diff --git a/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref.adoc b/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref.adoc
index ebce4c294cc..5cee5eac42b 100644
--- a/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref.adoc
+++ b/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref.adoc
@@ -2,4 +2,12 @@
 = Language Reference
 :page-section-summary-toc: 1
 
-This section describes how the Spring Expression Language works.
+Spring Expression Language (SpEL) expressions are composed of a sequence of tokens such
+as literals, operators, method invocations, and so forth.
+
+Whitespace can be used freely between tokens to format and improve the readability of
+expressions. Specifically, the `\s` (space), `\t` (tab), `\r` (carriage return), and `\n`
+(newline) characters are all valid separators between tokens. However, whitespace is
+ignored by the expression parser unless it is part of a string literal.
+
+The following sections describe the features and syntax of SpEL.
diff --git a/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref/literal.adoc b/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref/literal.adoc
index 5e60c6697ba..a191ed6f935 100644
--- a/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref/literal.adoc
+++ b/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/core/expressions/language-ref/literal.adoc
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@
 = Literal Expressions
 
 SpEL supports the following types of literal expressions.
-The `\s`, `\t`, `\r` and `\n` characters are all valid separators between tokens.
 
 String ::
   Strings can be delimited by single quotation marks (`'`) or double quotation marks