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Thinking Face

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 07:37:47 GMT

Thinking Face

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 07:28:28 GMT

Created page with "{{Infobox cite | Authors = '''Alexandra Groß''' (University of Bayreuth, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8850-0605) & '''Carolin Dix''' (University of Innsbruck, Austri..."

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{{Infobox cite
| Authors = '''Alexandra Groß''' (University of Bayreuth, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8850-0605) & '''Carolin Dix''' (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
| To cite = Groß, Alexandra, & Dix, Carolin. (2026). Thinking Face. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics''. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [ ]
}}

'''Thinking face''' refers to recurrent configurations of facial gestures, gaze and head movements that serve the interactional purpose of displaying ongoing mental processes to the interlocutor. The term ‘thinking face’ was coined by Goodwin & Goodwin (1986) to refer to speakers’ recurrent embodied – specifically facial – movements and postures during word searches (for similar descriptions see also Darwin 1872; Ekman 1979). As an embodied practice of ‘doing thinking’ (e.g., Heller 2021), it is conceptualized as a resource that contributes "to organizing thinking as public practice" (Heller 2021: 2).

The thinking face can involve different configurations of parts of the face (see figure 1). A general observation on obligatory physical components of the thinking face was first made by Goodwin & Goodwin (1986), who observed speakers averting their gaze when searching for a word. Goodwin (1987: 117) provides a more precise description of the "out-of-focus 'middle-distance' look", that is, the unfocused gaze directed at a medium distance. Heller (2021) similarly describes an imaginative gaze and vivid eye movement as intrinsic features; Ekman (1979: 185) observes "eyes looking up as if the word was to be found on the ceiling". Beyond gaze movements, the bodily configuration of the thinking face may involve pursing and slackening of the lips and lowered eyelids (see Goodwin & Goodwin 1986). Chovil (1991) observes further components such as lowered eyebrows or a frown (see also Ekman 1979), but depending on the conversational context, speakers may, in contrast, raise their eyebrows.

[[File:Groß_Dix_thinking_fig1.png|250px]]

'''Figure 1: Thinking face (Thermomix corpus, C. Dix & A. Groß)'''

Example (1), showing children engaging in joint imagining, illustrates the internal configuration of the thinking face (speaker SAR on the right side of both stills) as well as its combination with further embodied practices. It shows that the thinking face may occur with ''thinking postures'' (ibid.) as part of a '''multimodal gestalt''' (Mondada 2014) which reflects the local demands of the activity: In Example 1, the speaker (on the right side) places the fingers on the sides of her head, which is held in a tilted position. The thinking face appears together with a wrinkled nose and narrowed eyelids that embody the process of visually focusing and 'zooming in' on an imagined scene (Heller 2021: 8).

(1) (Heller 2021: 7)

[[File:Groß_Dix_thinking_fig2.png|600px]]

In order to make the thinking-face configuration a ''recognizable action'' (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986: 69), it is aligned with the verbal conduct as illustrated in Example (2) for a word search: Here, speaker A begins to produce a thinking face right at the beginning of perturbations of turn production and continues it upon the marking of a repair. After finishing the gesture, A self-repairs by resuming the verb, then producing the target word and finishing the TCU.

(2) (Goodwin & Goodwin 1986: 59)

[[File:Groß_Dix_thinking_fig3.png|250px]]

While turning away and withdrawing gaze may, in other sequential environments, be interpreted as disengaging from interaction, the usage of the thinking face within perturbations and/or pauses of ongoing turn production (Example 2) in fact indicates an intensified involvement in the word search and a continued commitment to the sequential development of the shared course of action.

Recipients attend to the producer of the thinking face and monitor their ongoing engagement in the activity. Under certain conditions, the thinking face may provide the recipient with an 'entry point' into ''collaborative turn-production'' (Lerner 1996, 2004): If the speaker looks at their partner while searching for the right word, this can be interpreted as an invitation to participate in the search, whereas looking away signals that they do not want to be interrupted. Thus, it can be the ongoing thinking face gesture or the abandoning of it – especially the (re-)turning of the gaze towards the interlocutor – that establishes opportunities for participation, e.g., by providing support with a word search (Goodwin & Goodwin 1986). If the ''recipient'' of an utterance produces a thinking face, this may be interpreted as a sign of trouble (e.g., a referential problem), leading speakers to expand their turn in order to resolve it (Stolle & Pfeiffer 2023).

The thinking face can be produced in further sequential environments: Besides word searches and initiations of other-repair in referential problems (Stolle & Pfeiffer 2023), it has also been described for activities such as argumentative decision-making in children’s interaction (Heller 2021) or storytelling (Bavelas & Chovil 2018). At the beginning of narratives, speakers might produce a prolonged thinking face (ibid.: 107–113), which signals that the speaker will keep the turn for the purpose of narrating. During argumentative decision-making among children, the main functions of the thinking face center around "creating epistemic ecologies for collaborative reasoning" (Heller 2021: 2), i.e., to (co-)imagine and "embody a hypothetical scenario", to engage in "thoughtful searching", and to do "critical thinking" about (a part of) an argument (ibid.: 5). The reciprocal use of the thinking face of both speaker and recipient is seen as an established participation framework for ''joint imagination''.

A different but related function of the thinking face is displaying uncertainty (Goodwin, 1987), i.e., downgrading the speaker’s '''[[Epistemic Stance|epistemic stance]]''' about a statement he or she is about to make. This modalizing use of the thinking face alters the frame for interpreting an utterance (Heller 2021: 3).

Descriptions of the thinking face from conversation analysis have also informed experimental studies on human–android interaction. Namba et al. (2024) implemented the combination of furrowed brows and narrowed eyelids in an android and found that it increased the recipients’ perception of thoughtfulness, authenticity, human-likeness, and appropriateness, while reducing the android’s 'eeriness'.

'''Additional Related Entries:'''

* '''[[Affective_stance|Affective Stance]]'''
* '''[[Emotion]]'''
* '''[[Empathy]]'''
* '''[[Facial_Gestures|Facial Gestures]]'''
* '''[[Gaze]]'''
* '''[[Multimodal_Gestalt|Multimodal Gestalt]]'''

'''Cited References:'''

Andries, F., Meissl, K., de Vries, C., Feyaerts, K., Oben, B., Sambre, P., Vermeerbergen, M., & Brône, G. (2023). Multimodal stance-taking in interaction. A systematic literature review. ''Frontiers in Communication'', 8, 1187977.

Bavelas, J., & Chovil, N. (2018). Some pragmatic functions of conversational facial gestures. ''Gesture'', 17(1), 98–127.

Bavelas, J.; Gerwing, J., & Healing, S. (2014). Including facial gestures in gesture-speech ensembles. In M. Seyfeddinipur & M. Gullberg (Eds.), ''From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance: Essays in honor of Adam Kendon''. John Benjamins, 15–34.

Catford, J. C. (1988). ''A practical introduction to phonetics''. Oxford University Press.

Chovil, N. (2024). From the neck up. Facial gestures in dialogue. In: A. Cienki (ed.). ''The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies''. Cambridge University Press. 112-130.

Clift, R. (2021). Embodiment in dissent: The eye roll as an interactional practice. ''Research on Language and Social Interaction'', 54(1), 1–16.

Clift, R., & Rossi, G. (2023). Speaker eyebrow raises in the transition space: Pursuing a shared understanding. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Cooperrider, K., & Nunez, R. (2012). Nose-pointing. Notes on a facial gesture in Papua New Guinea. ''Gesture'', 12(2). 103-129.

Deppermann, A., & Schmidt, A. (2021). Micro-sequential coordination in early responses. ''Discourse Processes'', 58(4), 372–396.

Dix, C., & Groß, A. (2023). Surprise about news or just receiving information? Moving and holding both eyebrows in co-present interaction. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Ekman, P. (1979). About brows. Emotional and conversational signals. In: M. von Cranach, et al. (Eds.): ''Human ethology. Claims and Limits of a New Discipline'' (pp. 169-249). Cambridge University Press.

Ekman, P. (1970). Universal facial expressions of emotion. ''Californian Mental Health Research Digest'', 8(4). 151-158.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W.V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior. Categories, origins, usage, and coding. ''Semiotica'', 1(1), 49–98.

Enfield, N. J. (2001). ‘Lip-pointing': A discussion of form and function with reference to data from Laos. ''Gesture'', 1(2), 185–212.

Feyaerts, K., Rominger, C., Lackner, H. K., Brône, G., et al. (2022). In your face? Exploring multimodal response patterns involving facial responses to verbal and gestural stance-taking expression. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 190, 6-17.

Goodwin, M. H., & Goodwin, C. (1986). Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word. ''Semiotica'', 62(1-2), 51–75.

Groß, A., Dix, C., Ruusuvuori, J., & Peräkylä, A. (2023). Facial gestures in social interaction. Introduction to the special issue. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Gudmundsen, J., & Svennevig, J. (2020). Multimodal displays of understanding in vocabulary-oriented sequences. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 3(2).

Heath, C.; vom Lehn, D.; Cleverly, J., & Luff, P. (2012). Revealing surprise. The local ecology and the transposition of action. In A. Peräkylä & M. L. Sorjonen (Eds.), ''Emotion in Interaction'' (pp. 212–234). Oxford University Press.

Heller, V. (2021). Embodied displays of ‘doing thinking'. Epistemic and interactive functions of thinking displays in children's argumentative activities. ''Frontiers in Psychology'', 12, 1–21.

Holler, J. (2025). Facial clues to conversational intentions. ''Trends in Cognitive Sciences'', 29(8), 750–762.

Hömke, P., Levinson, S. C., Emmendorfer, A. K., & Holler, J. (2025). Eyebrow movements as signals of communicative problems in human face-to-face interaction. ''Royal Society Open Science'', 12(3), 241632.

Hömke, P., Holler, J., & Levinson, S. (2017). Eye blinking as addressee feedback in face-to-face conversation. ''Research on Language and Social Interaction'', 50(1), 54-70.

Katila, J. (2023). The experiencing face: Communicative and felt aspects of the face during kissing and hugging between romantic partners. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Kaukomaa, T., Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2014). Foreshadowing a problem: Turn-opening frowns in conversation. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 71, 132–147.

Kaukomaa, T., Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2013). Turn-opening smiles: Facial expression constructing emotional transition in conversation. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 55, 21–42.

Kääntä, L. (2014). From noticing to initiating correction: Students’ epistemic displays in instructional interaction. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 66, 86-105.

Kärkkäinen, E., & Thompson, S. A. (2018). Language and bodily resources: 'Response packages' in response to polar questions in English. ''Journal of Pragmatics'' 123, 220–238.

Kärkkäinen, E., & Keisanen, T. (2012). Linguistic and embodied formats of making (concrete) offers. ''Discourse Studies'', 14(5), 587–611.

Kendon, A. (2004). ''Gesture: Visible action as utterance''. Cambridge University Press.

Kupetz, M. (2014). Empathy displays as interactional achievements: Multimodal and sequential aspects. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 61(4-34).

Levinson, S. C. (2013). Action formation and ascription. In T. Stivers, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), ''The handbook of conversation analysis'' (pp. 103-130). Wiley-Blackwell.

Mondada, L. (2011). Understanding as an embodied, situated and sequential achievement in interaction. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 43, 542–552.

Mondada, L. (2021). How early can embodied responses be? Issues in time and sequentiality. ''Discourse Processes'', 58(4), 397–418.

Nota, N., Trujillo, J.P., & Holler, J. (2023), Conversational eyebrow frowns facilitate question identification: An online study using virtual avatars. ''Cognitive Science'', 47: e13392.

Nota, N.; Trujillo, J. P., & Holler, J. (2021). Facial signals and social actions in multimodal face-to-face interaction. ''Brain Sciences'', 11, 1017.

Oloff, F. (2018). ‘Sorry?'/‘Como?'/‘Was?' – Open class and embodied repair initiators in international workplace interactions. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 126, 29–51.

Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2012). Facial expression and interactional regulation of emotion. In A. Peräkylä & M.-L. Sorjonen (Eds.): ''Emotion in Interaction'' (pp. 64-90). Oxford University Press.

Reis de Souza, M. (2024). Multimodal responses to questions: turn-initial oh coordinating with raised eyebrows in video-mediated interaction. ''Gesprächsforschung – Onlinezeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion'', 25, 54-74.

Ricci Bitti, P. (2014). Facial expression and social interaction. In C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, D. McNeill & J. Bressem (Eds.), ''Body – Language – Communication. An international Handbook on Multimodality and Human Interaction'' (pp. 1342-1349). De Gruyter Mouton.

Ruusuvuori, J., & Peräkylä, A. (2009). Facial and verbal expressions in assessing stories and topics. ''Research on Language and Social Interaction'', 42(4), 377–394.

Selting, M. (2017). The display and management of affectivity in climaxes of amusing stories. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 111(1–32).

Shor, L. (2024). Eye closures in spoken Hebrew. Conversational functions and meaning semiosis. ''Pragmatics''.

Stolle, S. I., & Pfeiffer, M. (2023). Stand-alone facial gestures as other-initiations of repair. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Wang, X., & Li, X. (2023). Teachers’ eyebrow and head movements and repeats as other-initiations of repair in second-language classrooms. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Wiggins, S., & Keevallik, L. (2023). Transformations of disgust in interaction. The intertwinement of face, sound and the body. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality''. 6(2).

*

=== EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'facial gesture' ===
{{#widget:Iframe
|url=https://emcawiki.net/bibtex/browser.php?keywords=facial&bib=emca.bib
|border=0
}}

File:Groß Dix thinking fig3.png

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File:Groß Dix thinking fig2.png

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Facial Gestures

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 07:16:42 GMT

File:Dix Groß facialgestures fig.png

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Facial Gestures

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 07:01:58 GMT

Created page with "{{Infobox cite | Authors = '''Carolin Dix''' (University of Innsbruck, Austria) & '''Alexandra Groß''' (University of Bayreuth, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8850..."

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{{Infobox cite
| Authors = '''Carolin Dix''' (University of Innsbruck, Austria) & '''Alexandra Groß''' (University of Bayreuth, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8850-0605)
| To cite = Dix, Carolin, & Groß, Alexandra. (2026). Facial Gestures. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics''. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [ ]
}}

The term '''facial gestures''' – similarly, ''facial conversational signals'' (Ekman 1979: 169), ''conversational facial gestures'' (Bavelas & Chovil 2018) or ''facial displays'' (Chovil 2024: 113) – refers to movements of parts of the human face that are used by interlocutors to perform visible actions and serve referential or (meta)pragmatic functions in conversation (Ekman 1979: 169; Bavelas et al. 2014; Chovil 2024: 113). Therefore, facial gestures contribute to action formation (Levinson 2013) and organizing talk-in-interaction. EMCA studies have emphasized their functions for "building intersubjective understanding and affective alignment in co-present interaction, as well as around organizing talk and interaction" (Groß et al. 2023: 2).

The term is used by Ekman (1970: 151), who draws a clear distinction between ''facial gestures'' and ''facial expressions'', the latter being related to the display of internal emotional states (Ekman 1970: 151; see also Bavelas & Chovil 2018; Chovil 2024: 112, FN 1; see especially Ekman & Friesen 1969; Ekman 1979). Being taken up within gesture research (Kendon 2004), some studies rather use the term ''facial expression'' to refer to both concepts (e.g. Bitti 2014) or to interlocutors’ practices of taking an affective stance (e.g. Peräkylä & Ruusuvuori 2012; Katila 2023).

An additional distinction is made between ''facial gestures'' and ''facial dynamics'' such as the eye blink or facial movements during a sneeze "which primarily serve physiological functions" (Groß et al. 2023: 2 FN1). While the functions of facial gestures are primarily grounded in conversation, also facial expressions as well as facial dynamics can be made interactively relevant by interlocutors (see Wiggins & Keevallik 2023 for the ‘disgust display’, see Shor 2024 for the ‘eye closure’), i.e., they may be meaningful and consequential for the ongoing conversation.

The different parts of the human face provide a multitude of (combinations of) positions and movements which can be used as facial gestures within social interaction. Kendon (2004: 310) includes "eyebrow movements or positioning, movements of the mouth, head postures and sustainments and changes in gaze direction" as possible bodily resources for facial gestures, but also movements and configurations of forehead, nose, chin, tongue and cheeks can adopt functions of a gesture (Cooperrider & Nunez 2012; see also Groß et al. 2023). While some facial gestures are complex, including more than one facial resource and possibly several additional resources such as head or gaze movements (see the so-called '''thinking face''' (Goodwin & Goodwin 1986, Heller 2021), which consists of a middle-distance look and several additional elements such as raising or lowering the eyebrows), others rather appear as single-form facial gestures, such as the ''eyebrow flash'' (e.g., Ekman 1979), the ''horseshoe mouth'' (e.g., Chovil 2024: 121), or the ''eye roll'' (Clift 2021). Facial gestures can be produced by current speakers as well as by recipients (e.g., Feyaerts et al. 2022); they occur as co-speech gestures as well as stand-alone elements in various sequential environments in face-to-face or computer-mediated settings. To date, the conversational use of facial resources as facial gestures has been the object of numerous studies in the tradition of EMCA and related interactional approaches describing and highlighting the multimodal complexity and multifunctionality of facial gestures in social interaction (see Andries et al. 2023; Holler 2025):

'''Additional Related Entries:'''

* '''[[Complaint]]'''
* '''[[Compliment]]'''
* '''[[Context]]'''
* '''[[Deontics]]'''
* '''[[Epistemics]]'''
* '''[[Identity]]'''
* '''[[membership_categorization_device|Membership Categorization Device]]'''
* '''[[Participation]]'''
* '''[[Participation_framework|Participation Framework]]'''
* '''[[Professional_vision|Professional Vision]]'''

'''Cited References:'''

Andries, F., Meissl, K., de Vries, C., Feyaerts, K., Oben, B., Sambre, P., Vermeerbergen, M., & Brône, G. (2023). Multimodal stance-taking in interaction. A systematic literature review. ''Frontiers in Communication'', 8, 1187977.

Bavelas, J., & Chovil, N. (2018). Some pragmatic functions of conversational facial gestures. ''Gesture'', 17(1), 98–127.

Bavelas, J.; Gerwing, J., & Healing, S. (2014). Including facial gestures in gesture-speech ensembles. In M. Seyfeddinipur & M. Gullberg (Eds.), ''From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance: Essays in honor of Adam Kendon''. John Benjamins, 15–34.

Catford, J. C. (1988). ''A practical introduction to phonetics''. Oxford University Press.

Chovil, N. (2024). From the neck up. Facial gestures in dialogue. In: A. Cienki (ed.). ''The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies''. Cambridge University Press. 112-130.

Clift, R. (2021). Embodiment in dissent: The eye roll as an interactional practice. ''Research on Language and Social Interaction'', 54(1), 1–16.

Clift, R., & Rossi, G. (2023). Speaker eyebrow raises in the transition space: Pursuing a shared understanding. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Cooperrider, K., & Nunez, R. (2012). Nose-pointing. Notes on a facial gesture in Papua New Guinea. ''Gesture'', 12(2). 103-129.

Deppermann, A., & Schmidt, A. (2021). Micro-sequential coordination in early responses. ''Discourse Processes'', 58(4), 372–396.

Dix, C., & Groß, A. (2023). Surprise about news or just receiving information? Moving and holding both eyebrows in co-present interaction. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Ekman, P. (1979). About brows. Emotional and conversational signals. In: M. von Cranach, et al. (Eds.): ''Human ethology. Claims and Limits of a New Discipline'' (pp. 169-249). Cambridge University Press.

Ekman, P. (1970). Universal facial expressions of emotion. ''Californian Mental Health Research Digest'', 8(4). 151-158.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W.V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior. Categories, origins, usage, and coding. ''Semiotica'', 1(1), 49–98.

Enfield, N. J. (2001). ‘Lip-pointing': A discussion of form and function with reference to data from Laos. ''Gesture'', 1(2), 185–212.

Feyaerts, K., Rominger, C., Lackner, H. K., Brône, G., et al. (2022). In your face? Exploring multimodal response patterns involving facial responses to verbal and gestural stance-taking expression. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 190, 6-17.

Goodwin, M. H., & Goodwin, C. (1986). Gesture and coparticipation in the activity of searching for a word. ''Semiotica'', 62(1-2), 51–75.

Groß, A., Dix, C., Ruusuvuori, J., & Peräkylä, A. (2023). Facial gestures in social interaction. Introduction to the special issue. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Gudmundsen, J., & Svennevig, J. (2020). Multimodal displays of understanding in vocabulary-oriented sequences. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 3(2).

Heath, C.; vom Lehn, D.; Cleverly, J., & Luff, P. (2012). Revealing surprise. The local ecology and the transposition of action. In A. Peräkylä & M. L. Sorjonen (Eds.), ''Emotion in Interaction'' (pp. 212–234). Oxford University Press.

Heller, V. (2021). Embodied displays of ‘doing thinking'. Epistemic and interactive functions of thinking displays in children's argumentative activities. ''Frontiers in Psychology'', 12, 1–21.

Holler, J. (2025). Facial clues to conversational intentions. ''Trends in Cognitive Sciences'', 29(8), 750–762.

Hömke, P., Levinson, S. C., Emmendorfer, A. K., & Holler, J. (2025). Eyebrow movements as signals of communicative problems in human face-to-face interaction. ''Royal Society Open Science'', 12(3), 241632.

Hömke, P., Holler, J., & Levinson, S. (2017). Eye blinking as addressee feedback in face-to-face conversation. ''Research on Language and Social Interaction'', 50(1), 54-70.

Katila, J. (2023). The experiencing face: Communicative and felt aspects of the face during kissing and hugging between romantic partners. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Kaukomaa, T., Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2014). Foreshadowing a problem: Turn-opening frowns in conversation. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 71, 132–147.

Kaukomaa, T., Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2013). Turn-opening smiles: Facial expression constructing emotional transition in conversation. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 55, 21–42.

Kääntä, L. (2014). From noticing to initiating correction: Students’ epistemic displays in instructional interaction. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 66, 86-105.

Kärkkäinen, E., & Thompson, S. A. (2018). Language and bodily resources: 'Response packages' in response to polar questions in English. ''Journal of Pragmatics'' 123, 220–238.

Kärkkäinen, E., & Keisanen, T. (2012). Linguistic and embodied formats of making (concrete) offers. ''Discourse Studies'', 14(5), 587–611.

Kendon, A. (2004). ''Gesture: Visible action as utterance''. Cambridge University Press.

Kupetz, M. (2014). Empathy displays as interactional achievements: Multimodal and sequential aspects. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 61(4-34).

Levinson, S. C. (2013). Action formation and ascription. In T. Stivers, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), ''The handbook of conversation analysis'' (pp. 103-130). Wiley-Blackwell.

Mondada, L. (2011). Understanding as an embodied, situated and sequential achievement in interaction. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 43, 542–552.

Mondada, L. (2021). How early can embodied responses be? Issues in time and sequentiality. ''Discourse Processes'', 58(4), 397–418.

Nota, N., Trujillo, J.P., & Holler, J. (2023), Conversational eyebrow frowns facilitate question identification: An online study using virtual avatars. ''Cognitive Science'', 47: e13392.

Nota, N.; Trujillo, J. P., & Holler, J. (2021). Facial signals and social actions in multimodal face-to-face interaction. ''Brain Sciences'', 11, 1017.

Oloff, F. (2018). ‘Sorry?'/‘Como?'/‘Was?' – Open class and embodied repair initiators in international workplace interactions. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 126, 29–51.

Peräkylä, A., & Ruusuvuori, J. (2012). Facial expression and interactional regulation of emotion. In A. Peräkylä & M.-L. Sorjonen (Eds.): ''Emotion in Interaction'' (pp. 64-90). Oxford University Press.

Reis de Souza, M. (2024). Multimodal responses to questions: turn-initial oh coordinating with raised eyebrows in video-mediated interaction. ''Gesprächsforschung – Onlinezeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion'', 25, 54-74.

Ricci Bitti, P. (2014). Facial expression and social interaction. In C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, D. McNeill & J. Bressem (Eds.), ''Body – Language – Communication. An international Handbook on Multimodality and Human Interaction'' (pp. 1342-1349). De Gruyter Mouton.

Ruusuvuori, J., & Peräkylä, A. (2009). Facial and verbal expressions in assessing stories and topics. ''Research on Language and Social Interaction'', 42(4), 377–394.

Selting, M. (2017). The display and management of affectivity in climaxes of amusing stories. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 111(1–32).

Shor, L. (2024). Eye closures in spoken Hebrew. Conversational functions and meaning semiosis. ''Pragmatics''.

Stolle, S. I., & Pfeiffer, M. (2023). Stand-alone facial gestures as other-initiations of repair. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Wang, X., & Li, X. (2023). Teachers’ eyebrow and head movements and repeats as other-initiations of repair in second-language classrooms. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality'', 6(3).

Wiggins, S., & Keevallik, L. (2023). Transformations of disgust in interaction. The intertwinement of face, sound and the body. ''Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality''. 6(2).

*

=== EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'facial gesture' ===
{{#widget:Iframe
|url=https://emcawiki.net/bibtex/browser.php?keywords=facial&bib=emca.bib
|border=0
}}

Epistemic Stance

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 05:49:22 GMT

Epistemic Status

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 05:48:31 GMT

Epistemics

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 05:46:46 GMT

Epistemic Authority

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 05:45:54 GMT

Epistemic Authority

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:33:06 GMT

Created page with "{{Infobox cite | Authors = '''John Heritage''' (UCLA, USA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8603-6447) | To cite = Heritage, John. (2026). Epistemic Authority. In Alexandra Gubin..."

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{{Infobox cite
| Authors = '''John Heritage''' (UCLA, USA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8603-6447)
| To cite = Heritage, John. (2026). Epistemic Authority. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics''. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [ ]
}}

'''Epistemic authority''' refers to the superior positioning in terms of knowledge, information or knowhow persons concerning some state of affairs relative to their co-participants in social interaction as a settled and legitimate matter. The term suggests that, relative to others, a participant may be more (K+) or less (K-) knowledgeable in relation to some state of affairs as a matter of socially sustained and public recognition, and that such a participant may prevail over others in the presentation of knowledge or information. Although there can be a close association between epistemic and deontic authority (Heritage 2009, 2019; Lindström & Weatherall 2015; Peräkylä 1998; Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2012; Stivers et al. 2018), the two elements are conceptually quite distinct. While epistemic authority encompasses rights to prevail in terms of information in some field, it does not embrace the deontic right to set the terms for some course of action (see Stevanovic 2023). Sociologically however, epistemic authority and deontic authority can be closely related: they may co-occur or align, and one may give rise to the other especially in professional fields such as medicine, but also in everyday contexts.

Epistemic authority is expressed in ways that involve complementary stances in which authoritative speakers tend to express themselves through assertions with few qualifications, while less authoritative speakers downgrade their assertions using a variety of resources including weak epistemic modals (e.g. She seems like a nice little lady (Heritage and Raymond 2005:18) and tag questions. In the following case, a neighbor evaluates a grandmother’s grandchild using this latter practice: “They're a lovely family now ar'n't they.” (line 3).

(1) [Rah 14: 2] (Heritage & Raymond 2005: 20)

1 Jen: Mm [I: bet they proud o:f the fam'ly.=
2 Ver: [Ye:s.
3 Jen: -> =They're [a luvly family now ar'n't [they.
4 Ver: [°Mm:.° [They are: ye[s.
5 Jen: [eeYe[s::,
6 Ver: [Yes,
7 Jen: Mm: All they need now is a little girl tih complete i:t.

The sequential positioning of these actions can frequently be critical, for example assessments with tag questions downgrade an assertion that is made in first position, but upgrade it in second position (Heritage & Raymond 2005; Raymond & Heritage 2006).

Epistemic authority may derive from a variety of sources. Some of the knowledge possessed by individuals is grounded in their own personal experiences, memories, relationships and so on. Here epistemic authority derives from direct experience, and this is recognized as a primary source of epistemic authority in the many languages of the world that, using evidentials for example, register distinctions between personal experience, inference and hearsay as sources of information while favoring personal experience as a source (Aikhenvald 2004, 2021).

Beyond personal experience, almost every field of human endeavor from pole vaulting, to NASCAR racing to diamond cutting is populated by persons who vary in knowledge, experience, skill and knowhow. The epistemic communities that form around these activities therefore tend to be characterized by epistemic hierarchies. Epistemic authority (and social power; Foucault 1980; Starr 1982) accrues to those at the top of these hierarchies, and will tend to be reciprocated with deference from those lower down.

A variety of professions, most notably medicine and the law, have been established through the formation of organizations with monopoly control over the knowledge and training required to enter the profession (Abbott 1988; Starr 1982). In these cases, the authority of professional expertise can find itself in conflict with epistemic claims deriving from the personal experience of clients despite the institutionalized authority of professionals (Drew & Heritage 1992; Heritage & Clayman 2010; Heritage & Maynard 2006; Peräkylä 1998; 2002; 2006; Stivers et al. 2018). The role of epistemic authority in the creation of power, and the implementation of such power in circumstances of social inequality, can lead to epistemic injuries and injustice (Fricker 2007, 2017).

'''Additional Related Entries:'''

* '''[[Deontics]]'''
* '''[[Deontic authority|Deontic Authority]]'''
* '''[[Epistemics]]'''
* '''[[Epistemic Status]]'''
* '''[[Epistemic Stance]]'''

'''Cited References:'''

Abbott, A. (1988). ''The System of the Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor''. University of Chicago Press.

Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2004). ''Evidentiality''. Oxford University Press.

Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2021). The web of knowledge: Evidentiality at the cross-roads. In ''The Web of Knowledge'' (pp. 1-139). Brill.

Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (Eds.). (1992). ''Talk at Work: Language Use in Institutional and Work-Place Settings''. Cambridge University Press.

Foucault, M. (1980). ''Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977''. Pantheon Books.

Fricker, M. (2007). ''Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing''. Oxford University Press.

Fricker, M. (2017). Evolving concepts of epistemic injustice. In I. J. Kidd, J. Medina, & G. Pohlhaus Jr. (Eds.), ''Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice'' (pp. 53-60). Routledge.

Heritage, J. (2009). Negotiating the Legitimacy of Medical Problems: A Multi-phase Concern for Patients and Physicians. In D. Brashers & D. Goldsmith (Eds.), ''Communicating to Manage Health and Illness'' (pp. 147-164). Routledge.

Heritage, J. (2019). The expression of authority in US primary care: Offering diagnoses and recommending treatment. In C. Gordon (Ed.), ''Approaches to Discourse Analysi''s (pp. 104-122). Georgetown University Press.

Heritage, J., & Clayman, S. E. (2010). ''Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities and Institutions''. Blackwell-Wiley.

Heritage, J., & Maynard, D. (Eds.). (2006). ''Communication in Medical Care: Interactions between Primary Care Physicians and Patients''. Cambridge University Press.

Heritage, J., & Raymond, G. (2005). The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in assessment sequences. ''Social Psychology Quarterly'', 68(1), 15-38.

Lindström, A., & Weatherall, A. (2015). Orientations to epistemics and deontics in treatment discussions. ''Journal of Pragmatics'', 78, 39-53.

Peräkylä, A. (1998). Authority and accountability: The delivery of diagnosis in primary health care. ''Social Psychology Quarterly'', 61(4), 301-320.

Peräkylä, A. (2002). Agency and Authority: Extended responses to diagnostic statements in Primary care encounters. ''Research on Language and Social Interaction'', 35(2), 219-247.

Peräkylä, A. (2006). Communicating and responding to diagnosis. In J. Heritage & D. Maynard (Eds.), ''Communication in Medical Care: Interactions between Primary Care Physicians and Patients'' (pp. 214-247).
Cambridge University Press.

Raymond, G., & Heritage, J. (2006). The epistemics of social relations: Owning grandchildren. ''Language in Society'', 35, 677-705.

Starr, P. (1982). ''The Social Transformation of American Medicine''. Basic Books.

Stevanovic, Melisa. (2023). Deontics. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics''. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA).

Stevanovic, M., & Perakyla, A. (2012). Deontic Authority in Interaction: The Right to Announce, Propose, and Decide. ''Research on Language & Social Interaction'', 45(3), 297-321.

Stivers, T., Heritage, J., Barnes, R. K., McCabe, R., Thompson, L., & Toerien, M. (2018). Treatment recommendations as actions. ''Health Communication'', 33(11), 1335-1344.

'''Additional References:'''

=== EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'epistemic authority' ===
{{#widget:Iframe
|url=https://emcawiki.net/bibtex/browser.php?keywords=authority&bib=emca.bib
|border=0
}}

Epistemic Status

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:25:07 GMT

Epistemic Stance

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:24:39 GMT

File:Heritage EStance fig1.jpg

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Epistemic Stance

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:13:28 GMT

Epistemic Stance

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:12:53 GMT

Created page with "{{Infobox cite | Authors = '''John Heritage''' (UCLA, USA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8603-6447) | To cite = Heritage, John. (2026). Epistemic Stance. In Alexandra Gubina,..."

New page

{{Infobox cite
| Authors = '''John Heritage''' (UCLA, USA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8603-6447)
| To cite = Heritage, John. (2026). Epistemic Stance. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics''. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [ ]
}}

In all '''[[Social_Action|social actions]]''', participants take up a stance. This stance comprises a public display of attitudes towards the situation of action, their co-participants and themselves (Du Bois 2007; Goffman 1955; Wu, Heritage & Raymond 2026). Stance can embrace displays of emotion (Goodwin, Cekaite & Goodwin 2012; Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2014), together with deontic (Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2012), epistemic (Heritage 2012a,b, 2013) and benefactive (Clayman and Heritage 2014) aspects, among many others. Within conversation analysis, '''epistemic stance''' refers to the displayed claim of knowledge or ignorance relative to others concerning some matter at hand. In general, the epistemic stance adopted by a person is shaped by a normative expectation that this stance should be congruent with the person’s '''epistemic status''', though this norm may be departed from on occasion.

Epistemic stance is conveyed via a very large and differentiated set of practices. One major axis involves the distinction between making assertions about states of affairs, thus conveying a knowledgeable or K+ stance on the matter at hand, as opposed to asking questions about some matter, thus conveying an ignorant or K- stance. In general, participants tend to exhibit some care in the epistemic stances they present in conversation. This can easily be observed in cases of repair (Drew et al. 2013). For example, in the following case Lesley reports having phoned Hal the previous night (lines 1-2), and begins to make an assertion about Hal’s whereabouts for which she lacks the relevant K+ status: “But you were-”. Cutting off this turn-in-progress, she revises the action from one of asserting to one of asking “u-were you ↑ou:t? which is more congruent with her K- status:

(1) [Field SO88(II):1:3:1] [Telephone call; Leslie is caller] (Drew et al. 2013: 76)

1 Hal: Oh ‘el[lo Lesl[ie?
2 Les: [.hhhh [I RANG you up- (.) ah: think it wz
3 la:s’ night. '''But you were- (.) u-were you ↑ou:t?'''
4 or: was it the night before per[↓haps.
5 Hal: [Uh:m night be↓fore I
6 expect we w’r dancing Tuesdee ni:ght.

Similarly, in the following a bystander is reporting a traffic accident to 911 emergency:

(2) [Call to 911: Caller is reporting a traffic accident]

1 911: Okay but they’re not injured ri:ght?
2 (.)
3 CLR: '''No they’re not injured.=They don’t look injured.=They say
4 they’re fine right [now''' you know but it always happens after.
5 911: [Okay

Across lines 3-4, the caller successively revises his response to 911’s (line 1) question about the possibility of injuries, from a flat declarative assertion (“No they’re not injured”), to an evidentialized assertion based on direct perception (“They don’t look injured”), to a hearsay report (“They say they’re fine right now”). As these cases illustrate, interactants tend to handle the matter of epistemic stance with some care.

It is perhaps for this reason that most languages contain multiple resources for managing and shading epistemic claims. A majority of the world’s languages (de Haan 2013) deploy evidentials to distinguish, for instance, what is directly observed, from what is merely inferred, or known from hearsay (Aikhenvald 2004, 2021). Similarly epistemic modality (Palmer 2001) is a resource deployed in many languages to adjust epistemic claims in terms of greater or lesser likelihood (van der Auwera & Ammann 2013; see also Bolden et al. 2023; Heritage 2010; Levinson 2012), and a related resource is the use of negative polarity items and other forms of negation to indicate the improbability of some state of affairs (Heritage and Raymond 2021). Some of these distinctions are indicated in Figure 1 below (from Levinson 2012), though this merely gestures at the range of variation involved.

[[File:Heritage_EStance_fig1.jpg|600px]]

'''Figure 1: Bolinger’s question-to-assertion cline (Levinson 2012: 16)'''

Relative epistemic claims are also, of course, lodged in sequences of action where variations in within-sequence actions are likewise used to adjust epistemic stance in terms of distinctive underlying epistemic statuses (Heritage and Raymond 2005; Raymond and Heritage 2006). It may be added that epistemic stances (and associated epistemic statuses) are straightforwardly consolidated across sequences, as in the following pair of cases:

[Sequence 1]

A: What's the time?
B: Three fifteen.
A: Oh thank you.

[Sequence 2]

A: What's the time?
B: Three fifteen.
A: That's right. Well done!

In Sequence 1, A’s third turn oh-receipt treats B’s response to his question as ‘news’ and the question as having embodied a genuinely K- stance (Heritage 1984). In Sequence 2, by contrast, A’s third turn confirmation treats the information in B’s response as already known to the questioner and, together with the praise of the answerer, treats the question as having been an ‘exam’ or ‘known answer’ question.

As previously noted, participants are generally careful to maintain congruence between epistemic stance and status concerning objects of knowledge, and may be held accountable for failures in this regard. It is possible that this congruence is a central resource in the early ascription of action to in-coming utterances which in turn permits rapid turn-transition in conversation (Levinson & Torreira 2015).

'''Additional Related Entries:'''

* '''[[Deontics]]'''
* '''[[Epistemic Rights]]'''
* '''[[Epistemic Authority]]'''
* '''[[Epistemics]]'''
* '''[[Epistemic Status]]'''

'''Cited References:'''

'''Additional References:'''

=== EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'epistemic stance' ===
{{#widget:Iframe
|url=https://emcawiki.net/bibtex/browser.php?keywords=stance&bib=emca.bib
|border=0
}}

Epistemic Status

ChaseRaymond — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:01:30 GMT

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 As previously noted, participants are generally careful to maintain congruence between epistemic stance and status concerning objects of knowledge, and may be held accountable for failures in this regard. It is possible that this congruence is a central resource in the early ascription of action to in-coming utterances which in turn permits rapid turn-transition in conversation (Levinson & Torreira 2015).
 '''Additional Related Entries:'''
@@ Line 112: / Line 113: @@
 Wu, R.-J., Heritage, J., & Raymond, C. W. (2026). Stance in interaction. In M. Burdelski & T. Greer (Eds.), ''The Routledge Handbook of Conversation Analysis'' (pp. 109-124). Routledge.

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:48, 31 August 2026
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	Trujillo, J. P., & Holler, J. (2025). Multimodal information density is highest in question beginnings, and early entropy is associated with fewer but longer visual signals. ''Discourse Processes'', 62(2), 69-88.		Trujillo, J. P., & Holler, J. (2025). Multimodal information density is highest in question beginnings, and early entropy is associated with fewer but longer visual signals. ''Discourse Processes'', 62(2), 69-88.
−
−	~~'''Additional References:'''~~

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 }}
-'''Epistemics''' is a topic of conversation-analytic inquiry, focusing on the knowledge claims that are asserted, contested and defended in social interaction. These claims are observable in the ways that persons design and implement social actions and sequences of them (Heritage 2024, see also Wootton 1989). The term derives form the Greek ''episteme'' meaning knowledge or understanding, and is the subject matter – epistemology – of a branch of philosophy. Research on epistemics is, together with the analysis of other dimensions of stance, especially deontics and affect (Stevanovic and Peräkylä 2014; Wu, Heritage & Raymond 2026), a central element drawing together the analysis of social interaction with sociological conceptions of identity, role, institutions and social structure.
+'''Epistemics''' is a topic of conversation-analytic inquiry, focusing on the knowledge claims that are asserted, contested and defended in social interaction. These claims are observable in the ways that persons design and implement social actions and sequences of them (Heritage 2024, see also Wootton 1989). The term derives form the Greek ''episteme'' meaning knowledge or understanding, and is the subject matter – epistemology – of a branch of philosophy. Research on epistemics is, together with the analysis of other dimensions of stance, especially deontics and affect (Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2014; Wu, Heritage & Raymond 2026), a central element drawing together the analysis of social interaction with sociological conceptions of identity, role, institutions and social structure.
 Epistemic issues are omnirelevant and ubiquitous features of social interaction (Heritage 2018) and are universal across the societies of the world. (The capacity to track the knowledge and social connections of others has also been argued to underly the evolutionary expansion of brain size relative to the size of social groups in hominids and other primates [Dunbar 2003]). From the point, normally reached between the ages of four and eight, that children are able to recognize differences between their own and others’ knowledge of the world (Astington 2006), they enter a world structured in terms of epistemic distinctions. (It seems likely that the representation of others’ beliefs can be traced to the functioning of single neurons [Jamali et al. 2021] where the latter may be an evolved feature of human sociality.) For example, in referring to a neighbor a person might simply use a first name, Mary, or a variety of more complex reference forms: ''Mary Smith''; ''Mrs. Smith''; ''John’s Mom''; ''Jane’s daughter''; ''Linda’s aunt''; ''David’s girlfriend''; ''my mother''; ''your aunt''; ''Fido’s owner''; ''the woman who drives the white BMW''; ''that neighbor of ours…'' and so on. While some or many of these expressions may be correct, the choice between them is most centrally shaped by what the recipient is presumed to know about ‘Mary’ and how she knows it (Schegloff 1972). The choice, in other words, is one made on epistemic grounds.
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 For example, from the earliest studies in CA onwards, epistemic issues have been seen as crucial to a wide variety of interactional processes. For example, Lerner (2003, see also Stivers & Robinson 2006; Raymond, Robinson and Bolden 2027) showed that epistemic status is implicated in next-speaker selection: K+ recipients are selected to speak next in contexts where there is differential knowledge access among potential recipients. In 1979, in a classic paper, Charles Goodwin showed that speakers will design and re-design turns to accommodate different recipients’ presumed knowledge. Again, numerous analysts from Sacks onwards have explored the centrality of epistemic issues in news delivery sequences, under the auspices of a general norm that bars speakers from telling things that recipients already know (Maynard 2003; Pomerantz 1980; Terasaki 2004). As noted above, Sacks and Schegloff showed the centrality of identifying the knowledge of a recipient as a means to design a recognizable reference to persons (Sacks & Schegloff 1979; Schegloff 1972, 1996, see also Heritage 2011). Epistemic issues have similarly been found to infuse many aspects of repair sequences, including self-repair (Drew, Walker & Ogden 2013; Raymond & Gill 2025) and responsibility for other-initiated repair (Robinson 2006, 2013). Finally, epistemic issues are central to many aspects of a very wide range of interactions in institutional contexts (Drew & Heritage 1992; Heritage and Clayman 2010).
@@ Line 132: / Line 131: @@
 Wu, R.-J., Heritage, J., & Raymond, C. W. (2026). Stance in interaction. In M. Burdelski & T. Greer (Eds.), ''The Routledge Handbook of Conversation Analysis'' (pp. 109-124). Routledge.

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 Epistemic authority is expressed in ways that involve complementary stances in which authoritative speakers tend to express themselves through assertions with few qualifications, while less authoritative speakers downgrade their assertions using a variety of resources including weak epistemic modals (e.g. She seems like a nice little lady (Heritage and Raymond 2005:18) and tag questions. In the following case, a neighbor evaluates a grandmother’s grandchild using this latter practice: “They're a lovely family now ar'n't they.” (line 3).
   <u>(1) [Rah 14: 2] (Heritage & Raymond 2005: 20)</u>
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 Stivers, T., Heritage, J., Barnes, R. K., McCabe, R., Thompson, L., & Toerien, M. (2018). Treatment recommendations as actions. ''Health Communication'', 33(11), 1335-1344.

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
-[[File:Heritage_ES_fig1.jpg|400px]]  [[File:Heritage_ES_fig2.jpg|500px]]
+[[File:Heritage_ES_fig1.jpg|250px]]        [[File:Heritage_ES_fig2.jpg|325px]]
-'''Figure 1: AB-Events'''        '''Figure 2: AB-Events'''
+'''Figure 1 (left), Figure 2 (right)'''
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 As previously noted, it is critical that the parties’ relative epistemic status in reference to some state of affairs is jointly shared, and ''known to be so''. This is made possible in part by the immense effort humans make to keep track of the knowledge and social affairs of others (Dunbar 2003; Sperber et al 2010), but also by the normative and sanctionable obligation to maintain congruency between epistemic status on the one hand, and '''[[Epistemic_Stance|epistemic stance]]''' on the other. This congruency generally enables speakers to trust that the stance towards some state of affairs that is expressed in an utterance is matched to the state of knowledge currently possessed by the speaker in question. Although this congruency may be broken from time to time, for example when speakers ask questions about matters about which they are in fact knowledgeable or, alternatively, claim authoritative knowledge about matters of which they are in fact ignorant. (Important exceptions to this generalization arise in specialized institutional contexts such as education, where teacher questioning is not designed to acquire information ''per se'', but rather whether the student knows the answer [Sinclair & Coulthard 1975; McHoul 1978]. Similarly, in news interviews and courtroom discourse, questions are rarely asked from a position of ignorance, but are rather aimed at inducing the recipient affirm some state of affairs [Clayman and Heritage 2002; Drew 1992].) And, of course, speakers may believe in and claim knowledge of matters concerning which, it will turn out, they are ignorant.
-In considering the overall relationship between epistemic status and '''epistemic stance''', it is clear that epistemic status plays the dominant role. As Heritage (2012) demonstrated, regardless of the epistemic stance taken by a speaker, epistemic status will exert a controlling influence on the action ascribed to an utterance. Thus, as Labov and Fanshel (1977) were the first to note, when a K- speaker makes an assertion, such as “You know where he is then”, this will be heard to implement questioning despite the fact that the remark does not take the form of a question. Relatedly, as Robinson (2013) has shown epistemic status plays a central role in determining whether declarative repeats are heard as repair initiation or as challenges.  In general, ‘declarative questions’ are the predominant form of questioning in English and many other languages (Bolden et al. 2023; Stivers 2010; Stivers et al. 2010). All are enabled by an orientation to the epistemic status of the speaker, and epistemic status is likely an essential resource for speakers of languages that lack linguistic markers of interrogativity, or whose markers are unreliable (Levinson 2012). Epistemic status, then, is an essential feature of action formation.
+In considering the overall relationship between epistemic status and '''[[Epistemic_Stance|epistemic stance]]''', it is clear that epistemic status plays the dominant role. As Heritage (2012) demonstrated, regardless of the epistemic stance taken by a speaker, epistemic status will exert a controlling influence on the action ascribed to an utterance. Thus, as Labov and Fanshel (1977) were the first to note, when a K- speaker makes an assertion, such as “You know where he is then”, this will be heard to implement questioning despite the fact that the remark does not take the form of a question. Relatedly, as Robinson (2013) has shown epistemic status plays a central role in determining whether declarative repeats are heard as repair initiation or as challenges.  In general, ‘declarative questions’ are the predominant form of questioning in English and many other languages (Bolden et al. 2023; Stivers 2010; Stivers et al. 2010). All are enabled by an orientation to the epistemic status of the speaker, and epistemic status is likely an essential resource for speakers of languages that lack linguistic markers of interrogativity, or whose markers are unreliable (Levinson 2012). Epistemic status, then, is an essential feature of action formation.
 Epistemic status is significant for action formation in another important sense. During the past fifteen years, it has become apparent that rapid turn-transition from speaker to speaker that is witnessed around the world could not occur without the initiation of response planning by the recipient in the course of the current speaker’s turn (Levinson 2013, 2016; Levinson & Torreira 2015). Evidence is mounting that a key element in this planning is identifying the action of the current speaker long before that action, and the turn it is housed in, comes to completion (Barthel et al. 2017; Bögels et al. 2015; Gisladottir et al. 2018). Considering the process of distinguishing a statement-in-formation from a question-in-formation, it can be noted that, in a majority of the world’s languages, many of the linguistically identifying features of questioning such as final intonation contours and question particles occur at turn endings (Dryer 2013a, 2013b). That is, they emerge long after the time at which it had become necessary for the next speaker to identify the turn as an assertion or a question etc. as a condition for preparing an on-time response. Current research suggests that there is a concentration of multimodal signaling early in an incoming turn, suggestive of support for early action projection (Trujillo & Holler 2025). It may also be suggested (Heritage 2022) that, in addition to sequential context, orientation to epistemic status makes a significant contribution to early action ascription in relation to the incoming utterance, and to action formation in the response to it.
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 '''Cited References:'''
 '''Additional References:'''

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 An additional distinction is made between ''facial gestures'' and ''facial dynamics'' such as the eye blink or facial movements during a sneeze "which primarily serve physiological functions" (Groß et al. 2023: 2 FN1). While the functions of facial gestures are primarily grounded in conversation, also facial expressions as well as facial dynamics can be made interactively relevant by interlocutors (see Wiggins & Keevallik 2023 for the ‘disgust display’, see Shor 2024 for the ‘eye closure’), i.e., they may be meaningful and consequential for the ongoing conversation.
-The different parts of the human face provide a multitude of (combinations of) positions and movements which can be used as facial gestures within social interaction. Kendon (2004: 310) includes "eyebrow movements or positioning, movements of the mouth, head postures and sustainments and changes in gaze direction" as possible bodily resources for facial gestures, but also movements and configurations of forehead, nose, chin, tongue and cheeks can adopt functions of a gesture (Cooperrider & Nunez 2012; see also Groß et al. 2023). While some facial gestures are complex, including more than one facial resource and possibly several additional resources such as head or gaze movements (see the so-called '''thinking face''' (Goodwin & Goodwin 1986, Heller 2021), which consists of a middle-distance look and several additional elements such as raising or lowering the eyebrows), others rather appear as single-form facial gestures, such as the ''eyebrow flash'' (e.g., Ekman 1979), the ''horseshoe mouth'' (e.g., Chovil 2024: 121), or the ''eye roll'' (Clift 2021). Facial gestures can be produced by current speakers as well as by recipients (e.g., Feyaerts et al. 2022); they occur as co-speech gestures as well as stand-alone elements in various sequential environments in face-to-face or computer-mediated settings. To date, the conversational use of facial resources as facial gestures has been the object of numerous studies in the tradition of EMCA and related interactional approaches describing and highlighting the multimodal complexity and multifunctionality of facial gestures in social interaction (see Andries et al. 2023; Holler 2025):
+The different parts of the human face provide a multitude of (combinations of) positions and movements which can be used as facial gestures within social interaction. Kendon (2004: 310) includes "eyebrow movements or positioning, movements of the mouth, head postures and sustainments and changes in gaze direction" as possible bodily resources for facial gestures, but also movements and configurations of forehead, nose, chin, tongue and cheeks can adopt functions of a gesture (Cooperrider & Nunez 2012; see also Groß et al. 2023). While some facial gestures are complex, including more than one facial resource and possibly several additional resources such as head or gaze movements (see the so-called '''[[Thinking_Face|thinking face]]''' (Goodwin & Goodwin 1986; Heller 2021), which consists of a middle-distance look and several additional elements such as raising or lowering the eyebrows), others rather appear as single-form facial gestures, such as the ''eyebrow flash'' (e.g., Ekman 1979), the ''horseshoe mouth'' (e.g., Chovil 2024: 121), or the ''eye roll'' (Clift 2021). Facial gestures can be produced by current speakers as well as by recipients (e.g., Feyaerts et al. 2022); they occur as co-speech gestures as well as stand-alone elements in various sequential environments in face-to-face or computer-mediated settings. To date, the conversational use of facial resources as facial gestures has been the object of numerous studies in the tradition of EMCA and related interactional approaches describing and highlighting the multimodal complexity and multifunctionality of facial gestures in social interaction (see Andries et al. 2023; Holler 2025):
 '''Additional Related Entries:'''
-* '''[[Complaint]]'''
+* '''[[Affective_stance|Affective Stance]]'''
-* '''[[Compliment]]'''
+* '''[[Emotion]]'''
-* '''[[Context]]'''
+* '''[[Empathy]]'''
-* '''[[Deontics]]'''
+* '''[[Gaze]]'''
-* '''[[Epistemics]]'''
+* '''[[Multimodal_Gestalt|Multimodal Gestalt]]'''
-* '''[[Identity]]'''
+* '''[[Thinking_Face|Thinking Face]]'''
@@ Line 124: / Line 145: @@
+*
 === EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'facial gesture' ===

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 }}
-In all '''[[Social_Action|social actions]]''', participants take up a stance. This stance comprises a public display of attitudes towards the situation of action, their co-participants and themselves (Du Bois 2007; Goffman 1955; Wu, Heritage & Raymond 2026). Stance can embrace displays of emotion (Goodwin, Cekaite & Goodwin 2012; Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2014), together with deontic (Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2012), epistemic (Heritage 2012a,b, 2013) and benefactive (Clayman and Heritage 2014) aspects, among many others. Within conversation analysis, '''epistemic stance''' refers to the displayed claim of knowledge or ignorance relative to others concerning some matter at hand. In general, the epistemic stance adopted by a person is shaped by a normative expectation that this stance should be congruent with the person’s '''epistemic status''', though this norm may be departed from on occasion.
+In all '''[[Social_Action|social actions]]''', participants take up a stance. This stance comprises a public display of attitudes towards the situation of action, their co-participants and themselves (Du Bois 2007; Goffman 1955; Wu, Heritage & Raymond 2026). Stance can embrace displays of emotion (Goodwin, Cekaite & Goodwin 2012; Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2014), together with deontic (Stevanovic & Peräkylä 2012), epistemic (Heritage 2012a, 2012b, 2013) and benefactive (Clayman & Heritage 2014) aspects, among many others. Within conversation analysis, '''epistemic stance''' refers to the displayed claim of knowledge or ignorance relative to others concerning some matter at hand. In general, the epistemic stance adopted by a person is shaped by a normative expectation that this stance should be congruent with the person’s '''[[Epistemic Status|epistemic status]]''', though this norm may be departed from on occasion.
 Epistemic stance is conveyed via a very large and differentiated set of practices. One major axis involves the distinction between making assertions about states of affairs, thus conveying a knowledgeable or K+ stance on the matter at hand, as opposed to asking questions about some matter, thus conveying an ignorant or K- stance. In general, participants tend to exhibit some care in the epistemic stances they present in conversation. This can easily be observed in cases of repair (Drew et al. 2013). For example, in the following case Lesley reports having phoned Hal the previous night (lines 1-2), and begins to make an assertion about Hal’s whereabouts for which she lacks the relevant K+ status: “But you were-”. Cutting off this turn-in-progress, she revises the action from one of asserting to one of asking “u-were you ↑ou:t? which is more congruent with her K- status:
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 Across lines 3-4, the caller successively revises his response to 911’s (line 1) question about the possibility of injuries, from a flat declarative assertion (“No they’re not injured”), to an evidentialized assertion based on direct perception (“They don’t look injured”), to a hearsay report (“They say they’re fine right now”). As these cases illustrate, interactants tend to handle the matter of epistemic stance with some care.
-It is perhaps for this reason that most languages contain multiple resources for managing and shading epistemic claims. A majority of the world’s languages (de Haan 2013) deploy evidentials to distinguish, for instance, what is directly observed, from what is merely inferred, or known from hearsay (Aikhenvald 2004, 2021). Similarly epistemic modality (Palmer 2001) is a resource deployed in many languages to adjust epistemic claims in terms of greater or lesser likelihood (van der Auwera & Ammann 2013; see also Bolden et al. 2023; Heritage 2010; Levinson 2012), and a related resource is the use of negative polarity items and other forms of negation to indicate the improbability of some state of affairs (Heritage and Raymond 2021). Some of these distinctions are indicated in Figure 1 below (from Levinson 2012), though this merely gestures at the range of variation involved.
+It is perhaps for this reason that most languages contain multiple resources for managing and shading epistemic claims. A majority of the world’s languages (de Haan 2013) deploy evidentials to distinguish, for instance, what is directly observed, from what is merely inferred, or known from hearsay (Aikhenvald 2004, 2021). Similarly epistemic modality (Palmer 2001) is a resource deployed in many languages to adjust epistemic claims in terms of greater or lesser likelihood (van der Auwera & Ammann 2013; see also Bolden et al. 2023; Heritage 2010; Levinson 2012), and a related resource is the use of negative polarity items and other forms of negation to indicate the improbability of some state of affairs (Heritage & Raymond 2021; Raymond & Heritage 2021). Some of these distinctions are indicated in Figure 1 below (from Levinson 2012), though this merely gestures at the range of variation involved.
-[[File:Heritage_EStance_fig1.jpg|600px]]
+[[File:Heritage_EStance_fig1.jpg|500px]]
 '''Figure 1: Bolinger’s question-to-assertion cline (Levinson 2012: 16)'''
-Relative epistemic claims are also, of course, lodged in sequences of action where variations in within-sequence actions are likewise used to adjust epistemic stance in terms of distinctive underlying epistemic statuses (Heritage and Raymond 2005; Raymond and Heritage 2006). It may be added that epistemic stances (and associated epistemic statuses) are straightforwardly consolidated across sequences, as in the following pair of cases:
+Relative epistemic claims are also, of course, lodged in sequences of action where variations in within-sequence actions are likewise used to adjust epistemic stance in terms of distinctive underlying epistemic statuses (Heritage & Raymond 2005; Raymond & Heritage 2006). It may be added that epistemic stances (and associated epistemic statuses) are straightforwardly consolidated across sequences, as in the following pair of cases:
   <u>[Sequence 1]</u>
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 * '''[[Deontics]]'''
 * '''[[Epistemic Authority]]'''
 * '''[[Epistemics]]'''
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 '''Cited References:'''
+Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2004). ''Evidentiality''. Oxford University Press.
 '''Additional References:'''

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 911:     Okay but they’re not injured ri:ght?
           (.)
-CLR:     '''No they’re not injured.=They don’t look injured.=They say
+CLR:     '''No they’re not injured.=They don’t look injured.=They say'''
-          they’re fine right [now''' you know but it always happens after.
+          '''they’re fine right [now''' you know but it always happens after.
 911:                        [Okay