Laura Vincze

Communicative functions of eye closing behaviours

This work presents a typology of eye closing behaviours based on a semantic taxonomy of communicative signals. The types of eye closing we investigate are blinks, eye-closures and winks performed during political debates. While other studies in the literature attempt to classify blinks and eyeclosures according to their duration or (in)completeness of the closure, our study aims to distinguish between communicative and non communicative types of eye closing, and among the former category, between different meanings possibly conveyed by closing ones eyes. We argue that while winks are always communicative, i.e. they bear a meaning, blinks and eye-closures may have a communicative value too. To analyse eye closing types both an observational and a Speakers judgement approach are adopted, and the items of eye closings exemplified are classified on the basis of a semantic taxonomy that distinguish signals as to their conveying information on the World, on the Senders mind or on the Senders Identity.

Ignorance-unmasking questions in the Royal–Sarkozy presidential debate: A resource to claim epistemic authority

The article presents an analysis of the ways in which knowledge is displayed, contested and renegotiated in the 2007 French presidential debate between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. Knowledge displays can be achieved through a series of ‘neutral’ resources, such as informing, explanation or comment, or through face-damaging resources, such as questioning an unknowledgeable interlocutor to prove his inferior epistemic status (K−) and boost one’s own. The article focuses on this latter type of knowledge display where a knowledgeable participant (K+) engages in question–answer sequences with an unknowledgeable respondent (K−) in front of a third party (the audience). The article also undertakes an analysis of the multimodal strategies employed by the (K+) participant to discredit the (K−) opponent (ironic smiles and laughter). The article intends to contribute to the existent literature on epistemic stance by offering a prototypical example of incongruence between the epistemic status (K+) of the questioner and the epistemic stance he adopts (unknowing K).

Direct and Indirect Verbal and Bodily Insults and Other Forms of Aggressive Communication

The chapter outlines a model of insult in terms of a socio-cognitive view of multimodal communication. After setting it apart from other types of aggressive communication, like curse, imprecation and bad words, it explores its social and emotional causes and effects in everyday life and political communication, and finally proposes a semantic and pragmatic analysis of direct and indirect, verbal and bodily insults in Italian political talk shows and social media.