This Handbook represents a collective exploration of the emerging field of applied philosophy of language. The volume covers a broad range of areas where philosophy engages with linguistic aspects of our social world, including such hot topics as dehumanizing speech, dogwhistles, taboo language, pornography, appropriation, implicit bias, speech acts, and the ethics of communication. An international line-up of contributors adopt a variety of approaches and methods in their investigation of these linguistic phenomena, drawing on linguistics and the human and social sciences as well as on different philosophical subdisciplines. The aim is to map out fruitful areas of research and to stimulate discussion with thought-provoking essays by leading and emerging philosophers.

Luvell Anderson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Faculty in African American Studies and Women's and Gender Studies at Syracuse University. Before coming to Syracuse, he was an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis and Alain Locke Postdoctoral Fellow at Pennsylvania State University. His research lies principally in Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Humor, and Philosophy of Race. He has published articles on the semantics of racial slurs and racist humor, and is co-editor of the Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race (Routledge Press). Professor Anderson is currently working on a book, The Ethics of Racial Humor, which explores themes of race, humor, and the connection between ethics and aesthetics.
Ernie Lepore is Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has authored numerous books and papers in the philosophy of language, philosophical logic, metaphysics and philosophy of mind, including recently Imagination and Convention (with Matthew Stone, OUP, 2015), and Liberating Content (2016) with Herman Cappelen. He is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Language (with Una Stojnic, 2024) and of the series Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language, with David Sosa.