Sniffing as Social Act
Though sniffing may seem trivial, it’s clear that people care about it. We notice when it happens, and especially when it happens too much. A search for why do people sniff returns things like “why do people sniff when I pass by ” and “why do some people sniff all the time?”. And especially now, sniffing has renewed significance as a potential coronavirus symptom.
But it turns out that people sniff for reasons unrelated to illness, onions, or drug habit. In a recent study published in Research on Language and Social Interaction, I looked at how people sniff in conversations. I found that instead of being directed at odors or used to keep fluid in the nose, sniffing is regularly used for communicative purposes.
Sniffing is meaningful
Three aspects predispose sniffing to social use. First, sniffing is largely controllable; you can control if, when, and how you sniff. So where does sniffing happen? This relates to the second aspect: you can’t sniff and talk at the same time. Sniffing audibly (and sometimes visually with closed lips) indicates that you’re not speaking. This means that people have to coordinate speaking and sniffing.
And third, while we notice sniffing, we usually don’t draw attention to it. Somewhat paradoxically, it’s something we’re obliged to both attend and disattend. As a social scientist, this tells me that sniffing is something that is socially regulated, and that there are typical, normative ways to sniff.
So, what are some typical ways to sniff? Using recordings and transcripts of actual social interactions, I located a total of 70 sniffs and analyzed them based on where they occurred and what they seemed to be doing. Some recurrent uses emerged across different interactions.
Sniffing to delay talk
Regularly enough, people sniff right before answering a question or in the midst of responding. In these environments, a sniff can delay the production of a response. This is a kind of hedging or show of delicacy, as in the transcript below. In this telephone call, Gordon calls his girlfriend Denise to undertake the difficult task of breaking up with her.
Gordon starts to explain why he wants to break up, saying I feel really bad because. But instead of articulating his reason, he cuts off that turn, and we see an um and a pause, followed by a sniff. These impart a degree of sensitivity to Gordon’s action. Without them, it’s possible for Gordon to be seen as glib, callous, or unaware of what breaking up means. But with his sniff and other delay devices, he is able to show his action as difficult to do.
Sniffing to yield the floor
Another place where people regularly sniff is just after the end of a turn. Here, sniffing can yield the floor to another speaker. In the call below, Jeff and Jill are marveling at the rapid pace of a friend’s medical school year.
By line 8 Jill has answered Jeff’s question when did they start and this topic is potentially complete. They are now free to talk about something else. But rather than going on to something else, there’s silence. This silence embodies Jill passing up the chance to say more, and this is reinforced with her sniff. By sniffing, Jill audibly forgoes speaking by showing a momentary inability to do so. More evidence for this comes from her self-repeat in line 12, maybe the beginning. By repeating herself, she communicates that her prior turn needs no revision. In this way, she treats her sniff as yielding the floor to Jeff.
Sniffing to show disengagement
How can sniffing be used to both mark turn-completion and show sensitivity? Sniffing can broadcast your continued presence, but at the same time show a fleeting disengagement. It says “I’m here but not here”. This usage is commonly found in lapses in talk, where there’s a long silence and nobody is talking or seemingly doing anything else.
In the transcript below, three friends (Maureen, Abby, and Terry) are chatting and waiting to resume a board game, while a fourth friend (Pam) takes a phone call in the kitchen. Their talk about Pam’s nephew comes to an end, and then there’s a lapse in conversation (line 4).
During this sort of silence, where it seems that someone should be talking but nobody is, people regularly sniff, as Abby does in line 5. This is a discreet way for her to briefly disengage from the obligation to talk, but also show that she’s still there. And indeed, Pat orients to this silence in a similar way. Upon hearing no talk going on, she says hold on (line 7) into the telephone receiver, and then informs the others who are waiting that she’ll be there very shortly (line 8).
This kind of disengagement is found outside of conversations, too. Think about when you enter a public restroom and hear a sniff from someone in the stall, as if they’re saying, “There’s someone here but not someone who is going to talk”. The delicate ways that people recurrently use sniffing shows that it is bound up with how we talk and interact with one another.
Elliott Hoey is a researcher in the linguistics department at the University of Basel. He recently published When Conversation Lapses (Oxford University Press) and has also worked on sighing, drinking, and children’s play. For more, see his site.
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