Code words and (re)framing

Abstract

One of the characteristics of what has been called"dogwhistle politics" is the presence of a rhetoric that targets minority groups implicitly. For example, terms like 'illegals' and 'illegal immigrants', used to target Latin-Americans, have come to permeate the American political discourse as well as everyday conversations. Here I focus on how such expressions, which I call illegality frame code words (IFCW, for short), can be countered by recalcitrant hearers. I begin with the assumption that IFCWs are 1 I am thankful to the members of the TALK-Group Argentina for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper and to two anonymous referees for their comments. I also thank the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) for their grant.