Slurs and appropriation: An echoic account

• Appropriated or reclaimed uses of slurs are uses by targeted groups for non-derogatory purposes.
• In my account, appropriated uses of slurs are conceived as echoic, in Relevance Theory terms.
• My account is compatible with treatments of slurs in terms of content (expressed or conveyed).
• My account explains why appropriated uses are in principle open only to in-groups.
• My account explains the fact that appropriated uses may eventually extend to out-groups.

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 Relevance Theory terms: in-groups echo derogatory uses in ways and contexts that make manifest the dissociation from the offensive contents. I will show that the echoic strategy has interesting advantages over alternative theories, and especially over Anderson and Lepore's deflationary strategy.