Article published in:
Metapragmatics of Humor: Current research trends
Edited by Leonor Ruiz-Gurillo
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 14] 2016
► pp. 235–254

Smiling, gaze, and humor in conversation

A pilot study

| Texas A&M University — Commerce, Applied Linguistics Laboratory
| Texas A&M University — Commerce, Applied Linguistics Laboratory
| Texas A&M University — Commerce, Applied Linguistics Laboratory

This paper presents a pilot study, which is part of a larger research project intended to shed light on the role of smiling as a marker of humor in naturalistic conversation. Building on previous research (Attardo, Pickering, and Baker 2011; Calvo, Fernández-Martín, and Nummenmaa 2013; Calvo, Gutiérrez-García, Avero, and Lundqvist 2013; Heerey and Crossley 2013), a mixed methods approach was adopted to collect qualitative and quantitative data in order to determine if there is a relationship between gaze patterns, humorous events, and the smiling behavior of native English speakers taking part in a dyadic face-to-face conversation. Preliminary results show that occurrence of humor and increased participants’ attention to the mouth and eyes areas of the interlocutor’s face tend to co-occur.

Keywords: smiling, humor markers, eye-tracking, gaze, discourse analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Humor in interaction
  • 3.Eye-tracking in interaction
  • 4.Eye-tracking and humor in conversation
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Eye-tracking set-up
      • 4.1.2Participants
      • 4.1.3Data collection
    • 4.2Pilot study
      • 4.2.1Results
  • 5.Discussion of results
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 24 November 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.14.12gir
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