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Ingrouping, Outgrouping, and the Pragmatics of Peripheral Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2017

CASSIE HERBERT  and
REBECCA KUKLA
CASSIE HERBERT
Affiliation:
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYcmh225@georgetown.edu
REBECCA KUKLA
Affiliation:
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYrkukla@gmail.com
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Abstract:

Speech does not merely reflect social identity; it helps create it, by ingrouping and outgrouping individuals and establishing and clarifying community boundaries and norms of membership. We define a pragmatic category of community-specific speech that is used by and directed at community insiders. We focus on a species of community-specific speech that has flown under the philosophical radar, a type of speech we term peripheral speech: Peripheral speech is informal, typically playful, insider speech that includes inside jokes, riffs, gossip, insider references; it is loosely constrained, and only those who have skills and normative competence characteristic of a community can play along successfully. Peripheral speech is shared by a community, but also used to bring people into it and cast people out of it. We argue that entitlement to peripheral speech requires a type of speaker authority that is not granted by way of established rules and conventions, but rather settled locally and in situ.

Keywords

philosophy of languagepragmaticssocial philosophysocial groupsphilosophy of mindpersonal identity
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , Winter 2016 , pp. 576 - 596
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2017 

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