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Multimodal Communication from a Construction Grammar Perspective
Edited by Kiki Nikiforidou and Mirjam Fried
[Constructional Approaches to Language 38] 2025
► pp. 190–219

An evidential function of raised eyebrows in interaction

Marking a differential in expectations

| University Paris Nanterre
In the course of interaction, raised eyebrows is a facial display that can express a wide range of meanings, e.g. surprise, recognition, salience, or the anticipation of a response. I argue that these meanings are united by a common evidential feature: they mark a relation between the speaker and addressee’s respective knowledge or attitudes. More specifically, this intersubjective core function is to express a differential in expectations. In order to identify the form’s main functions and their multimodal contextual profiles (clusters of features), I combine quantitative statistical methods (multiple correspondence analysis), based on the fine-grained annotation of the corpus data (220 occurrences), with the qualitative analysis of excerpts. Sequential position is a key feature: in turn-initial position raised eyebrows mark a response, in turn-medial position they mark salience, and in turn-final position, other-orientation. In turn-initial and turn-final position raised eyebrows are multifunctional: they contribute to regulating turn-taking while displaying an attitude towards the previous or upcoming turn. As a visual form with a stable core meaning, raised eyebrows qualify as a recurrent gesture. Based on the characteristics of multifunctionality, intersubjectivity, and functional specialization depending on sequential position, raised eyebrows could also qualify as a visual pragmatic marker.
Keywords: raised eyebrows, facial expression, facial display, semantic field of expectation, evidentiality, recurrent gesture, visual pragmatic marker, multiple correspondence analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Corpus and method
  • 3.Overview of the coding results
    • 3.1Main formal features
      • 3.1.1Sequential position
      • 3.1.2Gesture stroke and hold
      • 3.1.3Synchronization with, or isolation from, speech
      • 3.1.4Synchronization with a tonic accent
    • 3.2Multifactorial analysis
  • 4.Qualitative analyses: Occurrences in their contexts of use
    • 4.1Turn-initial position: Expressing counter-expectation
    • 4.2Turn-initial position: Expressing re-cognition
    • 4.3Turn-medial position: Marking salience
    • 4.4Turn-final position: Marking other-orientation
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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