oa Multimodale uitdrukkingen van vanzelfsprekendheid

Multimodal expressions of obviousness. An empirical corpus study

This article presents a multimodal study of the expressions of obviousness in spoken Dutch. Natural conversations between two participants were studied to present an overview of the verbal and non-verbal elements that express obviousness and their interplay. Markers of obviousness are verbal elements like dus, ja, natuurlijk, gewoon and allee as well as generic and deliberately unfinished utterances (cases of so-called ‘aposiopesis’), but also co-speech gestures like the opening of the hand(s), the tilt, the shoulder shrug, raising of the eyebrows and the headshake. The interplay of these markers was studied to answer the question whether one can speak of multimodal constructions of obviousness. The study reveals intriguing multimodal co-occurrences: certain verbal elements and gestures are often used together to express the interlocutor’s stance.