Requests for Verification across Varieties of Spanish: A Comparative Approach to Gaze Behaviour

This article examines requests for verification across varieties of Spanish. It focuses on the role of gaze behaviour in the design of the request and shows how gaze is interrelated with other resources, such as facial expressions, epistemic markers, prosody and tag questions. By comparing speakers from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador, the article finds similarities but also differences between the groups of speakers. The speakers from Bolivia and Ecuador rarely establish mutual gaze or use facial expressions during the verification sequence. Instead, more frequently, they deploy other resources for obtaining verifications, such as tag questions, hand gestures and rising intonation. The article considers differences in gaze behaviour within the larger machinery of response mobilisation and shows how gaze is intertwined with other aspects of conversational organisation. Results are based on qualitative and quantitative analysis. The data stems from face-to-face conversations recorded in similar side-by-side settings.