Multimodal constructions revisited. Testing the strength of association between spoken and non-spoken features of Tell me about it

Abstract

The present paper addresses the notion of multimodal constructions. It argues that Tell me about it is a multimodal construction that consists of a fixed spoken and a variable, but largely obligatory multimodality slot on the formal side of the construction. To substantiate this claim, the paper reports on an experiment that shows that, first, hearers experience difficulties in interpreting Tell me about it when it is neither sequentially nor multimodally marked as either requesting or stance-related and, second, hearers considerably rely on multimodal features when a sequential context is missing. In addition, the experiment also shows that the more features are used, the better hearers get at guessing the meaning of Tell me about it. These results suggest that, independent of the question of whether the multimodal features associated with requesting or stance-related Tell me about it are non-spoken, unimodal constructions themselves (like a raised eyebrows construction), a schematic multimodality slot might be part of the constructions.