Bragging

Mark Alfano*, Brian Robinson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The speech act of bragging has never been subjected to conceptual analysis until now. We argue that a speaker brags just in case she makes an utterance that (1) is an assertion and (2) is intended to impress the addressee with something about the speaker via the belief produced by the speaker's assertion. We conclude by discussing why it is especially difficult to cancel a brag by prefacing it with, ‘I'm not trying to impress you, but…’ and connect this discussion with Moore's paradox and the recent neologism ‘humblebrag’.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)263-272
Number of pages10
JournalThought
Volume3
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2014
Externally publishedYes

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