Croom, A. M. (2015). An assessment of the negative and positive aspects of stereotypes and the derogatory and non-derogatory uses of slurs. In A. Capone & J. L. Mey (eds.), Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society (Chapter 31). Dordrecht: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12616-6_31 An Assessment of the Negative and Positive Aspects of Stereotypes and the Derogatory and Non-Derogatory Uses of Slurs Adam M. Croom University of Pennsylvania croom@sas.upenn.edu Abstract In a recent study on indirect reports, Capone (2010) discussed how several leading pragmatic accounts have maintained that utterance-interpretation incorporates social information such that socio-cultural defaults are taken into account in a final interpretation (e.g., Jaszczolt 2005a). Croom (2013a) has for example discussed how different in-group and out-group speakers may use slurs in different ways, and further suggested that several salient socio-cultural markers may aid in the interpretation of whether the use of a slur in some particular conversational context may plausibly be considered derogatory or non-derogatory (p. 200). So for pragmatic theorists with an interest in the semantics and pragmatics of slurs more specifically, several highly important yet currently unexplored questions are worth investigating, including for instance: Are racial slurs always used to derogate or express offense, and do racial stereotypes always involve exclusively negative characteristics? How might the stereotypical features of members that a slur typically targets influence the meaning that slur communicates in context, and how might racial slurs and stereotypes differentially effect members of different races? Interested in addressing such questions, Embrick and Hendricks (2013) have recently argued that slurs and stereotypes function as symbolic resources that exclude non-white minority group members but not white majority group members from socioeconomic opportunities or resources, and are necessarily negative or derogatory irrespective of the particular context of their use (p. 197-202). Their account of slurs and stereotypes is therefore consonant with the context-insensitive accounts maintained by scholars like Fitten (1993) and Hedger (2013) yet dissonant with the context-sensitive accounts maintained by scholars like Kennedy (2002) and Croom (2011). In this contribution to Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture, and Society, my aim is therefore to offer a brief overview of the context-insensitive and context-sensitive accounts of slurs and stereotypes from the extant literature, point out several reasons that issues concerning the semantics and pragmatics of slurs have often appealed to stereotypes and stereotypical features, and then provide a critical analysis of the context-insensitive account of slurs and stereotypes recently put forward by Embrick and Henricks (2013). Implications for future work on the semantics and pragmatics of slurs will also be considered in conclusion. Keywords Slurs, stereotypes, semantics, pragmatics, appropriation, philosophy of language