Signaling Without Saying - The Semantics and Pragmatics of Dogwhistles

This book explores the phenomenon of dogwhistles, whereby language is used to send one message to an out-group while at the same time sending a second-often taboo, controversial, or inflammatory-message to an in-group. The authors use a game-theoretical approach to social meaning to identify and model two kinds of dogwhistle meaning.

List of contents

• 1: Introduction


• 2: Dogwhistles as a semantic/pragmatic phenomenon


• 3: A probabilistic pragmatics for dogwhistles


• 4: Identifying dogwhistles


• 5: Enriching dogwhistles


• 6: Vigilance and hypervigilance


• 7: Dogwhistles and trust


• 8: Beyond dogwhistles

About the author

Robert Henderson is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. His research is in formal semantics and pragmatics with a special focus on the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica, especially Mayan languages, which he has studied through many years of fieldwork. His theoretical work focuses on plurality, quantification, and the structure of discourse, along with the logics needed to model those systems in human languages.

Elin McCready is Professor of Linguistics at Aoyama Gakuin University. Her main area of research is formal semantics and pragmatics, with secondary interests in epistemology, game theory, and feminist philosophy. She is the author of the OUP volumes Reliability in Pragmatics (2015) and The Semantics and Pragmatics of Honorification (2019), and co-editor of Epistemology for the Rest of the World (with Stephen Stich and Masaharu Mizumoto; 2018).

Summary

This book explores the phenomenon of dogwhistles, whereby language is used to send one message to an out-group while at the same time sending a second-often taboo, controversial, or inflammatory-message to an in-group. The authors use a game-theoretical approach to social meaning to identify and model two kinds of dogwhistle meaning.

Product details

• Authors: Henderson , McCready , Robert Henderson, Robert (Associate Professor of Linguist Henderson, Elin McCready
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 04.07.2024
• EAN: 9780198886341
• ISBN: 978-0-19-888634-1
• No. of pages: 176
• Series: Oxford Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Philosophy of Language, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Sociolinguistics, PHILOSOPHY / Language, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Semantics, discourse analysis, stylistics, Semantics, discourse analysis, etc