The face under the mask and without it, or Why the brother-in-law squints his eyes?

Abstract

During the pandemic, the mask became a necessary attribute. The article discusses the eye gestures, by which you can guess the smile under the mask. According to student surveys, a smile can be recognized by squinting eyes. However, squinted eyes can be part of the gestures of a smile or a grin, which have different meanings. This uncertainty appears in a Russian proverb that characterizes the typical behavior of relatives towards a son-in-law, in which the gesture of the brother-in-law’s eyes remains incomprehensible: The son-in-law likes to take, the father-in-law loves honor, and the brother-in-law squints his eyes. The mimic gesture of SQUINTING EYES can be considered in its linguistic correlates: shchurit’ glaza, prishchurit’sja, s prishchurom, etc. Lexicographic and corpus analysis of these units makes it possible to identify, in addition to the meaning of physical action, emotional and evaluative meanings not noted in modern dictionaries. Based on this analysis and taking into account folklore materials, an interpretation of the brother-in-law’s behavior in the Russian proverb was proposed.
Russian units describing the gesture have different versions of English translations, thus we can suggest their cultural and linguistic specifics, possibly reflecting a gesture characteristic of Russian communicative behavior.