‘I didn't mean that: It was just a slip of the tongue’: Racial slips and gaffes in the public arena

Abstract

Speech errors, slips, and gaffes made in the public arena that are perceived to be either implicitly or explicitly racially offensive often result in significant social consequences to the responsible speaker and generate public controversy. The current research, informed by conversation analysis and discursive psychology, examines how speakers manage such troubles-in-speaking in public settings. The sample of naturalistic data includes five such instances and related apologies sourced from YouTube and news websites. The analysis examined how speakers initiated repairs when making offensive racial slips and gaffes and followed these up with apologies. Self-detected transgressions were repaired in fewer turns than other-detected blunders. Speakers accounted for their transgressions as innocent mishaps (e.g., 'it was just a slip of the tongue', 'an honest mistake') to fend off attributions of prejudice or a racist identity. Thus, a common resource that speakers drew upon to exonerate themselves was that what they said, did not align with their psychological intentions. Intention then was a notable psychological resource for denying and fending off attributions of prejudice. Follow-up apologies were related organizationally and worked to either address or decrease the likelihood of dispreferred responses from the public/audience. These apologies included the use of affect, graduation, amplification, and judgements of capacity. Although this research does not address the possible psychological nature of racial slips and gaffes - the question of what they really mean - their occurrence in everyday life and institutional settings suggest that their repressive qualities reflect shared patterns of understanding in societies structured by racial inequality.

The Language of Derogation and Hate: Functions, Consequences, and Reappropriation

“…Moreover, psychological research has identified likely social functions served by derogatory language that can be grouped into five main categories: prejudice perpetuation; maintenance of status hierarchies; legitimization of violence against outgroups; norm and role compliance; and ingroup cohesion. We are not claiming that people engage in language-based discrimination with these aims in mind but, rather, that these are the primary social functions and consequences of disparaging language, which may well operate outside of people’s awareness and intention (see Burford-Rice & Augoustinos, 2017). To illustrate these functions, we will briefly and selectively review the relevant literature.…”

What Constitutes ‘Discrimination’ in Everyday Talk? Argumentative Lines and the Social Representations of Discrimination

“…These are that discrimination is (1) morally wrong and irrational; (2) performed by a particular kind of problematic identity (uneducated, isolated, and pathological); (3) deliberate and intended by the actor. Consequently, an act is not discrimination when it is (4) based on rational and objective realities; and (5) not intended to cause harm (Andreouli, Greenland, & Howarth, 2016; Augoustinos & Every 2007; Burford-Rice & Augoustinos, 2017; Capdevila & Callaghan, 2007; Every & Augoustinos, 2007; Figgou & Condor, 2006; Goodman & Rowe, 2014; Greenland & Taulke-Johnson, 2017; Howarth, 2009; Kadianaki, 2014; Kirkwood, McKinlay & McVittie, 2013; Moore & Greenland, 2018; Sommers & Norton, 2006; Swim, Scott, Sechrist, Campbell, & Stangor, 2003; Wilkins, 2012).…”

Parliamentary identity and the management of the far‐right: A discursive analysis of Dutch parliamentary debates

“…The aim of the present analysis was to explicate instances of parliamentary debate in which being a MP was made a relevant and consequential membership category (Sacks, ). We analysed the data using an approach (Burford‐Rice & Augoustinos, ; Stokoe & Wallwork, ) that draws upon the method of membership categorization analysis (Sacks, ), and principles and tools derived from discursive psychology (Edwards, ; Edwards & Potter, ) and rhetorical psychology (Billig, ). Following membership categorization analyses, we focus on the ways in which politicians evoked the category of MP and drew upon recognized category‐bound features (Hester & Eglin, ; Lepper, ; Sacks, ) to address Wilders’ (anti‐immigrant) statements.…”