My research focuses on the intersection between Philosophy of Language and Political Philosophy. I currently have three research projects:

1. Slurs: explaining slurs in terms of the speech acts of derogation
2. Ethics of Interpretation: When someone says something, which interpretation is fair?
3. Moral Psychology of Offense: exploring questions about the nature, the aptness, and the values of taking offense.

Publications

• 2024. “Lexical Silencing: How to Suppress Speech with Negative Words”. Topoi. 
  • Explains how negative words like “political correctness” make certain views difficult to express.
• 2024. “为摹状词主义一辩—回应克里普克的挑战”. 《哲学动态》. (10), 81-90.
  • 指出克里普克对摹状词主义的批评，可以改用唐奈兰等摹状词理论来回应。
• 2022. “蔑称的言语行为理论” . 《现代哲学》. (5), 75-81.
  • 指出蔑称具有贬低性，因为其用途就是做出贬低这一言语行为。
• 2021. “The Derogatory Force and the Offensiveness of Slurs“. Organon F. 28(3), 626–649. [download]
  • Argues that slurs’ being derogatory is not the same as being offensive. 
• 2021. “Toward a Theory of Offense: Should You Feel Offended?“. Philosophy. 96(4), 625-649. [download]
  • Proposes an ethics of offense to explain when it is appropriate to feel offended. 
• 2021. “Slurs as Illocutionary Force Indicators“. Philosophia. 49(3), 1051-65.
  • Argues that slurs are illocutionary force indicators of the act of derogation. 
• 2020. “Slurs and Register: A Case Study in Meaning Pluralism”. Mind and Language. 35(2), 156-182. with Justina Diaz-Legaspe & Robert J. Stainton.
  •  Offers a socio-linguistic account of slurs in terms of registers.
• 2019. “Slurs and the Type-Token Distinction of Their Derogatory Force”. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio. 13(2), 63-72.
  • Argues that many theories fail to distinguish between why a slur is a derogatory word and why is an utterance of slurs derogatory. 

Works in Progress

• Toward an Ethics of Interpretation (under review)
• A Psycholinguistic Account of Politically Loaded Words (in preparation)
• Two Arguments against Hybrid Theories (in preparation)

Research Grants

• 2022. Shanghai Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project, “Arguments against Descriptivism” (2022EZX001)
• 2022. Shanghai Jiao Tong University “Double First-Class” Starting Research Grant, (WH220509001)
• 2021. China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Research Grant, “How Language Expresses Values” (2021M700265)

Dissertation

2019. Derogatory Words and Speech Acts: An Illocutionary Force Indicator Theory of Slurs. University of Western Ontario