Multimodal Means of Expressing the Pragmatic Category of Certainty/Uncertainty in Communication

The present research is devoted to the problems of multimodal communication, which considers all channels of information transfer – verbal units, prosody, gestures, etc. - in their interaction. The general purpose of this research is to identify verbal and non-verbal means of expressing the category of certainty / uncertainty and to establish a relationship between them. To study this category from multimodal approach video clips from the Russian talk show "Evening Urgant" were explored with the use of multimodal intersemiotic analysis using a computer tool ELAN. This analysis led to the conclusion that when expressing this category there is coordination between all three channels of information transfer - verbal, prosodic and kinetic. More than half of the analyzed gestures are internal, i.e. fit into the boundaries of EDU. Most of the external gestures are ahead of EDU. The results can serve as a basis for further researches related to the study of multimodal means of expressing other pragmatic categories.