Expressive Discourse, a phenomenological approach

Kinneavy is interested in expressive discourse where the individual is not necessarily interested in conveying a fact, or convincing anyone, but instead simply to reveal or express his or herself. Diaries, swears, and suicide notes are examples of expressive discourse. He then goes on to express his ideas in terms of the philosophy of phenomenologists such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, articulated mainly in various flavors of existentialism. According to these philosophies, all modes of existence of human beings (Being-for-itself, Being-for-the-Others, and Being-in-the-World) are essentially and deeply emotional, and it is this emotional dimension fundamentally woven in our being that is the basis for the act of expression. Expression gives selfhood to the self. According to these phenomenologists, it is the quality of intention or “aboutness” of our internal states that sets consciousness apart from other things. (As a side, one of the hardest phenomena in a purely materialistic account of consciousness is precisely how to explain the aboutness of our emotions and thoughts.) And expression is the externalization of this aboutness or intentionality of consciousness. Thus, expression is a central part of the being and actualization of the “I”. This aspect of the self is also deeply intertwined with freedom. For one to be, according to Sartre, is for one to choose one’s identity and projects. And all these various aspects of our being are essentially within language and therefore linguistic. Thus, language and expression (which manifests itself in style) are not just acts or actions, they are how we are. We talk because we are, and we are because we talk. Kinneavy (following Sartre) then goes on to distinguish bad faith from sincerity, or in Heidegger’s terminology inauthenticity from authenticity and how some very important human states (such as love) contribute to it.Kinneavy has done a nice job summarizing some of the basic ideas of existentialists, but I think he is less successful in relating these ideas to his stated goals in this paper, i.e., delineating expressive discourse. There is much to say about language and how it constitutes our being, and this is precisely the projects that people like Heidegger and Gadamer have pursued as can be deduced form several famous dictums: Language is the house of being (Heidegger), or: Being that can be understood is language (Gadamer). I was eagerly waiting to see more content around this linguistic dimension and in particular about how it is related to expression, but I think Kinneavy has not pursued this direction sufficiently and thus has not fully developed his theme.