Performative Derogation

Abstract Quite a few scholars have argued that certain subsentential items contribute illocutionary contents. For instance, according to Camp (2013, 2018) using a slur amounts to performing two speech acts at once. Such claims raise the question of how to test for the illocutionariness of an item. I criticize a recent proposal and put forward a new one, which is based on Austin’s idea that illocutionary verbs can be identified by means of his “To say x was to do y” diagnostic. The test I propose can be successfully applied to Camp’s dual act analysis, but one may still wonder whether a speech act theoretic account is ultimately preferable to what Camp calls a “two-factor view”. I conclude by discussing whether the dual act view is indeed better poised to explain the highly variable projection behaviour of slurs.