Socially Relevant Meaning

LECTURER: ELIN MCCREADY
August 12-16, 11.00-12.30, Room 3.103

Semantics has historically been concerned with an abstract and idealized notion of meaning, where meanings are independent of speakers and have little connection to social contexts. Even (formal) pragmatics uses idealized and purely rational agents. This idealized picture has been called into question in recent years in both linguistics and philosophy, where it’s been observed that social positioning and contexts play a significant role in interpretation, and that the meaning and use of many bits of language aren’t even well-defined without reference to social context. This course surveys some of these phenomena — slurs, dogwhistles, and indexical meanings, among others — and the theories they have given rise to, together with some more speculative forays into how social structures and positioning interact with semantics and pragmatics.