Expression of Affect and Illocution

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Scoping the Terrain
How are affects expressed in human beings?This is a question of crucial import to philosophy and psychology, yet also one of vast complexity.Let me highlight a few of the ways in which it spurs discussion.One matter is what to understand as affects in the first place, among which expressible affects are presumably to be counted.If it may seem natural to include emotions and feelings among the set of all affects, the criteria for marking out what may be properly included within that set remain tricky to circumscribe.This is no less so when limiting consideration to the set of expressible affects; for instance, how much of the former (all affects) is covered by the latter (expressible affects)?Are all or only some affects expressible, and under what (dynamic) conditions?For instance, should only basic affects, sometimes called "basic emotions" (Deonna & Teroni, 2012;Goldie, 2000)-pain and pleasure, "comfort or discomfort" (Greenspan, 1988), desire or aversion-be considered to have an expressibility or even an inherent expressibility?How should so-called "nonbasic" emotions-phenomenologically thick emotions like "regret or nostalgia" (Deonna & Teroni, 2012: 21), awe or grief-be understood in view of their expressibility; is this something they possess de re?Moreover, however, one conceives the relation between basic and nonbasic affects, should the one and the other be understood as equally or comparably expressible?1 Lastly, are there episodes or experiences other than these that may merit categorisation as (expressible) affects-for instance, one's concentration on or acceptance of some event or person?
The questions branch out no less quickly when assumptions about expression are scrutinised, i.e., what is inferred when considering whether and how affects can be expressed.'Expressive phenomena' can nominally be taken to involve events where there is a linkage between what a person undergoes as affect and what changes are evinced in that person's body or behaviour-for instance, in one's face, prosody and intonation, bearing, or movements (Deonna & Teroni, 2012: 19).Beyond the question of the conditions under which such linkage occurs, there is also that of how this linkage ought to be conceived in the first place.Is it to be thought of as some sort of codification or conversion going from some 'inner' (the mental, the experiential) to some 'outer' (the corporeal, the physical), along the lines of, for instance, Lyons's ("causal-evaluative") (1980) or Sartre's conceptions?2Should expression of affect rather be understood as the direct, regular product of neurological and physiological processes running in coordination with each other, as famously put forward by Ekman (1980) and others? 3  All this is not yet to broach the interpersonal dimension of expression of affect, which presents a no less intriguing set of challenges.For instance, one can enquire into what is required or sufficient such that one affect or another is divulged via body and behaviour, i.e., what it takes for an affect to be made overt and not, say, merely hinted at by one's body or behaviour (Austin, 1970: 107f.;Cassam, 2007: 166 ff.;Green, 2007).That issue has an ostensive compliment in the question of what is required or sufficient such that an affect is, in its embodied manifestation, recognised by another person. 4Is such recognition the product of what Wundt and Bühler call Resonanz (roughly, transmissible affectivity) between one person and another, or the result of an "indexical process" [Indiezenverfahrung] of understanding built upon layers of perception more or less direct (Bühler, 1933b: 85ff.)? 5 No less an important question within the interpersonal plane is whether some purpose, if any at all, can or must be assigned to the expression of affect, e.g. from one person to another.For instance, to what extent can expression of affect be decoupled from a communicative intention or function? 6In what respects does expression of affect or its inhibition, come under the remit of a deliberate act of will (Bühler, 1933a;Green, 2007;Knobloch, 2021)?Lastly, in the interpersonal sphere, there seem to be certain reliably comprehensible, and also more or less appropriate manners of expression of affect.Expression of affect seems to be shaped in different manners; not only by a person's own affective history or by their environment, but also importantly by the communities to which that person belongs, and the expectations and traditions of behaviour that form a community's cultural repertoire (Douglas, 1996;"participation genres," Di Paolo et al., 2018).Yet the reasons for the variation in the formation of these behavioural repertoires, as well as the reasons for a person's adherence to or departure from them, demand careful plumbing.Moreover, it may be that such repertoires do not only shape affect, but that they are themselves capable of instilling affect; in ritual behaviours, one may undergo affect precisely through such performance.The initiating relationship between affect and patterns of expressive behaviour may not only run in one direction.

Affect, Expression, and Convention
In view of these and still other questions concerning expression of affect, the apparent unruliness of which may only be partially due to my framing, the aim here is not to propose some novel manner of carving up the issues.I rather wish to home in on one particular facet of these questions, which follows on a couple of the interpersonal issues just raised.Namely, I want to propose a way of thinking about how affects may be expressed non-conventionally.While some expressions of affect may rely on expressive conventions-one can think here of rituals once more, in their role for devotion-there seem to be expressions of affect that do not.The question is about what kind of account of expression of affect would suit such cases.
4 I say only an ostensive complementarity between these two issues because it is not obvious that answers to the former question should match answers to the latter.For one thing, changes in the body or behaviour may be, for another observing person, indistinguishable from one affect to another (e.g., how the embodiments of joy and anger may resemble each other).See Parrott (2017Parrott ( : 1041 ff.) ff.) and Overgaard (2017: 120f.), for discussion of this sort of concern. 5This question is adjacent to the issue of whether there can be 'direct social perception' (depending on what one understands by 'processes of (direct) perception' and the contents thereof).For current discussions of 'social perception,' see Overgaard, (2017), Glazer (2018). 6See Rowson (2023: 221f.).
Let's take a couple of examples.Suppose that someone invites me for a day sailing.I find the trip transformative and afterwards I wish to express my deep gratitude for the invitation and the experience.If such gratitude counts as an affect, there are certainly conventional means for expressing it, 'as people do,' like a thank you note or an offer of a small gift.Yet would my expression of gratitude have to depend on such conventions, or do I dispose of other ways of expressing it-other forms of behaviour and embodiment on my part towards the friend?Or suppose that I visit a beach in a foreign land, with whose customs I am not very familiar.A lifeguard at the beach might express concern or fear for me because in swimming I am exposed to a rip tide or a large jellyfish in the water.Again, if the lifeguard can be taken to be expressing affect in such a case, should one think that they would be solely relying upon a certain cultural repertoire or background of patterned behaviourwaving flags instead of using a whistle, for instance-in order to do so?Should my uptake of their concern be seen as strictly contingent upon my familiarity with that background? 7uch expressive phenomena would be interesting things to know about, yet their interest has to be delimited carefully.By considering non-conventional expression, the point is not to compare the communicative effectiveness of non-conventional expressions of affect with that of conventional ones.Thinking that there would be such non-conventional expressions of affect needn't suppose that they would be better or more sincere than conventional ones; a friend might simply prefer a bottle of wine over a hug, and my non-conventional expression of gratitude towards my friend might not be as readily understood as when I might use a more conventional form of expression.Furthermore, one needn't suppose that in any given scenario one has options to decide upon for expressing affect, which one weighs against each other beforehand.However, it seems worthwhile to wonder about the channels that are open to one to express certain feelings, such as remorse, to someone else.There may be situations where the non-conventional route to expression is taken over the conventional, for instance, because of the latter's apparent unsuitability, or because it had been attempted but seemed ineffective.There may also be situations in which some or other conventional form of expression seems unavailable, as when one would express a complicated kind of feeling, for which there may seem to be no conventional means of expressing it.8These kinds of situations call for thinking about how non-conventional expression of affect occurs, and the constraints involved in such.That said, broaching this topic throws up a bunch of sceptical questions.Some clarifications and stipulations are required, at least for indicating how this question lines up with some of the issues sketched above.

Affects
As a first caveat, it makes sense to work within the premise that affects like emotions do not reduce to conventions, as might be advanced by a constructivist view like Barrett's (2017).9This is defensible inasmuch as the constructivist stance on affect is not the only game in town; on the other hand, it would moot my question or at least create serious complications.10Second, I aim to understand affect inclusively, so as to include emotions like fear and anger but also conative states like desire, stress, and concern.Within that broad set, what interests me about certain affects is that they can be important to be expressed in certain kinds of situations; it can matter a lot to me or to other persons that the affect be put out in the world, and how.Perhaps not every affect can matter in this way, and thus, it may not matter for all affects whether and how they can be expressed only conventionally or also otherwise.Beyond that, I want to avoid any claim about whether all affects can be expressible non-conventionally or about which ones can be; more important is that some affects need to be expressed, conventionally or otherwise, and that these are ones that we do not uncommonly experience.
As to what marks affects as mattering or being important to express, a definitive account is beyond my current scope, but it is not implausible that some kinds of affect can fall here.Your undergoing harm or desperate hunger, or my fear for what seems just about to happen to you can certainly seem very important for you or me to express, at least under some not-too-unlikely circumstances.Moreover, this importance seems crucial for what it is like to undergo those particular affects; i.e., where my concern or my remorse is felt in such a way that it seems I need to share it or put it out into the world.Amorous desire also seems like an interesting candidate here, whereas French philosophers (like Sartre, 1980) have long suggested its fulfilment cannot be reached unless it is shared and in turn elicits desire in another.And with desires carnal, still another (normative, external) set of considerations regarding the felt importance of their expression are involved; if one has a sexual desire, it is an acute concern, to say the least, that one not simply act upon or pursue it, but prior to that share it with the person desired.

Expression
In contrast to an inclusive approach to affect, it will be obvious from the examples above that I have quite a specific notion of expression in mind.This will not seem like an uncontroversial choice.This is because in a number of contemporary discussions of expression of affect-either in the context of the ontogeny of language and the development of linguistic expression or in the popular topic regarding the mechanics of social cognition or perception-theorists tend to embrace quite an expansive notion of expression.The commonly cited list of affect-expressive phenomena we ran through above (i.e., as found in Goldie, Cassam, Deonna and Teroni, Glazer, Rowson) seems like quite a diverse bunch of things to include in one basket; all of my shaking hands and bulging veins, the tempo and tone of my voice, my choice of words or lack thereof, and my kicking an empty water bottle can be taken as the 'expression' of my anger.Relatedly, when discussing expression of affect many recent theorists seem to avoid mention of the involuntary and voluntary dimensions thereof like the plague, and it seems viable to demur on whether expression of affect requires characterisation in terms of some function or teleology, for instance, a communicative purpose (Forlè & Songhorian, 2022: 4, note 5).The trend towards this inclusive approach to expression is typified by Martin's recommendation that involuntary, or even "purely mechanical" manifestations of affect, like blushes, be taken as "a key for (…) making sense of others," and indeed, as no less key in that role than those expressive phenomena that would have a "psychological or mental cause of behaviour" (i.e., such as the "conscious intention" behind "a spiteful comment") (Martin, 2010: 87f.).
Relying upon notions of voluntariness or teleology-when discussing expression, let alone other matters-can make philosophers leery, but even so, this expansive notion of expression is one that is hard to accept.'Making sense of others' seems like one kind of fruit, 'expressing oneself' or 'being party to one's expression' quite another.Pushing back on the expansive view, Green deems it unnatural "to suggest that a heightened adrenaline level expresses fear" (2010b: 110b).He argues that we should be careful not to conflate mere 'showings' of affect (like "galvanic skin responses" when a person feels fear) with expression, i.e., overt conveyance thereof.This is because "only the latter is designed to convey information about its producer's psychological state" (Green, 2017: 887). 11This distinction between 'mere showings' of affect and 'expression of affect' is important for a reason closely connected to our topic.If one abides by the expansive conception of expression of affectwhere, again, many different sorts of "manifestations (…) can earn their keep in the expressive realm" (Martin, 2010: 88)-then the question of how there can be non-conventional expression of affect becomes trivial.This is because inasmuch as blushing cheeks or bulging veins are not conventionally dictated, they can then be understood as non-conventional expression of affect.The problem would simply slip through our fingers.
Without sounding Green's appeal to "design" (a bit more on which below), a more restricted conception of expression-and the dividing line between 'showings' and 'expressings'-can be underscored with a suggestion of Austin's regarding the experience of certain emotions.In distinguishing between symptoms of anger and expressions of anger, he takes the latter to be characterised by how they stem from the "impulse, felt and/or acted upon, to do actions of particular kinds," for instance, "an impulse, however vague, to vent the anger in a natural way" (1970: 109, my emphasis). 12What thereby characterises expressions of affect is the manner in which they, as "actions," would have effects on the world around one and on others.A person giving someone an earful is steering their interaction with others-in a way fitting to the emotion (hence Austin's qualifier, "natural")-and others' interactions with them: 'Better keep my head down;' 'I'm in the doghouse'.Arguably, 'mere showings' of affect, like galvanic skin responses, would not suffice on their own to realise such an impulse to undertake "action". 13And it seems like there are situations in which expression of affect, understood in terms of Austin's impulse, needs to be effected non-conventionally; yet if the lifeguard is successful in steering me in light of their concern about the exigency of the situation, it seems unlikely that this can be simply because of 'showings' like their bulging veins.

Convention
With regard to how something like an expression (of affect) can be considered nonconventional, I do have something specific in mind, which is related to a claim by P. F. Strawson and others about speech acts.But first, let's approach the non-conventional from a via negativa.There is a plausible way to understand the non-conventional, which nonetheless is different from what I'm interested in.It concerns the so-called "idiosyncrasy" of affect expression.The idea is that while emotions like anger seem to be pan-cultural, people can personalise their expressions of affect. 14This can make someone's expressions less easy to understand, depending 12 For a discussion of this Austinian thesis on emotions in terms of the "intimacy" of a feeling and its expression, see Parrott (2017). 13Given the context of Austin's comments, it can be tempting to take him to mean that the impulse he describes is an impulse for the emotion, such as anger, to be recognised for what it is, i.e., to be perceived as such.Perhaps Austin is just saying this, but I have my doubts.For one thing, for the kinds of emotions that can be attributed this 'impulse to act in certain ways,' it seems that in some of them, someone else's (correct) perception of the emotion would be either irrelevant or undesirable.If I feel 'hangry' and also express it, I am giving in to the urge to act upon the world and others in certain ways, but it is unclear whether my expression should be thought of as an impulse for people to see me as 'hangry'; I'd probably prefer the opposite, even at the moment of my 'hangriness'.Another example would be certain forms of shame, like victim shame, where Austin's impulse to act would have more to do with who or what I take myself to be, and guiding how people respond to that, and less so about recognition of what I am feeling. 14See Parrott (2017Parrott ( : 1041 ff.) ff.) for critical discussion of research on pan-cultural expression of affect.on another's familiarity with that person (Green, 2017: 887;2007: 137 ff.). 15This is an interesting conception of non-conventional expression of affect, but is not one suitable for the phenomena I've pointed to.For if non-conventional expression were co-extensive with idiosyncratic or semi-private expression (in the sense that only those "intimate" with me can understand my expressions), then that would seem to rule out that I would be able to understand the lifeguard.I take that example as plausible, and what's more, given Green's claim that certain facial expressions like angry scowls can show speaker-meaning "non-conventionally," I think he at least has reason to consider how there can be non-conventional yet non-idiosyncratic expression of affect (2007: 100f.). 16 I'd suggest that the "idiosyncrasy of expression" seems premised on the notion that expressions can be unconventional, as hair-thin as its distinction from the nonconventional may seem.Idiosyncrasy involves how there can be departure from conventions, and also variation upon them, across and by individuals; as in how, because I've been an expat for so long, and also because I don't get out much, my emotional responses can seem like a bit of a mess to my brother, on the rare occasion when I get to see him.Even where one would insist that such departure or variation demonstrates discontinuity with convention, I'd suggest that this still puts the idiosyncratic and the conventional on a continuum with each other.By contrast, non-conventional expression of affect brings a different set of questions to the table: not how we don't seem to manage to express affects to each other (I can understand neither a Gen Zer's use of periods in text messages nor their rebellious anger cum complaisant composure), but instead how we do, despite apparent constraints or obstacles thrown up by convention or variation thereupon.
If the non-conventional is kept apart from the idiosyncratic, how then might it be understood?To make a point, I want to draw upon a somewhat atypical example in order to clarify two senses of non-conventionality.The example comes from a recent documentary about the trade-in and use of orcas in marine parks, particularly in the U.S. 17 At one stage, there is an interview with one of the persons responsible for hunting and capturing some of the first orcas to be used in such parks.The hunter relates how, once the calf had been separated from the group and was being hauled 15 A similar take on the distinction between conventional versus non-conventional expression of affect can be found in Glazer (2018), which considers the types of expression that may count as being part of some emotions, that is, as being a component of someone's having an emotion in view of which that emotion could be directly perceived by someone else.Glazer claims that "conventional expressions" cannot count as such parts, by which he means "conventional means" of expression of emotion "such as language or dance," i.e., standardised or ritualised forms of expression as opposed to "idiosyncratic" ones (2018: 36, 39). 16See Green (2007: 100f.):"When I overtly scowl, then as we have seen, my act may be both an expression of anger and a case of speaker meaning.(….)As a result, my speaker-meaning that I am angry in scowling is not a species of conversational implicature.Nor is it due to any conventions governing scowls.(…) [S]ome emotions can be displayed in the face without the aid of conventions".
N.b. "speaker meaning" is not the same issue as illocution (which will specified below), but it stands to reason that if a scowl (on its own, or in combination with other resources) is taken as able to convey the one, there is a question about its potential role in the other. 17Cowperthwaite (2013).onto a ship, the rest of the pod of orcas did not flee, but remained in close proximity to the boats.He found it a harrowing experience due to the nature of the orcas' calls, through which they seemed to him to be "communicating back and forth" (i.e., not mere symptoms of distress); in a moving and terrible moment, he felt that he could understand that they were calling to the calf, at least, in a great expression of something like loss and concern. 18erhaps one has doubts as to whether this example qualifies as an instance of inter-species expression of affect, but let's assume for a moment that it does. 19It might then be said to qualify as non-conventional in a couple of senses, when we draw upon Marmor's (Searlean) distinction between "surface conventions" and "deep conventions"."Surface conventions" can be understood as the "regulative rules" that promote coordination in human interaction (2009: 32 ff.); that I should drive on the left in Ireland, that I should call a desk "bureau" in Dutch or French (Marmor, 2009: 62)."Deep conventions" can be understood as the "constitutive rules" underlying human behaviours, linguistic and otherwise, which "do not merely regulate, they create or define new forms of behaviour" (Marmor, 2009: 32, citing Searle).20 Thus, "surface conventions" prescribe certain behaviours in certain situations, like where to place the go-ishi on the goban in a game of go."Deep conventions" set the terms in which such behaviours and their effects can make sense in the first place ('game,' 'move,' 'liberty').
On the back of this understanding of 'conventionality,' the orcas' expression of affect would qualify as non-conventional in both of these senses.On the one hand, at the level of surface conventions, it seems very unlikely that there existed at the time of the hunt (if ever) some "conventional procedure" (Austin), i.e., some typical, prescribed practice or move of expressive action, which would have allowed the hunter to understand how the orcas were putting to each other, to the hunter, or to the world their concern, fear, or dismay. 21On the other hand, it seems equally unlikely that we humans, with our hunters, have been party with the orcas to some "deep convention" of expressive affect, which defined for the one or the other what ought to count as a cry, as dismay, as abduction, and so on.Perhaps one would say that the hunter (or I) made the mistake of anthropomorphising the orcas when he took them to be "communicating back and forth"-thus he mistook their cries for the kind of expression that some humans would conventionally make if their offspring were being abducted.While that interpretation of the events seems possible, I'd be sceptical about whether it justifies the claim that there was some conventionality involved in the orcas' cries, or in the hunter's being touched by them; one can wonder what it was, about such cries, that induced the hunter into such a 'mistake' in the first place.Nonetheless, whatever one makes of the orcas' cries and the hunter's sorrow at hearing them, the basic thought is that among humans, where there is a question of the (non-)conventionality of expression of affect, 'non-conventional' should be taken to cover both of the senses of convention just outlined. 22With respect to the lifeguard, I can't make sense of flag-waving, but I can see something about it; it shows me their concern, as does their demeanour, and both seem directed at me.This seeing makes me go, "Oh bleep". 23 It may seem that the question of how there can be non-conventional expression of affect, where expression is understood under the terms I've just proposed, simply reduces to the question of whether there can be communication that is non-conventional.I would have no problem with seeing the former question as part of the much larger latter question; indeed, here I come to my underlying motivation for taking an interest in non-conventional expression of affect.What is an account of non-conventional expression of affect even good for?One way to frame this is with respect to speech act theory.In short, when the use of linguistic or paralinguistic resources is understood as a form of action, an important issue is how to understand the range of effects that such action can bring about.This range may include not only effects on other persons or on one's environment but also other effects, namely, in other persons or in the world.These would be social or non-empirical in nature; for instance, by bringing about novel states of affairs and transformations of the normative and evaluative features of the world. 22Perhaps there is some weaker version of the non-conventionality of expression of affect available here, where the expression is non-conventional in terms of not being a part of a "surface convention" while being part of a "deep convention".But that question would take us far afield. 23These remarks are indicative of how I would respond to a possible Searlean objection to the example of the lifeguard.A Searlean might say that there is a convention in play from the moment I see someone as a lifeguard, and thus it matters not whether I understand their flag-waving or shouting or whatever.If I can recognise someone as a lifeguard, this means I know what they are for and the kinds of things they do.And so, the objection would run, any question of non-conventional expression of their concern becomes unnecessary, because one can reasonably expect that I will know to get out of the water when the lifeguard engages in some kind of activity in my direction.
This kind of objection does not seem entirely unreasonable; perhaps the background of my knowledge helps me to make sense of the situation.But I do not think that the Searlean version of the example can accommodate how I might experience myself as being addressed by the lifeguard's activities, how I might grasp that their activities are about a danger in my environment, or how I am instigated to pay attention to certain of their activities but not others (flag-waving, but not their stretching their arms).There needs to be a trigger for taking their activities in a certain way, which I would locate in their expression of affect.

Communicative Action, Illocution, and Force (Non-)Conventionalism
When a lifeguard perceives that in my swimming I am exposed, unknowingly, to a particularly venomous jellyfish or a powerful riptide, and is suitably concerned to take action towards my situation, there are different sorts of things they could do.They could start kicking sand on my belongings while attempting to make sure that I see them doing so, or they could just throw rocks at me.They could yell out, "there's free ice cream for everyone," or they can warn me about the danger: "the jellyfish is going to sting you".
Only the last two actions might plausibly be described as a form of communicative action that the lifeguard would take in view of their concern, but still, there is an important difference between the two.According to the theory of language and action as put forward by Austin, Searle, and others, what this difference comes down to is how only the warning counts as a 'speech act'.That is, what makes the warning unlike the lifeguard shouting "Free ice cream!" is that the former can be characterised as a form of illocution.While the history and controversies surrounding these terms may be very well known to some, let me briefly state what characterising warnings as illocutions involves, drawing on some ideas from Austin.
The notion of illocution would capture a distinctive manner in which communicative actions can make sense to ourselves and to others, and indeed make sense at all-whether undertaken by linguistic or paralinguistic means (or both). 24For Austin, the specificity of illocution surfaces in comparing the ways in which we intend for our communicative actions, like uttering warnings or other things, to have effects either on others or in the world around us.Something the lifeguard could intend, in view of their concern, when shouting "Free ice cream!" is to tempt me out of the water.As Austin puts it, such tempting or luring would be what the lifeguard would be "doing by" their shouting (1962: 106f.). 25In this way, the lifeguard's shouting has meaning in terms of its "perlocutionary intention," namely as seeking to bring about certain "empirical effects or consequences" as a result of "a communicative act" (Récanati, 1987: 179).Such intended effects could be, for instance, getting all the swimmers, including me, out of the water, or instilling in me and others a desire to do so. 26 The lifeguard's issuing a warning can also be understood in terms of how it might similarly bring about such "perlocutionary effects"-it might make me feel afraid or make me run for the beach-and that perspective sheds an important light on the 24 Here I follow Hare and others in thinking that illocution is part of the meaning of utterances (1997: 50).See note 29. 25 Per Mulligan, these can be also referred to as "a speaker's second-order intentions," i.e., the 'why' behind a promising, requesting, declaring, etc. (1987: 14). 26In (1987), Récanati seems wary of saying much more about perlocutionary effects other than that they are kinds of real-world consequences which the successful performance of a communicative act does not entail.Bach and Hamish (1979) define perlocutionary acts as those by which a speaker can "affect" a hearer (4, 16 ff.).See Kissine (2013) for a more recent account of perlocution and illocution in line with theirs.One might also attempt to distinguish perlocutionary acts from illocutionary ones in terms of how perlocutionary intentions seem not to require recognition of their aim by the person targeted by them; i.e., I do not need to understand why that person is shouting "Free ice cream!" in order for their perlocutionary intention to be fulfilled.But that gets complicated.meaning of the warning, concerning what the lifeguard utters in respect of what they intend for me to do, feel, or think.However, consideration of the warning's perlocutionary effects does not exhaust the kinds of effects that the warning may reach, or that the lifeguard may intend in their utterance.For this reason, taking the warning as a perlocutionary act thereby does not exhaust how the warning can have meaning.Consider: let's say the lifeguard issues the warning, but I still do nothing.In light of their warning, the lifeguard observes "no empirical effect" such as my getting out of the water.About such a case, we could not definitively say that no communicative action had been successfully realised, or that the action of warning had had no intended effect.For there may well have been quite an important effect; namely, at a minimum, my recognition or uptake of the lifeguard's warning.Glossing Austin, this would be my hearing what the lifeguard utters and 'taking it in a certain sense ' (1962: 115).This other kind of effect is illocution, and on many accounts, the lifeguard's intention to produce such an effect is to be characterised as their intending that the utterance have an "illocutionary force," namely, of a warning.
Substantial debates in the literature notwithstanding, Récanati provides a helpful overview of what illocution involves (1987: 9 ff.).Clearly, this depends on just what type of illocution is being performed-a warning or a betrothal, a command or an entreaty-but more generally, successful performance of a communicative action with illocutionary force can be seen to involve the following.First, it means that a unique, temporally individuated token of a social situation has been instantiated.At a minimum, this tokenised situation is the communicative situation, in which uptake has come to obtain: i.e., a situation in which there are one or more addressors and one or more parties addressed by or in that situation.Yet depending on the type of illocution, on account of uptake persons either targeted in, party to, or represented by the utterance may also be "assigned social roles" or complementary parts to play: promiser and promisee, consenter and consentee. 27Second, illocution is marked by a representation of a "state of affairs" which is to be "satisfied" (Récanati, 1987: 13).The pledge of one's service is to be kept, the warning about the jellyfish is to be heeded, the enactment of a law is to be taken as legitimate and official. 28The nature of this 'representation' is a knotty issue; there need not be, e.g., linguistic representation of this state of affairs in order for there to be a speech act."Watch out!" as a warning can be perfectly fine. 29Third, a distinctive set of "moves" or actions becomes either available or (im)permissible, in function of the state of affairs to be satisfied, for each of the persons party to the speech act.Communicative actions like waiving a promise or answering a question, but also other actions like ignoring a warning arguably only become available in social situations in which there has been uptake of a speech act of those respective types.Yet such uptake can also entail a shift in the (normative) significance of other actions or fields of actions.Speech acts have a normative "flow" through their illocutionary effects, thereby opening certain avenues of action or closing off others (Smith & Searle, 2003: 286).When there has been consent or the enactment of a trespass or legalisation law, we can be permitted to do things that we normally would or should refrain from, and also proscribed from doing what we are wont to do.
There is a profound issue here; on account of what do certain forms of communicative action come to function as illocutions, that is, come to have the kinds of illocutionary effects just described?Austin's answer was 'conventions' (or "conventional procedures" (1962: 14, 27)), and the view that this engendered has come to be known as force conventionalism.30Linguistic expression or other forms of expression can on Austin's view only have such illocutionary effects because of certain well-worn social practices.These are deep waters indeed, because the question, and Austin's kind of answer to it, is even more complicated than it might first appear.We can break it up into a 'why' question and a 'how' question, even though they are quite entangled.First, why do we have the illocutions that we do, with the effects that they have, and do we need conventions for all or some or none of them?On one side of this discussion, we have Reinach's 'social act' essentialism, according to which what we are discussing as illocutionary effects are to be considered as features of certain a priori structures of social interaction (2012). 31Somewhere else in that spectrum, we might place Searle, who would say that certain kinds of speech acts, as generating or 'instituting' "deep conventions," give rise to and enable other kinds of speech acts-thus many of our speech acts can be explained in terms of conventions. 32hen there is a 'how' question-in the jargon, how is it that illocutionary force is applied by a speaker to certain linguistic utterances or other forms of utterance (e.g., iconic or deictic gestures), and how does it get understood by an addressee or recipient as an illocution, and as one type rather than another?As Strawson pointed out (1964), this is not just a semantic question, regarding how certain words may tend to be used with certain illocutions.Consider an indirect speech act, like my saying to someone, "I'll drive you to the airport".This could be a promise, a threat, or something else.How can it be understood as a speech act as such, and then, in the right way, with the force with which I intend it?The content ('phatic' and 'rhetic') of my utterance is of little help for its illocutionary disambiguation.In some cases, such disambiguation may rely upon convention; perhaps this is what is going on when the priest says "Speak now, or forever hold your peace".But as Strawson and others have claimed, convention cannot be the only or most convincing answer here; there are also non-conventional means that allow for the speech act to be intended and understood: that is, in order for its illocutionary effects to be realised. 33One such non-conventional resource is the Gricean idea of conversational implicatures, that is, the ways in which we can make reasonable inferences to grasp a speaker's meaning-illocutionary or otherwise-from the context in which it was uttered.Still another answer to the 'how' question builds off the idea that social understanding can be reached directly, i.e., non-inferentially; namely, where "to perform such an [illocutionary] act is simply to express (or rather, manifest) a certain intention" (Récanati, 1987: 215f.).One type of this 'manifestation' would be the use of so-called "explicit performatives," i.e., "I hereby warn you that the bull is going to charge".But a legitimate question is whether there are other, similarly direct, non-conventional means whereby "a speech act is performed by means of the hearer's recognition of the speaker's communicative intention" (Récanati, 1987: 88).Here, we come to the question of expression of affect, and the non-conventionality thereof.Could expression of affect count as such a "manifestation of a certain intention" and thereby, as an application of force?34 Could expression of affect have a role in the illocutionary disambiguation of linguistic utterances?Also, if speech acts are thought to include not only linguistic utterances to which illocutionary force is applied but also paralinguistic expressions-gestures for instance, as Austin and Reinach already considered-could consideration of expression of affect as a component thereof help us to understand how such paralinguistic expressions are intended and understood in their illocutionary force?
Certainly, expression of affect-at least along the stipulated lines outlined above-can be understood in terms of having a role in perlocutionary intentions (Kissine, 2013: 13).As to the connection between (non-conventional) affect expression and illocution, this seems like a path less travelled, but one such account can be found in Green (2009). 35Because of the evolutionary-biological perspective he brings into consideration, it would take up quite some space properly to lay out Green's premises and analysis.But let us explore in a few words how he connects expression of affect and illocution, in order to see why I think another direction for exploring that relation remains open.
In ( 2009), Green develops his earlier claim that "[i]t is essential to a wide variety of speech acts that when performed in all propriety they express a state of thought or feeling" (2007: 70).To explain why certain speech acts have to express such states, and why they correspondingly can enable knowledge of those states for recipients of speech acts, Green elaborates a notion of communicative "handicaps" drawn from the biological study of communication systems.A "handicap" would be a "signal" that would be difficult or very costly for a form of life to simulate, like how the heaviness of a spider can signal its strength and thereby scare off rivals competing for a web, or like how my appearance and demeanour as a billionaire heir can induce people not to press me for payment of open expenses.Transferred to the discussion of speech acts, Green's proposal is that handicaps can also be incurred in terms of the "psychological states" and feelings we have or not, and this can help explain the norms of sincerity that are in play when, e.g., someone gives thanks or issues a curse.If one were not in the appropriate psychological state (presupposing the "introspectible" feeling of gratitude or contempt, respectively (2009: 154)) and yet performed such a speech act, one would risk a loss of credibility or status, and the value of one's discursive contributions in social situations would be diminished.It is because of the handicaps (and their underlying risks) we face in communicative interaction that our speech acts can be said to be expressions, albeit indirect ones, of the relevant psychological states that are presupposed by different sorts of speech acts-concern in warnings, conviction in assertions.Likewise, it is because of such handicaps that recipients can rely on our speech acts for knowledge (albeit defeasible) of those states.While Green's account connects illocution and expression of affect, what is important is that it should be seen as the reverse of what I am interested in.Where Green wants to understand how speech acts can count as expressions of affects (and other psychological states), I want to understand how expressions of affect can count as a form of illocution, and thereby have a constitutive role in speech acts.

Teleological Affects, Coordination, and Uptake
Let me sketch out a proposal for the question I suppose to be open.It is a tall order; not only to say something about what non-conventional expression of affect involves, but also about how that could have a role to play in illocution.I think an attempt on this challenge can be nicely launched if one adopts a rich yet plausible view on affects, one that looks at them from a dynamic perspective.This perspective tends to be lost in some discussions, even when theorists ostensibly seem to attribute some dynamic character to affects, for instance through notions such as 'affect programs' or 'gut reactions'.
This dynamic perspective on affects is broadly anchored in some ideas put forward by Karl Bühler in his Ausdruckstheorie (1933a) and Theory of Language (2011). 36My warrant for connecting it to illocution is that if Bühler's views make a 36 I say 'broadly' because, amongst other stools betwixt which I may fall, Bühler does not seem to have an explicit account of speech acts (Mulligan, 1988).Also, I am using the term expression in a looser sense than the technical one he sometimes assigns it.The latter is where expression is one of three basic linguistic functions, namely, as a divulging of what one is feeling, as when I loudly gasp in pain at the doctor's office (Bühler, 2011: 35).In fact, what I have proposed as expression of affect could be seen as a hybrid of Bühler's categories of the 'expressive' and 'appellative' (Ausdruck and Auslösung).Third of all, Bühler seems to take some forms of communication (i.e., linguistic) as conventional (2011: 36f.), but not all.place for expression of affect "in many if not all standard linguistic episodes" (Mulligan, 1988: 205), then this should hold in the case of speech acts as well.This view on affects can be summed up in three claims.First, some kinds of affects are teleological in character.This is grounded in Bühler's primarily communal view of the human being and adverts to (those) affects as both intentional and as involving (the pursuit of) one or some satisfactional states.The second claim is that the teloi of certain of those affects require coordination with one's environment or with other forms of life, as either their primary aim (their satisfactional state) or as a means to that aim.Expression of affect can be a way of realising such coordination.The third claim is that certain of those coordinations can involve or require uptake.As Bühler might say, for every steering there has to be a being steered, where in some cases such coordination requires not simply a two-sided steering, but a co-or joint steering.
That some affects are teleological may not go far enough for Bühler, but it should not seem too controversial a claim; for some, it will seem like not much more than sliced bread.What I mean by teleological should not be taken in some high flung sense, but in a rather weak one, which is based on a couple of Bühlerian "commonplaces," as Mulligan might put it (2012: 127).One, communal life is the alpha and omega for any understanding of human phenomena, and thus of expressive and affective phenomena (Bühler, 2011: 35;Ungeheuer, 1967Ungeheuer, : 2076)); two, communal life gives each person much to deal with, and much to resolve, and this is reflected, among other manners, in their affects.Together, these imply that if, according to Bühler, "our affects and volitions are usually directed to and oriented on and motivated by things and states of affairs" (2011: 462), it is crucially (but not only) via what we "reap and sow" in our social lives that we encounter such 'things and states of affairs ' (1933a: 148).That is Bühler take social coordination -with its paths smoother in some cases, rougher in others-as the paradigmatic framework from which to understand affects and their coming to expression.Such a point of departure is why Bühler makes fun of Wundt (and elsewhere, Husserl) as a kind of thinker who conceives of human expressive phenomena from the solipsistic perspective of a "Diogenes in a Barrel," i.e., of an entity living a frictionless, dreamy existence, its "tentacles" drawn in on itself (Bühler, 1933a: 135).If Wundt looks on with wonder at the harmonious embodied orchestration involved when humans manifest affectsin heart rate and breath, in face and in words-Bühler struggles to contain his stupefaction at the fact that it hardly occurs to theorists of Resonanz and direct affect perception like Wundt to ask, "why the orchestra is playing?" (Bühler, 1933a: 147). 37 Understanding affects as teleological is in line with the idea, floated earlier with respect to Austin, that certain affects have as a necessary part of their experience an impulse to act upon the world or upon others; for instance, in my humiliation or fear I might want to flee certain situations or else destroy the root causes that give rise to them.And understanding certain affects to have this character allows for a couple of things.First, it allows for a way of referring to the intentional character of those 37 For an account of Bühler's critique of Wundt and its relevance to the contemporary study of gesture and multimodal communication, see Vassilicos (2021).affects while vitrifying, for my current purposes, some potent issues surrounding which intentions are involved in affects, and how: that is, questions about the 'formal' objects or other kinds of content of such intentions.Just as importantly, characterising affects as teleological emphasises the idea that certain affects have satisfactional states.To be sure, we may not always understand very well these satisfactional states when undergoing these affects; in confronting a danger, I may strongly feel that something needs to be done, without being exactly clear on what that is.Yet with practice, self-understanding, and help from others, we can gain clarity on what will satisfy our and others' affects.The satisfactional state of the lifeguard's concern can be the state-of-affairs of my getting out of the water, or that of my having been put sufficiently on my guard concerning my immediate environment.Third, it seems plausible to claim that where some affects have satisfactional states, expression of that affect can be a means-solely, or in conjunction with other forms of action-of attaining the affect's satisfactional state. 38 The claim that affects are teleological does not only mean that our affective experiences impact our lives with others, for instance, as we navigate how to reach the teloi 'represented' in those affects, i.e., their satisfactional states.By Bühler's lights, it also means that our lives with others steer our affective experiences.This basically means that coordination with others (or lack thereof) can be both a ground of a teleological affect, or a primary or secondary aim of one.Sometimes the affect may have a coordination with one or some other persons as its foremost aim; as when I aim to have a 'phatic' emotional connection, in Jakobson's sense, with someone through a dance or a gaze.In other cases, the coordination may be a means to an end, as when a parent gingerly pushes a pram so as not to aggravate the outburst of the crying child.
Coordination in this context is a way of recasting the central Bühlerian notion of "steering" (Steuerung), which is not about asserting the autonomy of the will; more subtly, his concept of steering concerns how in our communal life we are as much steered by and with others as steering of them, i.e., caught up in a process of "reciprocal control". 39Still, the connection between coordination and affects may not seem so clear; how is it that affects can seek coordination, or involve it?I should first clarify that among the set of teleological affects, only some may involve coordination.As an example of a teleological affect that is linked to expression but not coordination, consider what one feels when being confronted with some farce within the human comedy; in such a moment, sometimes only an exclamatory "Feck" will do.In this case, there seems to be some intention and also the teleology of a satisfactional state (release; distance-taking), but it is not necessarily an expression for or with someone or something.So we might say that this is a teleological, but not coordinative affect.Other affects can be teleological and coordinative; this is how I would describe the lifeguard's concern.They see the situation evolving before them; 38 The Bühlerian tenor of these claims could be further justified in terms of his analysis of paratactic sentences (compound utterances such as 'Timeo.Ne moriatur'.['I fear.(That) he may not die'.]).See Bühler (2011: 461 ff.). 39See A. Eschbach, "Postscript," in Bühler (2011: 512).their concern is growing.In order to manage or stabilise that concern (which should not be confused with extirpating it), the lifeguard may seek to express their concern in such a way as to align my behaviour or my own affects and psychological state with the satisfactional state aimed at in their concern.Here we are back at waving flags and limbs, and warning and luring, in which the affect is expressed in order to secure coordination between myself and them.Such coordination is a necessary condition for their affect of concern to reach its satisfactional state.
Coordinations with other persons or forms of life can be one or two-sided, and there is no reason to think they can only be reached via convention. 40One-sided coordinations are often in terms of inanimate environmental features but need not be; think of driving on the Autobahn or running with the bulls in Pamplona.Twosided coordinations can include the way the parent and the child adapt their behaviour to each other, or again, how the lifeguard will leave me alone once I exit the water to receive ice cream from them. 41I would argue, however, that some kinds of satisfactional states aimed at in teleological affects even go beyond such two-sided coordinations.This is to say, on the one hand, that there can be two-sided coordination without recognition or uptake, as in how two people, unaware of each other, can coordinate in turning a crank with a wall between them. 42On the other, uptake may already be a sufficient or necessary condition for some satisfactional states of affect, in a way that two-sided coordinations are not.The example of amorous desire could once more be invoked here; generalising Sartre's analysis (1980), one's own desire seeks an overt and reciprocal relationship, as manifested in the caress and its response, with the desire of another, and for that there needs to be uptake.
But this point can also be made if we consider the example of the lifeguard from a Bühlerian "cybernetic" perspective (Ungeheuer, 1967), that is, according to two contextual factors that could impact and constrain the lifeguard's concern.One such constraint would be when the lifeguard would have many other things to pay attention to, and so may be too preoccupied to track whether I actually do get out of the water, where this needn't be a function of the sincerity of their concern.Under such a constraint, the satisfactional state of their concern may simply be reassurance that I am aware of the threatening situation, where this can already be furnished by my grasping their warning.In this case, the uptake is sufficient in a way that moots other or further two-sided coordination.Another kind of constraint would be when they might witness erratic behaviour on either my part or that of the jellyfish; it may be that my exiting the water alone, as a form of two-sided coordination, will not be enough to stabilise their concern, i.e., will not suffice for the satisfactional state of their concern.Over and above any (defeasible) evidence of my coordination with them in terms of my behaviour and theirs, they might aim to have reassurance that I understand the situation as they see it, and that I will not get back into the water.And this satisfaction of their concern requires, in part at least, my uptake if 40 For one thing, coordinations tend to underlie or give rise to conventions. 41 not acknowledgement of how I am tied up or implicated within the satisfactional state of their concern.
Summing up, the lifeguard's expression of their concern (by shouting something or by manipulating their body or artefacts in the environment) can be a means by which they seek to satisfy their concern, by establishing some coordination between myself and them.However, on the last two depictions of that expression of the lifeguard's concern, such expression has been shown to take a form that, in my view, looks very much like illocution.In seeking a kind of coordination with me, the lifeguard may or must, in function of their type of concern and the constraints of the situation, seek to express their affect in such a way as to secure my uptake of it.Importantly, at least for the purposes of illocution, this uptake on my part could not simply come down to a recognition of their intention; their intention, for instance, to manifest concern.Instead, this uptake would have to be of the teleology of their concern; in grasping their expression of affect, I would have to be oriented in my grasp of their concern to the state of affairs that would satisfy it, and to the field of action to which that state refers.So to speak, I'd have to see and understand my own part to play in their concern: that is, how I as swimmer can steer their concern, just as their concern would steer me.
Is it plausible that expressions of affect-by body or by implement, by voice or gesture-engender such rich and complex recognitions?Here, Bühler's idea that expressions of affect ought not to be considered solely as "revelations of interiority" can function as a crucial resource (Friedrich, 2012: 210).Rather, under his "action theory of expression," bodily movements such as gestures but also interactions with the environment or implements (the lifeguard's flags, the skill with which they do so) can orient an addressee beyond the present, towards what is not present, and in this way those bodily movements can take on a special meaning.This is what Bühler calls "deixis in Phantasma"-an expression of a bodily orientation, on the part of one person, which aims to guide another person's attention and action towards a situation removed from their "common perceptual situation" (Ungeheuer, 1967(Ungeheuer, : 2076;;Friedrich, 2012: 209).Put roughly, the body of the expresser can be thought of as a canvas in which these other scenes or "worlds" are made or rendered present ("presentified," Bühler, 1933a;Friedrich, 2012), and this seems an important idea for describing how the satisfactional state of one's person affect can be expressed for and understood by another; it is the body and its expressive orientation beyond the hic et nunc that helps someone else understand what the teleological affect is directed towards.Bühler takes this idea as amply demonstrated in the theatrical arts where, importantly for my premises, such "presentifications" can be achieved independent of convention. 43This idea of expression of affect seems ripe for consideration of its efficacy in terms of the illocutionary effects discussed earlier.It can help explain how, when warnings are considered as involving affect expression, novel state-of-affairs are constituted.The expression of affect (concern, fear for another) and its uptake can be understood as the means by which, e.g., a lifeguard steers a swimmer towards recognition of the situation in which a warning has been issued, and the normative implications for action that follow for each.
Important parts of this postulate-that certain affects are teleological, that coordinations may be involved in their satisfactional states, and that uptake of the expressed affect constitutes one subset of such satisfactional states-remain to be clarified.In concluding, let me consider one criticism.Wouldn't giving expression of affect a role in illocution, in the manner I have suggested, be problematic in that it would seek to explain illocutionary acts in terms of perlocutionary ones? 44That is, my proposal would be guilty of attempting to reduce the intentions constituting speech acts to "second-order intentions" (Mulligan).wouldn't be sure of how much of a concern this is.While rejecting the claim that the illocutionary can in all cases be "defined" in terms of the perlocutionary, Récanati seems open to allowing perlocutionary intentions to ground some kinds of illocution, and in terms of exhortations and warnings, Hare in both (1971: 53f.) and (1997: 50f.) seems to suggest something similar.The claim here is along those lines; not all illocutions may be understood in terms of expression of affect, but some can.I would submit that by describing certain expressions of affect as seeking to steer others and concomitantly seeking to be steered by others, we have precisely one interesting case, though perhaps with limited extension, of how there may be a "reductive analysis" of certain "'illocutionary' notions, in mainly psychological terms" (Récanati, 1987: 137).
See Di Paolo et al (2018: 25 ff.) for a useful account of these different types of coordination. 42See Di Paolo et al (2018: 67, 144 ff.) for discussion of this experiment by Reed and Peshkin.