Beyond expression: speech acts and the accommodation of social attitudes

Theorists of politics and language are alike in treating speech as the expression of individual speaker attitudes, such as beliefs or feelings. This neglects the way speakers do things with words (Austin), it neglects the role of hearer attitudes in these doings, and it neglects the role of speech acts in social hierarchies. I wish to draw some lessons from hate speech. Such speech does not merely express speaker attitudes: it can subordinate a social group, ranking the group as inferior, and legitimating hatred and discrimination. Hearer attitudes are involved in the perlocutionary goals of hate speech, and in the felicity conditions of hate speech itself, as an illocutionary act. Hate speech requires authority if it is to subordinate, and authority can be gained via accommodation, through adjustment in hearers' attitudes.  As theorisers, we may need to revise our understanding of felicity conditions, and of conversational ’score’ or ‘common ground’. As hearers, we may need to recognise our power to shift the force of harmful speech, for better or worse.