On assertion without free speech

Disallowance of free speech and equitable speech exchange is apparent in not merely silence where one would normally have an expectation of speech, but also in a very particular type of language use on those occasions when speech is ventured. In this paper, I will suggest that the speaker verbally disenfranchises the hearer, or rescinds the right to free speech, by using a realization of a particular type of pragmatic assertion, one I will refer to as the assertion of linguistic ‘disempowerment’.I will suggest that a felicitous pragmatic act of assertion is performed as a social contract that is put in place by conformity to certain felicity conditions, which are each a reflex of the right to free and equitable speech. When one or more of these conditions is violated, the assertion becomes infelicitous and an act of linguistic disempowerment is implicated. This implicated act is either an assertion in which the speaker linguistically disenfranchises the hearer, indexing, through this act, a taking on of the identity of the powerful. Or, it is an assertion in which the speaker linguistically disenfranchises himself/herself, indexing, through the act, the assumption of the identity of the subservient. Different kinds of infelicities implicate subtly different acts of speaker or hearer disempowerment, and index somewhat different kinds of assumed power or subservience.