How Listeners Use Facial Expression to Shift the Emotional Stance of the Speaker’s Utterance

This article examines how speakers and hearers collaborate to modify their shared emotional stances in mundane dyadic conversations. Our purpose is to determine how the recipient’s facial expression of emotion during or immediately following the speaker’s utterance contributes to the talk. Such facial expressions do not simply mirror the speaker’s stance or display understanding of the speaker’s talk; rather, they perform systematic operations on the projected course of the talk. Moreover, these facial displays of stance are well-timed and coordinated reactions that (in our sample) lead the way to a more light-hearted mode of discussion. Facial expressions that modify the shared emotional stance can: (a) reenact a past, previously shared emotional stance; (b) evoke a new, emotionally appropriate response to the talk; (c) establish a stance that is withheld and/or ambiguous in the talk; or (d) offer an alternative emotion to frame the talk. The data are in Finnish with English translation.