expressivitet

Expressivity, or expressivitet, is the capacity of a medium to convey expressive content—emotions, attitudes, stance, or stylistic nuance—in addition to literal propositions. The term is used across disciplines such as linguistics, aesthetics, philosophy, and computer science.

In linguistics and communication, expressivity refers to features that reveal the speaker’s affect, social stance, or evaluative attitude. Prosody, choice of vocabulary, metaphor, grammar, and discourse strategies all contribute to expressivity, enabling speakers to signal irony, emphasis, politeness, solidarity, or hostility without altering core information.

In philosophy of language and ethics, expressivism is a related position in which moral judgments are seen as expressing emotions or attitudes rather than beliefs; moral utterances are treated as expressive acts rather than truth-apt propositions. Expressivity in this sense concerns the communicative force of utterances rather than their factual content.

In design, media, and computing, expressivity measures how flexibly a system allows users to articulate ideas. Highly expressive languages or interfaces enable concise expression of complex intent, though this can affect readability, safety, and predictability. In the arts, music, and visual media, expressivity denotes the conveyance of mood, intention, or atmosphere through form, texture, cadence, or color.

Assessing expressivity is context-dependent and often subjective, relying on perceptual judgments, corpus analyses, or user studies. The concept highlights the balance between clear propositional content and the non-literal layers that enrich communication.