haven’t been told my work “isn’t philosophy,” that feminist philosophy doesn’t matter, or that work about oppression ought to be relegated to the fringes of serious philosophical work. I haven’t felt or been unsupported, and I haven’t had to struggle to be taken seriously as a philosopher. I haven’t received pressure guised as friendly advice to change the focus of my work because of how it might be taken up by the profession or on the job market. And I haven’t felt alienated from faculty in my department because of what I work on. All of this should be the norm – it isn’t something I ought to feel grateful for – but it’s not yet the norm, and it would be very easy to fall into these existing patterns. The reality is that I am deeply grateful for everything I haven’t had to go through. Thank you to everyone for all the daily work it took to avert these too common experiences. I owe an enormous and heartfelt THANK YOU to my friends and family who have supported and put up with me while I have worked on this. I am especially grateful to all the incredible faculty at Georgetown who have supported, encouraged, and mentored me through this long journey. I sincerely appreciate the hard work and feedback of my committee – Rebecca Kukla, Wayne Davis, Alisa Carse, and Daniel Silvermint: thank you! Finally, words can’t capture how deeply I appreciate the enormous amounts of emotional and professional support I have received from Alisa Carse, Bryce Huebner, and especially Rebecca Kukla. There really aren’t words. Just thank you. My deepest thanks, Cassie Herbert v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Accusations, Reports, And Responding To Risky Speech ........................................ 16 I. Speech acts, reports, and accusations ...................................................................................... 18 II. The objective response ............................................................................................................. 28 III. Survivors’ speech ..................................................................................................................... 34 IV. Objectivity, masking, and legitimizing .................................................................................. 44 V. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 48 Chapter 2: Identity and Discursive Signaling .................................................................................. 49 I. Situated and salient identities .................................................................................................... 52 II. Discursive signaling .................................................................................................................. 57 III. Reflexive discursive signaling ................................................................................................ 61 IV. Signaling others’ identities ...................................................................................................... 69 V. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 73 Chapter 3: Derogatives: Insults, Slurs, and Speech Acts .............................................................. 74 I. Features of slurs .......................................................................................................................... 77 II. Derogatives: Expanding the taxonomy of harmful words ................................................. 81 III. Derogatives terms and derogative speech acts ................................................................... 96 IV. Changing words, changing worlds ...................................................................................... 103 V. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 106 Chapter 4: The Pragmatics of Reclamation Projects ................................................................... 108 I. Socially embedded slurs ........................................................................................................... 112 II. Performative force and discursive distortions .................................................................... 117 III. The performative structure of reclamation ....................................................................... 122 IV. The power and limits of reclamation .................................................................................. 126 Chapter 5: Talking About Slurs ...................................................................................................... 130 I. Puzzles about slurs ................................................................................................................... 131 II. Talking about slurs .................................................................................................................. 134 III. Implicit associations .............................................................................................................. 137 IV. Slurs as priming words .......................................................................................................... 141 V. How to talk about slurs .......................................................................................................... 147 VI. Revisiting puzzles about slurs .............................................................................................. 159 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 161 vi INTRODUCTION We use speech in myriad ways to navigate, construct, and resist the contours of our social world. Speech (verbal, signed, or written) is a medium through which we interact with others – we use discursive tools to convey ideas, construct relationships, and pursue our projects. Discursive interactions permeate our lives, in moments ranging from the dramatic to the mundane. These interactions can have transformative power, in both positive and negative ways. Speech can be welcoming. Speech can be exclusionary. This project focuses on how we use speech to craft, patrol, and renegotiate the boundaries of our communities. We use speech to bring people in to our communities, to welcome, to invite, to build coalitions and express solidarity. Speech can be used to officially induct someone into a community or to subtly cement that they ‘really’ belong through shared jokes
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