Kaukomaa2015
| Kaukomaa2015 | |
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| BibType | PHDTHESIS |
| Key | Kaukomaa2015 |
| Author(s) | Timo Kaukomaa |
| Title | Facial Expressions as an Interactional Resource in Everyday Face-to-Face Conversation |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Facial Expression, Finnish, Emotion, Affect |
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| Year | 2015 |
| Language | English |
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| URL | Link |
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| School | University of Helsinki |
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Abstract
This study examines facial expressions in naturally occurring face-to-face interaction. The focus is on how facial expressions (e.g., smiles and frowns) are part of the collaborative construction and modification of shared emotional stances between speakers and hearers. The data corpus of this study consists of five recorded dyadic Finnish conversations over lunch between individuals who were familiar with each other. The conversations were recorded with three video cameras: two cameras recorded the participants facial expressions and upper bodies and one camera the overall situation. The method of this study is conversation analysis, which makes it possible to examine how participants use their facial expression, move-by-move or turn-by-turn, in the joint negotiation processes of shared emotional stances. The dissertation consists of three original articles and an introduction. In the introduction, I lay out the central concepts and the perspective of the study, describe the data and method, and provide an overview and short examples of the results of the study. I also discuss at a more general level the ways in which my study contributes to earlier studies on embodied socio-emotional communication, and to our understanding of social interaction and social life. The analysis highlights the important role facial expressions have in construction and modification of the public emotional sphere of conversation. The emotional sphere is in continuous transformation, as the participants collaboratively negotiate their situational relationship and interpersonal (in)congruence with regard to the activity at hand. The articles 1 and 2 examine how speakers turn initial facial expression (a smile or a frown) contributes to the action of the utterance it foreshadows and to the larger sequential environment. The results show that the interactional trajectories of these turn-opening facial expressions vary substantially: smiles are first steps to a shared moment of positive or humorous stance, whereas frowns initiate a problem turn that creates momentary distance between participants. The article 3 demonstrates the ways in which recipients facial expression may shift the emotional stance of the speaker s utterance. The recipient s facial expressions play a major role in the collaborative modification of shared emotional stance. They do not simply mirror the speaker s stance or display understanding of the speaker s talk; rather, they perform well-timed systematic operations on the projected course of the talk. The contribution of the article is to show how speakers and hearers work in collaboration using subtle and well-timed facial (and other) expressions of emotion in order to negotiate, move-by-move, the emotional stance(s) that they will share. This study reveals the significance of facial expressions in communicative actions and in the regulation of situational affective relationship between speakers and hearers in mundane interactions. These processes resonate with the larger social structures and the reproduction of micro-social order.
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