Bragging

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 withMoore’s paradox and the recent neologism ‘humblebrag’.