Derogatory Term Research Articles

Growing up in hip hop: The expression of self in hypermasculine cultures

Recently, rappers Talib Kweli and Evidence discussed the conflict between rapper identity and individual identity as a person ages, with Kweli describing how a rapper’s persona ‘becomes like an armour’ and Evidence observing that ‘after a while that stops getting rewarding’ (People’s Party with Talib Kweli 2019: 54). These observations highlight the difficulties for artists to be able to express their own growth and development as their artist personas become ‘fixed’. This fixing or flattening of persona, combined with a hypermasculine culture that reflects a society where even the phrase ‘to catch feelings’ is a derogatory term, creates an environment in which opportunities for expression of personal growth, change and emotional responses have become limited. Taking an autoethnographic, multi-method approach, this article looks at examples in my own work with hip hop group Stanley Odd, which focus on personal, reflexive commentary as opposed to cultural or social commentary. Through the analysis of three songs released between 2012 and 2014, this article describes creative tactics and responses designed to navigate the boundaries of hip hop culture, Scottish culture and global culture, circumventing restrictions on emotive responses.

A Framework for Political Portmanteau Decomposition

Portmanteaus are new words formed by combining the sounds and meanings of two words. Given their sticky nature, portmanteaus are often used to create political and personal attacks by combining a target entity with derogatory terms, which can then be spread online for promoting hate speech and defamation. In this paper, we present a framework to decompose political portmanteaus used online into their component words. Using our annotated dataset of political portmanteaus, we train a system that correctly decomposes 76.2% of the political portmanteaus into their component words. Furthermore, for 93.4% of the political portmanteaus, our system finds the correct component words in its top ten results, suggesting that using better ranking methods can lead to stronger results. This work provides a framework for both understanding an intriguing linguistic phenomena and for building hate-speech filters that could catch novel words that would bypass traditional hate speech detection approaches.

La figura del charnego en Últimas tardes con Teresa, de Juan Marsé: hacia un nuevo concepto de nación

ABSTRACT This article seeks to examine the different ways in which the Other is represented in the novel Últimas tardes con Teresa, by Juan Marsé. Published in 1966, the novel is one of the first literary references to the arrival in Catalonia of the figure of the charnego (a derogatory term that refers to the southern-Spanish migrants who arrived in Catalonia from 1960 to 1970 and came to account for more than 50% of Barcelona’s population, settling mainly on the periphery of the city). I will argue that the introduction of the migrant into the Catalan national landscape in this novel is the first step in Marsé’s construction of a postmodern concept of Catalan nationhood, which functions as a counter-narrative that erases the totalising boundaries imposing an essentialist identity onto a national community. This new idea of the nation, more open and diverse, entails a progressive blurring of boundaries between what is considered the Self and the Other. Marsé’s choice of Spanish—as opposed to Catalan—as his literary language is, I will argue, another key element in his construction of a broader definition of Catalan national identity. This choice situates Marsé in a liminal space: he places himself in an ex-centric position with regard to language, which is a key element of the discourse of Catalan national identity, with respect to this novel where the Self is Catalan.

Responding to Regulatory Pressure About Nursing Home Abuse

Responding to Regulatory Pressure About Nursing Home Abuse

The Politics of Gender Culture

Queer: The Problematic of Sexuality and (Sexual) IdentityQueer Theory that has turned a derogatory and abusive term homosexuality into a respectable one does not come in a single mode. Though queer theory comes through different forms, the theory developed out of gay and lesbian feminism is more prominent and has become an umbrella term for a coalition of culturally marginal sexual self-identifications. Historically, lesbian feminism split from the mainstream feminism accusing it of representing white, middle class, and heterosexual women and ignoring the existence of black and women with ‘perverse’ sexuality” (Rivikin and Ryan 676). Implicit in its agenda was the assumption of a core lesbian identity that was either biological given or conditioned by psychosocial factors. Lesbian feminism as such then was an attempt of establishing an essential Lesbian identity with an unchanging self (Berten 226). However, a number of lesbian critics, deeply informed by Michael Foucault’s multi-volume History of Sexuality and Derridian critique of coherent self and binary opposition, began rejecting the notion of essential and fixed identity and coherent self and started seeing all forms of sexual identities including lesbian and gay as social constructs and not a biological given.

The Strategies of Populism – a Tools Used by Polish Neoliberal Elites in the Election Campaigns of 2015

The articles presents how thestrategy of populism was used by Polish liberaldemocratic elitesin the presidential and parliamentary campaigns of 2015. Thestrategy was used in two ways. Firstly,theelection promisesmade by theliberals’ opponents were assigned a derogatory terms of populism. Secondly, theliberals madetheir own promises to the public, which fulfilled the main characteristics ascribed to populism. This way the strategies of populism was used by neoliberalelitesto securetheir own position in power. It served to maintain the existing dominance and concentration of power. The observations presented in the articlewere based on thorough research and analysis of political discourse of the 2015 elections.

A Persona-based Semantics for Slurs

This paper presents a new style of semantic analysis for (some) slurs: linguistic expressions used to denigrate individuals based on some aspects of their identity. As an illustration, the author will focus on one slur in particular: dyke, which is generally considered to be a derogatory term for lesbians. The author argues that not enough attention in the literature has been paid to the use of dyke by members of the target group, who can often use it in a non-insulting manner; secondly, the author argues not enough attention has been paid to the use of the “neutral” form, lesbian, which is generally treated as having a simple, clear meaning, such as “engage[s] in same-sex sex” (Jeshion, 2013a, 312). Following McConnell-Ginet (2002), the author argues that taking into account all the uses of both dyke and lesbian requires a new semantics and pragmatics for both terms. More specifically, the author proposes that dyke and lesbian are associated with different sets of personae: abstract identities or stereotypes. Dyke is associated with an anti-mainstream persona, which the vast majority of speakers views negatively; whereas, lesbian is associated with a mainstream persona, which many speakers view favourably. The author proposes that the semantic puzzles associated with dyke and lesbian can be resolved through the combination of a theory of these personae and a theory of how listeners’ beliefs about their interlocutors’ ideologies affect utterance interpretation.

What Is in a “Lake” Name? That Which We Call a Lake by Any Other Name

AbstractGiven how important lakes are to people, it might seem safe to assume that careful thought has been put into the naming of lakes, and that lake names reflect the high societal value people place on lakes. We examined these assumptions by analyzing the official names in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System for the 479,950 lakes ≥ 1 ha in the conterminous U.S. We found that 83% of lakes were unnamed and most of these were small lakes with 80% of unnamed lakes being smaller than 4 ha. Based on the 83,115 named lakes, we found that lake names reflect peoples' everyday lives, that lakes can inspire creativity (although the most common lake name is “Mud”), that Native American and indigenous languages have played a role in lake naming, and that there are regional differences in lake names. Unfortunately, we also found that derogatory terms were part of some lake names. We advocate for thoughtful and inclusive official naming of the 400,000 unnamed lakes in the U.S., as well as renaming of the lakes with derogatory terms to help focus attention on the importance of lakes to local communities and nations.

The Evolution of “Rumor”

Rumor is a social phenomenon and its true colors are similar to those of “folk commentaries”, including “folk songs”, “nursery rhymes”, “folk cus-toms”, “ballads”, “new rhymes”, “village ballads”, “chanting ballads” and so on. It is also an important monitoring system in ancient China. With the development of society, “rumor” has changed its semantic meaning. In modern Chinese, “rumor” has become an unreliable, deceptive and derog-atory term. This article is to investigate the evolution of rumors and its re-lationship with hearsay, so as to correctly distinguish the uses of two dif-ferent forms in real life so as to curb rumors, and foreground the positive role of “hearsay” in the monitoring system.

Hubristic Hydraulics: Water, Dictatorship, and Modernity in the Dominican Republic

In this article, I focus on how water operated as symbolic capital during the notoriously repressive dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930–61) in the Dominican Republic. Under his regime, alongside an apex of territorial control and modern aesthetics came a nadir of political freedoms. During Trujillo's tenure, water took on important symbolic and material dimensions as a conduit for authoritarianism: it served as a tool to bind together dictatorial power and spatial order through a mode of territorial and urban design rooted in hubristic hydraulics. With hubristic hydraulics I refer to the strategic ways that water flow was harnessed through infrastructure and choreographed through landscape and monumental architecture to embody and lionize the dictator's power. Channeled into reflecting pools, nationwide irrigation works, and monumental fountains, water functioned at the juncture of aesthetics and politics as an important tool in the modernization of urban space and the territory at large. Water was a strategic resource that enabled Trujillo to be cast as the “arquitecto de la patria nueva” (the architect of a new fatherland), and the ways it was made to flow through modern architecture and infrastructure offer an illuminating means to expose the entanglement of territorial control, urban modernity, and authoritarian politics.

Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous People by Kerry Driscoll

Reviewed by: Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous People by Kerry Driscoll Beverly Lyon Clark Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous People. By Kerry Driscoll. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018. ix + 420 pp. Figures, notes, bibliography, index. $95.00, cloth. It is hard to forgive Mark Twain for claiming that the American Indian was "nothing but a poor filthy, naked scurvy vagabond, whom to exterminate were a charity to the Creator's worthier insects and reptiles which he oppresses." Twain wasn't always quite so insensitive. But unlike his attitudes toward African Americans, his thinking about Native Americans never fully evolved. It has also received surprisingly little attention. So the time is ripe for Kerry Driscoll's monumental study of Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous People. Driscoll has amassed a large body of materials in which Twain says something, anything, about Indigenous peoples. Her goal is, she says, "neither to defend nor to defame" Twain, but simply to present the information. In that, she largely succeeds. Nevertheless, she could have been a bit more careful with terminology and with some claims. She repeats derogatory terms like rapacious and especially savage somewhat indiscriminately. (She refers, for instance, to Twain's "fascination with native spirituality—and its incongruous relation to the savage violence of Indian behavior" [225].) And she has a tendency to refer to white settlers as innocent. (Innocent from whose perspective?) Nor does she question such Twainian imputations such as that American Indians preferred to avoid cleanliness. (They did not. It was white settlers who were more likely to reek.) I could also have used less of the meticulous tracking of possible sources of fictional characters—admittedly a favorite pastime of Twain aficionados. In hailing these and other influences, Driscoll has to resort to such locutions as "likely heard" or "seem to have influenced." Yet even if direct causality is debatable, she does provide a wealth of information that suggests some of the temper of the times. Driscoll also offers some compelling insights. The discussion of "The Noble Red Man" is particularly acute. Twain produced this most vitriolic of his writings about Native Americans (it's the source of my opening quotation) in 1870, when Lakota leaders, including the Oglala Red Cloud (Maȟpíya Lúta) and the Brulé Spotted Tail (Siŋté Glešká), were negotiating a treaty on the East Coast, with much fanfare in the press. They garnered enthusiastic acclaim in metropolitan newspapers such as the New York Times, but a more dismissive, even derisive, response in regional papers such as Twain's own Buffalo Morning Express, as Driscoll richly elucidates. Twain was no fan of Noble Indians, and at a time when their nobility was much touted, he was not shy about trying to debunk it. Driscoll is also to be praised for her nearly exhaustive scrutiny of Twain's published work, as well as his drafts and unpublished letters, having scoured archives from Connecticut to California. In sum, despite its digressions and unevenness in tone, Mark Twain among the [End Page 105] Indians and Other Indigenous People will be the definitive resource for those seeking to track Twain's attitudes toward Indigenous peoples. Beverly Lyon Clark English Department Wheaton College Copyright © 2020 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Durrell Re-read: Crossing the Liminal in Lawrence Durrell's Major Novels by James M. Clawson

Reviewed by: Durrell Re-read: Crossing the Liminal in Lawrence Durrell's Major Novels by James M. Clawson Anthony Hirst (bio) James M. Clawson, Durrell Re-read: Crossing the Liminal in Lawrence Durrell's Major Novels. Lanham, MD: Farleigh Dickinson University Press. 2016. Pp. 176. Cloth $78.00. James M. Clawson invites us to see Lawrence Durrell's twelve major novels as a unity, an oeuvre—or opus, as he prefers to call it—but also as a process, a development. The twelve novels are The Black Book (1938), The Alexandria Quartet (1956–1960), the novel pair Tunc and Nunquam (1968 and 1970, known collectively as The Revolt of Aphrodite) and The Avignon Quintet (1974–1985). [End Page 576] Clawson starts from Durrell's own plan of the opus, announced in 1945 in a letter to T. S. Eliot and based on modern critics' debatable view of the structure of Greek tragedy: agon, pathos, anagnorisis. At the time, only The Black Book (the agon) had been published; later the Quartet was identified as the pathos and the Quintet as the anagnorisis. To account for the Revolt, Richard Pine later proposed—and Durrell concurred in this—the missing fourth term sparagmos (Pine 2005, 53). The scheme, however, is not a reliable basis for understanding the opus, since, as Clawson does not quite acknowledge in his endnotes (18nn6–8), Durrell misunderstood the meaning of two of the terms (Chamberlin 2019, 70n4); but then Clawson makes little further use of the scheme. We should not ignore the Greek context of much of Durrell's writing. Leaving aside his semi-fictional accounts of periods of residence in Corfu, Rhodes, and Cyprus, and restricting ourselves to the opus, we can note that, although he is writing mainly of an earlier part of his life in London, the primary narrator of The Black Book is writing on a remote Greek headland in the Ionian Sea (and the narrator's and/or author's timeline on the last page refers to Koloura in Corfu); in the Quartet, again, the primary narrator, Darley, trying to recreate on paper his past life in Alexandria, is doing so on an unnamed Greek island in the Aegean, which he leaves in Clea (the fourth volume, 1960) to return to Alexandria, though the novel (and the Quartet) concludes with him back on the island, for few weeks only, contemplating an uncertain future; much of Tunc is set in Athens and other parts of mainland Greece, though the focus is shifting towards Istanbul (the principal location of the companion novel Nunquam)—a rather Greek Istanbul regularly referred to as "Polis." Only in The Avignon Quintet is Greece left behind, as the title suggests; but by then Durrell himself had long been settled in France, though he still hankered from time to time to return to Greece, where he had spent six formative years (1935–1941) that were followed by two years on Rhodes, not then a part of Greece (1945–1947), and three years in Cyprus (1953–1956). I read Clawson's book with an almost uninterrupted sense of intellectual unease. But, to be fair to Clawson, it was the same unease that I always experience in reading eight of the twelve novels involved—that is, all but the four novels of The Alexandria Quartet, where my unease is only occasional. Most of Durrell's major characters, and especially his narrators think too much, and tell us too much about what they think; and most of them think in the same way, obsessed with the relation of "reality" to fiction and with the nature of being an "artist." Much of their thinking could be described by the derogatory term opinionated. Darley, the narrator of three of the four novels of the Quartet, is not exempt from this, but his agonizing and posturing are tempered by the focus [End Page 577] on his own fallibility and the presence of a supposedly superior intellectual and artist in the novelist and diplomat Pursewarden, the principal thinker—and least convincing character—in the Quartet, which is (except for the third-person omniscient narration of the third volume, Mountolive) essentially a Bildungsroman or, to use the more precise...

Uneven Epithets

In this paper, I derive a test for distinguishing between derogatory terms by expanding upon Seana Shiffrin’s recent “thinker-based approach.” Protection on her account extends to many forms of speech due to a connection between speech and an individual’s development of autonomous thought. Shiffrin questions whether there is protection for corporate and commercial speech. The latter have a tendency to interfere with autonomous thought processes and do not clearly serve their development. I argue that these reasons for limitation serve as a basis for making nuanced distinctions for general regulation and applying this approach to controversies surrounding derogatory team names in sport. Many kinds of speech can be offensive and derogatory, yet I argue that only some may be said to be parasitic on communicative endeavors and legitimately fall outside free speech values as a result. Regulation should not be concerned with the content of speech, the manner in which certain words are spoken, or even the speaker’s positive or negative intent. Instead, the focus should remain on autonomous mental development of speakers and hearers.

The Need for a Sustainable and Balanced Critical Approach in Book Reviews

Abstract Book reviews are important in offering guidance to prospective readers. What is expected from them is to be not only informative and evaluative but also unbiased and balanced. Therefore, the use of correct discourse is necessary to prevent asymmetrical domination of the reviewer, and to create a healthy setting to sustain credibility of book reviews in terms of prospective readers. In that sense, this study investigated two discourse devices, namely euphemism and dysphemism. Euphemism can be defined as polite and agreeable words or expressions that are used in place of harsh or offensive ones; however this research investigated if these expressions might lead to undue praise for a book. On the other hand dysphemism is a kind of language that uses disparaging and derogatory terms instead of complimentary or neutral ones. Reviewers may consciously or unconsciously use these linguistic devices in their critiques of books, however; the balance between them is of great importance because any unbalanced negative or positive critical act may bring about unfair judgements in would-be readers regarding the quality of the mentioned book. The present study investigated a hundred book reviews and picked up euphemistic and dysphemistic expressions. The result is of importance in helping the book reviewers to choose the true word of expression without being unnecessarily soft or offensive. Any possible biases against a book because of book reviewers’ inattentive word selection may be prevented in view of the present study. Finally, this study is important for instructors of academic writing to increase their awareness for the importance of discourse devices in book reviews, which is necessary for sustainable development of education; in other words, instructors of academic writing at universities may rearrange their instruction curriculums through saving a slot for euphemism and dysphemism for prospective students.

Judy Moody and the Right Royal Tea Party by M. McDonald

McDonald, Megan. Judy Moody and the Right Royal Tea Party. Illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. Candlewick Press, 2018.
 The multi-volume Judy Moody series continues here as Judy attempts to complete a grade three assignment: create a family tree. Learning that one of her British ancestors was “Mudeye” Moody, rescuer of a prisoner from the Tower of London during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Judy embellishes: the rescuer was a young prince; the prisoner was a princess; she, herself, is akin to royalty, a future Queen. There is, however, a rival for her title, her schoolmate, Jessica Finch. Jessica, too, has British roots. She, too, claims kinship with Mudeye Moody. Jessica’s Mudeye, however, was a rat catcher who rescued his lady from the Tower in the time of Queen Victoria. Unaware that more than two centuries elapsed between the reigns of Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, the two girls decide that Mudeye Moody, the one-and-the-same, is their mutual ancestor. They ally; they are “step sisters.” They will keep secret Judy’s relationship to the rat catcher, but, together, they will stage a “Right Royal Tea Party.” 
 Judy Moody is a domineering child. No constitutional monarch is she; she is a despot, her younger brother the target of her bullying. In both conversational and narrative passages, scatology is the norm. Judy and her friends belong to the “Toad Pee Club.” They meet in the “Toad Pee Tent.” Her younger brother’s Siamese Fighting Fish is named “Prince Redmond the Farter.” It communicates, of course, by ”farting.” Throughout the book, the young brother is referred to as “Stink.” (There is never any adult censure of this talk.) Dubious diction continues in Judy’s letter to the current Queen Elizabeth. She asks: “...Did you ever ride a hinny? (That’s a cross between a horse and a donkey, not a hiney?) … P.S. Sorry if I’m not supposed to say hiney in a letter to the Queen.” (Among its various uses, “hiney” is slang for “buttocks.” It is, as well, a derogatory 20th-century term for a German soldier.)
 Questions spring to mind as one reads this book: does the writing merely reflect the anal obsessions of children, or does it encourage them? The same could be asked about bullying behaviours.
 It is also curious that the historical dates of Elizabeth I (who died in 1603) and Queen Victoria (who came to the throne in 1837) are never given. There are natural opportunities within the story to do so: Peter Reynold’s illustration of “Famous Women Rulers” is one such opportunity; the Moody family’s trip to Wolff Castle is another. Of course, if Judy and Jessica discover the dates, they must give up their assumptions about Mudeye; he would have to have lived for more than two centuries to perform his dual acts of gallantry. Are the presumed readers (upper primary, lower elementary school children) thought to be too immature to appreciate this absurdity? Or must they be kept in ignorance lest the contrivance of the plot be revealed? 
 In Canada, school children are taught that the Queen is a constitutional monarch, a symbol of national unity, not a ruler. Because she lives in England, she has a Canadian representative who performs her ceremonial duties. A Canadian Judy Moody might dream differently—perhaps pretending that she is an astronaut like Governor General Julie Payette.
 While much imagination went into the premise of this book, it lacks thoughtful, well considered composition. However popular the Judy Moody books, this entry in the series is weak.
 Not recommended: 1 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Leslie Aitken
 Leslie Aitken’s long career in librarianship included selection of children’s literature for school, public, special and academic libraries. She is a former Curriculum Librarian of the University of Alberta.

Respecting and Empowering Vulnerable Populations: Contemporary Terminology

Evidence-based contemporary terminology is presented so that nurse practitioners (NPs) can choose respectful and empowering words to ameliorate stigma and health disparities faced by vulnerable populations. Person-first language is advocated, with some exceptions noted where identity-first language may be preferable. Replacing judgmental and derogatory terms with objective, respectful, nonjudgmental language is recommended. A shift toward framing language as empowering promotes a sense of partnership and optimism. Terminology is constantly changing over time as human experiences evolve and societal views shift, necessitating that NPs stay current regarding language use.

Jewishness and psychoanalysis - the relationship to identity, trauma and exile. An interview study

ABSTRACTThe relationship between psychoanalysis and Jewishness has been debated for over one hundred years and the derogatory term ”Jewish science” has been used to describe psychoanalysis. Because of the Nazi regime both Jewish and non-Jewish psychoanalysts left their homelands. In this study, aging Jewish individuals born in Central Europe and forced into exile were interviewed concerning their perceptions of psychoanalysis and Jewishness, of Jewish identity and exile. Anti-Semitism had influenced their perceptions of their work in the psychoanalytic field. The findings are discussed in relation to the current position of psychoanalysis as well as to questions of trauma and exile.

A Functional Model of Kitsch and Art: Linking Aesthetic Appreciation to the Dynamics of Social Motivation.

With the advent of modernity, change and novelty have become the core values of artistic production. At the same time the derogatory term “kitsch” was coined to contrast truly ground-breaking artistic achievements. In this article, we argue that kitsch and avant-garde art ideally represent two complementary types of aesthetic experience: a fluent one that allows for immediate emotional gratification (kitsch) and a disfluent one that requires cognitive elaboration (art). We make a case that preferences for the one or the other are dynamically related to a set of conflicting needs which constitute the basic dilemma of human attachment behavior: needs for safety and intimacy versus needs for arousal and autonomy. Based on the Zurich Model of Social Motivation we hypothesize that social distance regulation and aesthetic liking are synchronized via notions of self-efficacy and autonomy: Whenever we feel safe and self-sufficient, an appetence for arousal (curiosity) is likely to arise that increases our interest in unfamiliar conspecifics as well as in innovative, cognitively challenging aesthetic stimuli (art). By contrast, when we feel vulnerable and dependent, a longing for safety and relatedness (nostalgia) attracts us not only to familiar and trustworthy individuals but also to conventional aesthetic stimuli charged with positive emotions (kitsch). This theoretical framework offers an integrative perspective on dynamics of aesthetic liking in that it unites a wide variety of phenomena from anthropology, developmental, and cognitive psychology with concepts and findings from art history, sociology of art, and empirical aesthetics.

The anatomy of an insult: Popular derogatory terms connote important individual differences in Agreeableness/Antagonism

In the current series of studies, we investigate the psychosocial connotations of common insults. In Studies 1 and 2, we investigated the most frequently used insults to denigrate men and women (asshole, dick, bitch), and generated trait profiles that can be considered prototypical of each insult. In Studies 3 and 4, we examined how these insults are relevant to other key indicators of interpersonal functioning, including aggression, social information processing, personality disorders, and substance use. We also gathered thin-slice and informant reports. Each of the insults was associated with trait Antagonism, as well as other behaviors that comprise Antagonism’s nomological network (e.g., bullying, psychopathy, etc.). Results are discussed in terms of the importance of everyday language to psychological research.

Women in the Qur’an: An Emancipatory Reading

Women in the Qur’an: An Emancipatory Reading