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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 35:4 (2025) ► pp.604–627

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Eye closures in spoken Hebrew

Conversational functions and meaning semiosis

ORCiD logo with link | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Published online: 15 October 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.23027.sho
Abstract
The present study focuses on eye closure (EC) as a communicative facial gesture in Israeli Hebrew media talk and pays particular attention to its coordination with co-expressive verbal, prosodic, and embodied resources. Drawing on the interactional approach to language and embodied action, the study demonstrates that EC can convey four contextual meanings — concentration, hedging, negation, and totality — depending on the context in which it occurs and the verbal material with which it is co-produced. The paper proposes that these contextual meanings are derived from the more general meaning of disengagement conveyed by EC. Moreover, the present paper suggests several potential semiotic connections between the basic physiological use of EC as a reflex of self-protection and evasion and its observed contextual meanings. This provides evidence for the co-optation of the basic functions of facial gestures for communicative purposes via metaphorical-metonymical extensions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.ECs — a physiological and communicative perspective
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1ECs co-produced with word search — indexing concentration
    • 4.2ECs co-produced with claims of insufficient knowledge — indexing hedging
    • 4.3ECs co-produced with rejection — indexing negation
    • 4.4ECs co-produced with extreme case formulations — indexing totality
  • 5.Discussion and concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (59)
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