A metapragmatic stereotype-based account of reclamation

Abstract

Group-based slurs are words that express derogatory attitudes toward some group demarcated by a property that has historically caused social antagonism, for example, gender or ethnicity, among others. Reclamation, in turn, is the process whereby a slur starts being used non-derogatorily by members of the target group to express a positive attitude. Some content-based theories of slurs (which pin the derogatory force of such terms on their conventional meaning) account for reclamation by arguing that it involves a change in meaning so that reclaimed slurs are ambiguous. But these theories face a challenge, namely to account for the difference between reclaimed slurs and run-of-the-mill ambiguous terms, whose felicitous uses do not seem to be restricted to in-group speakers. In this article, we argue that the Reclamation Worry is not a problem for content-based theories of slurs by advancing an account of reclamation that is compatible with such views. As we shall argue, such a theory must rely on the sociolinguistic dimension of such terms.