Languages & Linguistics
Expressives
Expressives are words or phrases that convey the speaker's emotions or attitudes towards a particular situation or object. They are used to express feelings such as joy, anger, surprise, or disgust, and are often accompanied by nonverbal cues such as facial expressions or tone of voice. Expressives are an important aspect of language as they allow speakers to convey their subjective experiences and connect with others on an emotional level.
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eBook - PDFApproaches to semiotics
Cultural anthropology, education, linguistics, psychiatry, psychology ; transactions of the Indiana University Conference on Paralinguistics and Kinesics
- Thomas Albert Sebeok, Soomington, Ind.> Conference on Paralinguistics and Kinesics Conference on Paralinguistics and Kinesics Conference on Paralinguistics and Kinesics <1962(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
It is not by chance that certain words, like mad and so on, which I claim to have a cognitive meaning in the lexicon, may show additional emotive elements, for example, sound-features which do not exist on the non-expressive level. The use of special linguistic elements makes them more intense, more emotive. This is different from the manipulation of neutral elements which exist in the system, and which is achieved by the individual only in the process of speaking, as when he creates alliteration. It is true that I use psychological ter-minology, but for me these terms have only a heuristic value. The label expressive is very convenient in that it enables me to isolate those linguistic elements which differ functionally from other linguistic forms. GOFFMAN: It seems to me that you are talking about the high peaks of emotional expression and the gestural devices that carry this expression. If you restrict yourself to the grossly emotional expressions, it seems to me you will be dealing with only a small sector of the means by which affect gets conveyed in speaking. Shouldn't we be interested in the means by which affective tone is given to any and every statement that a person makes, not merely his strongly emotional ones? Can you give me some kind of transcription of the means employed to inject calm cool reasonableness into the reading of a whole paragraph? This is an affective tone too. And would this be part of the linguistic code? Would you assimilate this restric-tion of affect to linguistic analysis proper, or would its analysis involve something else, a different code or sub-code? STANKIEWICZ: We establish something which is non-expressive and which we will call, with respect to the expressive, emotionally neutral. Then we will distinguish 270 SESSION ON LINGUISTICS the various dimensions and functions of language, and explore their mutual relations. I didn't say there was a single dichotomy. I mentioned other functions.
eBook - PDF- Mohammad A. Jazayery, Edgar C. Polomé, Werner Winter, Mohammad A. Jazayery, Edgar C. Polomé, Werner Winter(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Interjections and exclamations, of course, are at one end of the scale if one were to rank words in a language. They are primarily expressive and are also, for other reasons, marginal to what is generally called 314 WILLIAM J. SAMARIN linguistic structure. Elsewhere in language, lexicon figures expressively only by the selection made by a speaker. For example, in talking other-wise formally to a person many years my junior I can give expression - as indeed I did - to the fact that in my opinion he was not taking his work very seriously, by the simple device of choosing bucks for dollars. The word buck is therefore not simply a slang equivalent of dollar, as we are informed in Webster's third international dictionary. On this occasion it might have meant 'a dollar which is not properly valued', but the point is that the speaker avoided dollar because of his emotional state at the time of speech, not merely because slang was more appropriate. What can we say about selection in expressive speech? Are there some universal traits or must expressive language always be defined for each speech community? Can it be demonstrated, for example, that linguistic forms most characteristic of expressive language contain certain pho-nemes, or display more reduplication than is otherwise present in the language, or are generally associated with a restricted set of semantic areas? We need to also ask how languages differ in the material they provide the speakers. Do some languages have classes of words - perhaps coordinate with those that might be called nouns or verbs or perhaps subclasses (on purely linguistic grounds) - which have a peculiar function in linguistic behavior ? These are some questions which ought to be faced in the study of expressive language. Up until now discussions about expressive speech have been almost exclusively in connection with languages of the West, with literature, with particular genres of verbal art, and with what is generally called style.
eBook - PDF- Carla Vergaro(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Peter Lang Group(Publisher)
Unlike assertive, commissive, and directive illocutionary nouns, in the case of expressive nouns, no basic-level term can be identified. Indeed, this is consistent with what Searle and Vanderveken say, namely that “there is no illocutionary verb or performative in English that names the primitive expressive force” (1985: 211). Expressive nouns can be grouped into various subdomains in two ways. First, on the basis of the propositional attitude expressed, and thus evaluative and emotive. Secondly, within these two subdomains, there is an axiological positive-negative polarization in that some nouns depict a speech act that refers to a positive or a negative evaluative reaction on the part of the speaker, and some to positive or negative emotive reactions towards the event type described in the propositional content. Thus, in our analysis, following Proost (2007), nouns are distinguished as belonging to the following subdomains: “emotive attitude: positive”, “emotive atti- tude: negative”, “evaluative attitude: positive”, and “evaluative attitude: negative”. 191 Table 2 reports the bundle of specifications instantiated by the nouns belonging to the subdomain “emotive attitude: positive”, i.e. greeting, welcome and salutation. General Original Situation Type Categorial Aspects Attributes Values Utterance Prop. cont. type: Event type: Temporal reference: Agent: — — Present — Attitude (S) Propositional attitude Intention Presupposition of S Emotive attitude: Epistemic attitude (H): — feel pleasure (S, P) want (S (recognize (H (Att (S, P))))) — Table 2. Bundle of specifications of the subdomain “emotive attitude: positive” The nouns in this subdomain refer to speech acts that are marginal in the category of expressive speech acts, because they have no propositional content (Searle 1969; Searle and Vanderveken 1985) 2 . The full structure shown in Table 1 is prototypically instantiated by greeting.
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