What’s in a Smile?

Abstract

Webster’s Third International Dictionary defines the word ‘smile’ as follows:

smile, n.: a change of facial expression involving a brightening of the eyes and an upward curving of the corners of the mouth with no sound and less muscular distortion of the features than a laugh that may express amusement, pleasure, tender affection, approval, restrained mirth, irony, derision, or any of various other emotions.

There are two sides to the definition: certain facial movements on the one hand, and the feelings or attitudes expressed by those movements on the other hand. The definition seems commonsensical enough. However, in reflecting on it we might be led to ask: how is the relation between the movements on the one hand and the feelings and attitudes on the other hand to be understood There appear, on the face of it, to be two alternatives: either the relation is somehow natural, laid down in the constitution of the human organism, or is it a matter of convention, of rules of expression formed by our culture, and thus, conceivably, varying from one culture to another. Furthermore, it would seem that the way to resolve this issue is through empirical research. Thus, one might try to establish what degree of variation there is between the expressive force of smiles in different societies.