For my final paper, I would like to write about the topic of expressive meaning. What’s expressive meaning? It is words like oops and ouch. Both of these words convey a certain kind of meaning, neither referring to things in the world.  Nor do they help determine conditions under which a sentence serves the immediate expression of subjective sensations, emotions, affections, evaluations or attitudes. Expressions with expressive meaning are called expressives. More examples of this is father vs dad, dad is less formal, different respect and different emotions… alcohol vs booze is more casual.. and eating vs devouring is different in respect and mannerism.

Expressive language and wordplay are embodied in a special word class called “expressives”. This is a basic class of words that are distinct from verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in that they can’t be subjected to logical negation. They describe noises, colours, light patterns, shapes, movements, sensations, and emotions.

There is a difference between expressive and propositional meaning. When a translation is described as ‘inaccurate’, it is often the propositional meaning that is being called into question. Expressive meaning can’t be judged as true or false. This is because expressive meaning relates to the speaker’s feeling or attitude rather than to what words and utterance refers to.

The term expressivity or expressive meaning has a long tradition in linguistics. Roman Jakobson, coined the term expressive or emotive for one of the functions of language. He describes it as “focused on the speaker aims a direct expression of the speaker’s attitude toward what he is speaking about” and gives interjections as the prime example of this function.

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