Linguistic Impoliteness: The Case of Slurs

This chapter provides a general overview of the studies that tackled impoliteness in verbal communication. In the scientific literature, verbal impoliteness refers to communicative strategies, including insults and swear words, that can offend the interlocutor or generate conflict between speakers. Among these, derogatory epithets, referred to as slurs in Anglophone studies, are words that insult individuals to whom they are directed as belonging to a certain category, called the target group. Typically, slurs target a group based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, geographic origin, etc. However, slurs can be used in reappropriative contexts, that is, uses by members of the target group generally considered non-offensive and indeed aimed at expressing a sense of belonging and solidarity. An example is the reappropriation of the word pédé by the Francophone LGBTQ+ community.