Slur or False Friend? An Assessment of "False Friends” Arguments

Abstract

Finally, in this thesis I have shown that four accounts of slurs consider the social context of both Estonia and anglophone countries to be such that it satisfies the criteria for a word in said context to be a slur. However, besides a brief note on the omitted theories, I have not touched upon why accounts centred around CIs or presuppositions have not been explicitly addressed in this thesis. One reason for this is that the ‘tests’ these two accounts use to assess slurs include comparing how their derogatory aspect scopes out under negation, in conditionals, etc. However, it is unclear whether the linguistic constructions in Estonian straightforwardly model those in English (e.g. kui…siis vs if…then). This poses a larger question for analytical philosophy done in different languages. According to Pérez (2018, p. 10), “language is not a neutral vehicle for our thoughts”. It might be the case that in my analysis of Estonian and English words I have not paid enough attention to how the different languages themselves affect the ideas, concepts and proposals put forward. Altogether these remarks point to a necessity for refining our understanding of formal semantics for Estonian in the future. Comparing slur-like words could be of help in clarifying these distinctions.