Cover not available
Part of
Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface: Discourse markers and discourse-related grammatical phenomena
Edited by Alexander Haselow and Sylvie Hancil
[Studies in Language Companion Series 219] 2021
► pp. 245–272

Chapter 9
On pragma-semantics of expressives

Between words and actions

| Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University , Russia | National Academy of Sciences , Armenia

Expressives can be understood as: (1) a manifestation of speaker’s emotional or affective attitudes; (2) a peculiar type of performatives; (3) a linguistic entity expressing or displaying what is the case. The third conception is taken as the basic one; we attempt to develop it, taking into account Bühler’s representational theory of language and the theory of performatives (Austin, Searle). Expressives are closely connected with behavioral patterns, situations, and actions. An actualization of verbal behavior (a performative component of expressives) meets its counterpart in the verbalization of action (a descriptive component). We suggest to describe pragma-semantics of expressives as based on prototypical behavioural frames.

Keywords: semantics, pragmatics, performatives, expressive speech acts, expressives, context, social meanings, cognitive frames
Article outline
  • 1.The theoretical background: Expressives and the theory of meaning
  • 2.Expressives in linguistic theory: Main approaches
    • 2.1Expressivity and the expressive function of language
    • 2.2Expressives as performatives
    • 2.3David Kaplan on expressives and hybrid semantics
  • 3.Expressives as meaningful actions and a situational models of behavior
    • 3.1Expressives: Situations and attitudes
    • 3.2On descriptive meaning of expressives
    • 3.3Expressives and behavioural patterns
  • 4.“Making sense out of events”
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.219.09zol
References (71)
Akita, Kimi & Pardeshi, Prashant
(eds) 2019 Ideophones, Mimetics and Expressives [Iconicity in Language and Literature 16]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Allan, Keith
2016 The reporting of slurs. In Indirect Reports and Pragmatics: Interdisciplinary Studies, Alessandro Capone, Ferenc Kiefer & Franco Lo Piparo (eds), 211–232. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Luvell & Lepore, Ernie
2013a Slurring words. Noûs 47(1): 25–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013b What did you call me? Slurs as prohibited words. Analytic Philosophy 54(3): 350–363. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, John L.
1962 How to do Things with Words, James Opie Urmson & Marina Sbisá (eds). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bach, Kent
2018 Loaded words: On the semantics and pragmatics of slurs. In Bad Words. Philosophical Perspectives on Slurs, David Sosa (ed.), 60–76. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Baudouin de Courtenay, Ivan
1904 Jazyk i jazyki (Language and languages). In Enciklopedicheskij slovar’ (Encyclopedic dictionary), Vol. 81, 528–549. Saint-Petersburg: Brockhaus & Efron. (In Russian).Google Scholar
Bianchi, Claudia
2018 Perspectives and slurs. In Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics, Gerhard Preyer (ed.), 187–200. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Blakemore, Diane
2011 On the descriptive ineffability of expressive meaning. Journal of Pragmatics 43(14): 3537–3550. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 Slurs and expletives: A case against a general account of expressive meaning. Language Sciences 52: 22–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, Renée Jorgensen
2015 The pragmatics of slurs. Noûs 51(3): 439–462. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bühler, Karl
1990 The Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language, translated by Donald Fraser Goodwin. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Camp, Elizabeth
2013 Slurring perspectives. Analytic Philosophy 54(3): 330–349. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Capone, Alessandro
2016 Indirectly reporting and translating slurring utterances. In Indirect Reports and Pragmatics: Interdisciplinary Studies, Alessandro Capone, Ferenc Kiefer & Franco Lo Piparo (eds), 233–252. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019 Pragmatics and Philosophy. Connections and Ramifications. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carston, Robyn
2008 Linguistic communication and the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Synthese 165(3): 321–345. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cella, Federico
2016 Slurs: Semantic content, expressive content and social generics. Phenomenology and Mind 11: 140–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cresswell, Maxwell John
1972 The world is everything that is the case. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50(1): 1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1973 Logics and Languages. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Croom, Adam
2013 How to do things with slurs: Studies in the way of derogatory words. Language & Communication 33(3): 177–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Daalder, Saskia & Musolff, Andrea
2011 Foundations of pragmatics in functional linguistics. In Foundations of Pragmatics, Wolfram Bublitz & Neal Norrick (eds), 229–260. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse & Salkie, Raphael
(eds) 2017 Semantics and Pragmatics: Drawing a Line. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donnellan, Keith S.
1972 Proper names and identifying descriptions. In Semantics of Natural Language, Donald Davidson & Gilbert Harman (eds), 356–379. Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J.
1976 Frame semantics and the nature of language. Annals New York Ac. Sc. Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech 280(1): 20–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foolen, Ad
2015 Expressives. In The Routledge Handbook of Semantics, Nick Riemer (ed.), 473–490. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gauker, Christopher
2013 Semantics and pragmatics. In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, Gillian Russell & Delia Graff Fara (eds), 18–28. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geurts, Bart
2007 Really fucking brilliant. (Commentary on Christopher Potts, The expressive dimension). Theoretical Linguistics 33(2): 209–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. Paul
1975 Logic and conversation. In Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Acts, Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (eds), 41–58. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1974 Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gutzmann, Daniel
2013 Expressives and beyond. An introduction to varieties of use conditional meaning. In Beyond Expressives. Explorations in Use-Conditional Meaning, Daniel Gutzmann & Hans-Martin Gärtner (eds), 1–58. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 Use-conditional Meaning: Studies in Multidimensional Semantics. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutzmann, Daniel & Henderson, Robert
2019 Expressive updates, much? Language 95(1): 108–155. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hedger, Joseph A.
2012 The semantics of racial slurs: Using Kaplan’s framework to provide a theory of the meaning of derogatory epithets. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 11: 74–84.Google Scholar
2013 Meaning and racial slurs: Derogatory epithets and the semantics/pragmatics interface. Language & Communication 33: 205–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hess, Leopold
2019 Expressive meanings and expressive commitments. A case of meaning as use. In Philosophical Insights into Pragmatics, Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.), 191–221. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hjelmslev, Louis
1961 [1943] Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1960 Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In Style in Language, Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), 350–377. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jaszczolt, Kasia M.
2005 Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jeshion, Robin
2018 Slurs, dehumanization, and the expression of contempt. In Bad Words Philosophical Perspectives on Slur, David Sosa (ed.), 77–108. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, David
1989 Demonstratives: An essay on the semantics, logic, metaphysics, and epistemology of demonstratives and other indexicals. In Themes from Kaplan, Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds), 481–563. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
1999a The meaning of ouch and oops. Explorations in the Theory of Meaning as Use. Ms, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
1999b The meaning of ouch and oops. Horison Lecture in Philosophy delivered at UC Berkeley, transcribed by Elizabeth Coppock. [URL]> (25 May 2020).
Kripke, Saul
1972 Naming and necessity. In Semantics of Natural Language, Donald Davidson & Gilbert Harman (eds), 253–355. Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan
2016 Can intercultural pragmatics bring some new insight into pragmatic theories? In Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society, Alessandro Capone & Jacob Mey (eds). Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroeger, Paul R.
2018 Analyzing Meaning: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ron
2012 Interactive cognition: Toward a unified account of structures, processing, and discourse. International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics 3: 95–124.Google Scholar
Lasersohn, Peter
2005 Context dependence, disagreement, and predicates of personal taste. Linguistics and Philosophy 28: 643–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Expressives, perspective and presupposition. Theoretical Linguistics 33(2): 223–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Longworth, Guy
2017 Semantics and pragmatics. In A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Vol. I, Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds), 107–126. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislav
1923 The problem of meaning in primitive languages. In The Meaning of Meaning, Supplement I, Charles Kay Ogden & Ivor A. Richards (eds), 296–336. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
1935 Coral Gardens and their Magic, Vol. 2: The Language of Magic and Gardening. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Musolff, Andreas
1997 Bühler, Karl. In Handbook of Pragmatics, Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman, Jan Blommaert & Chris Bulcaen (eds), 1–15. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norrick, Neal R.
1978 Expressive illocutionary acts. Journal of Pragmatics 2: 277–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potts, Christopher
2005 The Logic of Conventional Implicatures. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2007 The expressive dimension. Theoretical Linguistics 33(2): 165–197. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Predelli, Stefano
2013 Meaning without Truth. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Preyer, Gerhard
(ed.) 2018 Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Recanati, François
2006 Pragmatics and semantics. In The Handbook of Pragmatics, Laurence R. Horn & Gregory Ward (eds), 442–462. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richard, Mark
2018 How do slurs mean? In Bad Words. Philosophical Perspectives on Slurs, David Sosa (ed.), 155–167. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saeed, John
2011 Pragmatics and semantics. In Handbooks of Pragmatics, Wolfram Bublitz, Andreas H. Jucker & Klaus P. Schneider (eds), 461–490. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
de Saussure, Louis
2007 Pragmatic issues in discourse analysis. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines 1(1): 179–195.Google Scholar
Searle, John R.
1976 A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5(1): 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John & Vanderveken, Daniel
1985 Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Shannon, Claude E. A.
1948 Mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal 27(3): 379–423, 623–656. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sosa, David
2018 Introduction. In Bad Words. Philosophical Perspectives on Slurs, David Sosa (ed.), 1–5. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vendler, Zeno
1976 Illocutionary suicide. In Issues in the Philosophy of Language: Proceedings of the 1972 Oberlin Philosophy Colloquium, Alfred F. MacKay & Daniel D. Merrill (eds), 135–145. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max
1964 The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York NY: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Wharton, Tim
2016 That bloody so-and-so has retired: Expressives revisited. Lingua 175–176: 20–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Timothy
2009 Reference, inference, and the semantics of pejoratives. In The Philosophy of David Kaplan, Joseph Almog & Paolo Leonardi (eds), 137–158. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
1958 Philosophical Investigations. London: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zolyan, Suren
1991 Semantika i struktura poeticheskoho tekst. (Semantics and structure of a poetic text). Yerevan: Yerevan University Press. (2nd edn 2014 Moscow: URSS). (In Russian).Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by 2 other publications

Tulchinskii, Grigorii L.
2023. The Mobius strip of the pragmasemantics of sense: from culture through subjectivity to nothingness and back. Slovo.ru: Baltic accent 14:4 ► pp. 8 ff. DOI logo
Тульчинский, Григорий
2023. Смысл власти и власть смысла: прагмасемантика соотношения политической власти и смыслообразования. Полис. Политические исследования ► pp. 180 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.