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24Slurs in quarantineMind and Language 39 (3): 381-396. 2024.We investigate experimentally whether the perceived offensiveness of slurs survives when they are reported, by comparing Italian slurs and insults in base utterances (Y is an S), direct speech (X said: “Y is an S”), mixed quotation (X said that Y is “an S”), and indirect speech (X said that Y is an S). For all strategies, reporting decreases the perceived offensiveness without removing it. For slurs, but not insults, indirect speech is perceived as more offensive than direct speech. Our hypothes…Read more
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17Varieties of UptakeIn Laura Caponetto & Paolo Labinaz (eds.), Sbisà on Speech as Action, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 2147483647-2147483647. 2023.The debate about the determination of the illocutionary force of a speech act revolves around the notion of uptake and the role played by the audience: many scholars consider the hearer’s recognition of the force of the locution a necessary condition for the performance of an illocution. A variety of theories has been put forward. According to Langton (Philosophy and Public Affairs 22: 293–330, 1993), the hearer’s uptake determines whether a successful act has been performed. According to Kukla …Read more
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50Generic Language for Social and Animal Kinds: An Examination of the Asymmetry Between Acceptance and InferencesCognitive Science 46 (12). 2022.Generics (e.g., “Ravens are black”) express generalizations about categories or their members. Previous research found that generics about animals are interpreted as broadly true of members of a kind, yet also accepted based on minimal evidence. This asymmetry is important for suggesting a mechanism by which unfounded generalizations may flourish; yet, little is known whether this finding extends to generics about groups of people (heretofore, “social generics”). Accordingly, in four preregister…Read more
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36John Langshaw AustinAphex 7 674-710. 2013.John Austin (1911-1960) è stato uno dei filosofi britannici più influenti del suo tempo, per il rigore del pensiero, la personalità straordinaria e il metodo filosofico innovativo. A parere di John Searle Austin era molto amato e molto odiato dai contemporanei – disorientati da un pensiero che sembrava distruggere più che costruire, sfidare l'ortodossia della filosofia tradizionale ma anche dell'allora imperante empirismo logico, senza sostituirvi nessuna confortante nuova ortodossia. L'opera di…Read more
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98Discursive Injustice: The Role of UptakeTopoi 40 (1): 181-190. 2020.In recent times, phenomena of conversational asymmetry have become a lively object of study for linguists, philosophers of language and moral philosophers—under various labels: illocutionary disablement and silencing, discursive injustice :440–457, 2014; Lance and Kukla in Ethics 123:456–478, 2013), illocutionary distortion. The common idea is that members of underprivileged groups sometimes have trouble performing particular speech acts that they are entitled to perform: in certain contexts, th…Read more
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Recensioni/Reviews-Le vie dell'interpretazione nella filosofia contemporaneaEpistemologia 28 (2). 2005.
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53Asymmetrical ConversationsGrazer Philosophische Studien 96 (3): 401-418. 2019.According to Mitchell Green, speech act theory traditionally idealizes away from crucial aspects of conversational contexts, including those in which the speaker’s social position affects the possibility of her performing certain speech acts. In recent times, asymmetries in communicative situations have become a lively object of study for linguists, philosophers of language and moral philosophers: several scholars view hate speech itself in terms of speech acts, namely acts of subordination. The…Read more
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11Parole come pietre: atti linguistici e subordinazioneEsercizi Filosofici 10 (2). 2015.Derogatory epithets are terms such as “nigger” and “faggot” targeting individuals and groups of individuals on the basis of race, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation. There is no consensus on the best treatment of derogatory epithets. The aim of my paper is to evaluate a proposal recently put forward by Rae Langton, the speech acts account. Assessing SAA is far from an easy task, since the proposal is little more than an outline, deeply intertwined with Langton’s general view on …Read more
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40Linguaggio d’odio, autorità e ingiustizia discorsivaRivista di Estetica 64 18-34. 2017.Drawing on Austin’s speech act theory, many influential scholars view hate speech in terms of speech acts, namely acts of subordination (MacKinnon 1987; Langton 1993, 2012, 2014; Hornsby and Langton 1998; McGowan 2003, 2004; Kukla and Lance 2009; Langton, Haslanger and Anderson 2012; Maitra 2012; Kukla 2014). Austin’s distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts offers a way to set apart speech that constitutes subordination, and speech that merely causes subordination. The aim of m…Read more
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5Slurs and appropriation: an echoic accountJournal of Pragmatics 66. 2014.Slurs are derogatory terms targeting individuals and groups of individuals on the basis of race, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The aim of my paper is to propose an account of appropriated uses of slurs – i.e. uses by targeted groups of their own slurs for non-derogatory purposes, as in the appropriation of ‘nigger’ by the African-American community, or the appropriation of ‘queer’ by the homosexual community. In my proposal appropriated uses are conceived as echoic, in Rel…Read more
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Recensioni/Reviews-Unshadowed Thought. Representation in Thought and LanguageEpistemologia 26 (1): 179-181. 2003.
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Recensioni/Reviews-La dipendenza contestuale. Per una teoria pragmatica del significatoEpistemologia 26 (1): 183-185. 2003.
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14Semantics and pragmatics: distinction reloadedIn The Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction, Csli Publications. 2004.
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44Claudia Bianchi - Review of Martin Gustafsson and Richard Sørli. The Philosophy of J. L. AustinJournal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 2 (6). 2014.Martin Gustafsson and Richard Sørli. The Philosophy of J. L. Austin. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780199219759 Reviewed by Claudia Bianchi.
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102‘Nobody Loves Me’: Quantification and ContextPhilosophical Studies 130 (2). 2006.In my paper, I present two competing perspectives on the foundational problem (as opposed to the descriptive problem) of quantifier domain restriction: the objective perspective on context (OPC) and the intentional perspective on context (IPC). According to OPC, the relevant domain for a quantified sentence is determined by objective facts of the context of utterance. In contrast, according to IPC, we must consider certain features of the speaker’s intention in order to determine the proposition…Read more
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258The semantics/pragmatics distinction (edited book)CSLI. 2004.Semantic theory in linguistics cannot retain its traditional purity, free of pragmatic contextual considerations. Agreement with the preceding claim, generally shared by this volume's contributors, provides the setting for a presentation of various provocative approaches toward a precise definition of pragmatics along with a reconciliation of pragmatics with semantics. Here is a collection of leading-edge work that examines the semantics/pragmatics dispute in terms of phenomena such as indexical…Read more
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83Contextualizing Meaning Through EpistemologyProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 39 7-11. 2008.Epistemological contextualism and semantic contextualism are two distinct but closely entangled projects in contemporary philosophy. According to epistemological contextualism, our knowledge attributions are context-sensitive. That is, the truth-conditions of knowledge ascribing sentences – sentences of the form of (1) S knows that p - vary depending on the context in which they are uttered. Contextualism admits the legitimacy of several epistemic standards that vary with the context of use of (…Read more
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Recensioni/Reviews-Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta. An Essay on MetarepresentationEpistemologia 27 (2): 337-339. 2004.
Claudia Bianchi
Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan)
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Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan)Professor
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Philosophy of Language |
Pragmatics |
Reference |
Speech Acts |
Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction |
Performatives |