Book contents
- The Grammar of Hate
- The Grammar of Hate
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Animacy and Countability of Slurs
- 2 Language Aggression in English Slang: The Case of the -o Suffix
- 3 Adj+ie/y Nominalizations in Contemporary English
- 4 Grammatical Gender and Offensiveness in Modern Greek Slang Vocabulary
- 5 Unseen Gender
- 6 The Neutering Neuter
- 7 Neutering Unpopular Politicians
- 8 The Power of a Pronoun
- 9 Is Play on Words Fair Play or Dirty Play?
- 10 Expressive German Adjective and Noun Compounds in Aggressive Discourse
- 11 ‘Kill the Invaders’
- 12 ‘I am no racist but …’
- 13 Homophobic Space–Times
- Index
- References
1 - Animacy and Countability of Slurs
Shifting Grammatical Categories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2022
Edited by
Book contents
- The Grammar of Hate
- The Grammar of Hate
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Animacy and Countability of Slurs
- 2 Language Aggression in English Slang: The Case of the -o Suffix
- 3 Adj+ie/y Nominalizations in Contemporary English
- 4 Grammatical Gender and Offensiveness in Modern Greek Slang Vocabulary
- 5 Unseen Gender
- 6 The Neutering Neuter
- 7 Neutering Unpopular Politicians
- 8 The Power of a Pronoun
- 9 Is Play on Words Fair Play or Dirty Play?
- 10 Expressive German Adjective and Noun Compounds in Aggressive Discourse
- 11 ‘Kill the Invaders’
- 12 ‘I am no racist but …’
- 13 Homophobic Space–Times
- Index
- References
Summary
The study highlights semantic, syntactic, and functional features of two novel slurs that have recently entered the Russian and Ukrainian languages as a result of the Ukrainian crisis. The words ukrop (dill) and vata (cotton wool) underwent a semantic shift and acquired new negative meanings which can now be used to refer to the opposing groups in hostile communication. The chapter highlights semantic aspects of the words ukrop and vata that make them particularly suitable for use in dehumanizing metaphors, but the main focus of the study is the grammatical changes ukrop and vata underwent as a result of the semantic shift. Used in their traditional senses, both nouns function as uncountable, mass, inanimate nouns. However, novel uses of these words as slurs prompt some unconventional grammatical structures. For example, vata now demonstrates some non-standard subject-verb agreement patterns, and ukrop is sometimes used as a countable noun when it refers to people. Ukrop, used in its new sense, is also moving from the inanimate to the animate noun class. This discussion of the deviations from the grammatical norm expands into a conversation of the connections between the linguistic changes these words are undergoing and extralinguistic context of their use.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Grammar of HateMorphosyntactic Features of Hateful, Aggressive, and Dehumanizing Discourse, pp. 15 - 33Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Allen, I. L. (1983). The Language of Ethnic Conflict: Social Organization and Lexical Culture. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Buckles, E. T., & Trapnell, P. D. (2013). Disgust facilitates outgroup dehumanization: Group processes and intergroup processes, 16(6), 771–780. DOI:10.1177/1368430212471738Google Scholar
Carnaghi, A., & Maass, A. (2007). In-group and out-group perspectives in the use of derogatory group labels: Gay versus fag. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26(2), 142–156.Google Scholar
Goossens, L. (1990). Metaphtonymy: The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions for linguistic action. Cognitive Linguistics, 1(3), 323–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1985). The effect of an overheard ethnic slur on evaluations of the target: How to spread a social disease. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21(1), 61–72.Google Scholar
Grishchenko, A. I. (2014). Vsplesk ètnonimičeskogo slovotvorčestva v socialʹnyh setâh na fone voennyh i političeskih konfliktov [A surge in ethnonymic word-creation on social networks with the background of military and political conflicts]. Retrieved Sept. 15, 2017 from www.myshared.ru/slide/993690/.Google Scholar
Haslam, N., Loughnan, S., & Sun, P. (2011). Beastly: What makes animal metaphors offensive? Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 30(3), 311–325.Google Scholar
Hughes, G. (2006). An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.Google Scholar
Kostromicheva, M. V., & Polyakov, A. C. (2014). Rossijsko–ukrainskij konflikt: Invektivnye novoobrazovaniâ [Russian–Ukrainian conflict: Invective neologisms]. Retrieved Sept. 17, 2017 from http://politlinguist.ru/materials/conf/2014.pdfGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lammers, J., & Stapel, D. A. (2011). Power increases dehumanization. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 14(1), 113–126. DOI:10.1177/1368430210370042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites. Volume 1. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Leyens, J. P., Cortes, B., Demoulin, S., Dovidio, J. F., Fiske, S. T., Gaunt, R., … Vaes, J. (2003). Emotional prejudice, essentialism, and nationalism. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33(6), 703–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., & Kashima, Y. (2009). Understanding the relationship between attribute-based and metaphor-based dehumanization. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 12(6), 747–762.Google Scholar
Lyashenko, I. V. (2014)., Ètničeskie prozviŝa ukraincev v rossijskoj i ukrainskoj blogosferah: Naučnyj rezulʹtat. Voprosy teoretičeskoj i prikladnoj lingvistiki, 1(2), 110–119. Retrieved 17 September 2017 from http://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/etnicheskie-prozvischa-ukraintsev-v-rossiyskoy-i-ukrainskoy-blogosferah#ixzz3mTfQNQ4b.Google Scholar
Lyashenko, I. V., & Fedyunina, I. E. (2017). Ètničeskie prozviŝa russkih v ukrainskoj i rossijskoj blogosferah. Naučnyj rezulʹtat: Voprosy teoretičeskoj i prikladnoj lingvistiki [Ethnic nicknames of Russians in the Ukrainian and Russian blogospheres. Scientific Result: Issues of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics], 3(1), 42–48. DOI: 10.18413/2313-8912-2017-3-1-42-48.Google Scholar
Maass, A., Suitner, C., & Arcuri, L. (2014). The role of metaphors in intergroup relations. In Landau, M, Robinson, M. D, & Meier, B. P (eds.), The Power of Metaphor: Examining Its Influence on Social Life (pp. 153–177). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14278-008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (2005). Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Savage, R. (2007). ‘Disease incarnate’: Biopolitical discourse and genocidal dehumanisation in the age of modernity. Journal of Historical Sociology, 20, 404–440. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-6443.2007.00315.x.Google Scholar
Steen, G. (2008). The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23, 213–241.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (ed.) (1999). Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Turkova, K. (n.d.) The dictionary of changes: Which words have enriched our language after Enromaidan]. Vesti-Reporter. Retrieved from: http://reporter.vesti-ukr.com/art/y2014/n41/11145-slovar-peremen.htmlGoogle Scholar
Ukrop (n.d.). Tolkovyj Slovarʹ Živogo Velikorusskogo Âzyka Vladimira Dalâ Onlajn [Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language of Vladimir Dal online]. Retrieved 27 November 2020 from http://slovardalja.net/word.php?wordid=41155.Google Scholar
Vaes, J., Leyens, J. P., Paola Paladino, M., & Pires Miranda, M. (2012). We are human, they are not: Driving forces behind outgroup dehumanisation and the humanisation of the ingroup. European Review of Social Psychology, 23(1), 64–106.Google Scholar
Vatnik (internet meme) [Ватник (интернет-мем)]. (n. d.) Cyclowiki. Retrieved Nov. 27, 2020 from http://cyclowiki.org/wiki/Ватник_(интернет-мем).Google Scholar
Volodarskiy, Yuriy. (2016). Advokat âzyka. Počemu ‘kolorady’, ‘vatniki’, ‘ukropy’ i ‘vyšivatniki’ ne mogut isportitʹ âzyk. Fokus [Why ‘kolorady’, ‘vatniki’, ‘ukropy’ and ‘vyshivatniki’ cannot ruin a language. Focus Media]. Retrieved 27 November 2020 from https://focus.ua/society/353558/Google Scholar
Zhabotinskaya, S. A. (2015). Âzyk kak oružie v vojne mirovozzrenij majdan–antimajdan: Slovarʹ–tezaurus leksičeskih innovacij. Ukraina dekabrʹ 2013–dekabrʹ 2014. [Language as a Weapon in the War of Worldviews Maidan–anti-Maidan: A Dictionary–Thesaurus of Lexical Innovations. Ukraine December 2013–December 2014.] Retrieved 17 September 2017 from http://uaclip.at.ua/zhabotinskaja-jazyk_kak_oruzhie.pdfGoogle Scholar