Hello, hello, lovely.
Welcome into IELTS Speaking Part 3.
We are talking about smiling.
What a lovely topic, full of happiness, smileys, and joy.
Rory is an expert on smiling.
Am I?
I don't think so.
I think Maria is thinking of a different Rory.
You are the only Rory I know.
The only Rory we have in this world.
Right, dear listener?
Yeah.
The Rory.
Let's talk about smiling.
Do people smile more when they're younger or older?
I don't know, really.
I'm tempted to say, younger people smile more because they've had fewer letdowns in life and everything is newer and shinier.
So there's bound to be more optimism in smiles.
But maybe if you're older and more experienced, you can make the events that make you smile happen more often.
So it's anybody's guess.
Do women smile more than men?
Surely that's more about personality rather than a gender thing.
If I'm pushed, though, maybe women?
Mostly because there's this idea that women show their emotions more freely?
I think that's a pretty broad generalization, don't you?
Why do people smile, then, in general?
God, I think that list of reasons is as long as my arm.
I'm trying to organize it in my head.
So...
I suppose the first and foremost reason is that it's to show that they're happy and you show the other person that you're happy.
And so that is part of building a relationship and a shared understanding and experience of the situation.
Some people do it to calm a situation by showing there's no need for any tension because they are happy.
So they're openly displaying their emotions to calm things.
Other people do this when they are nervous in an attempt to do the calming as well.
So there's all kinds of reasons.
It could also just be an automatic reaction that people have to good things happening in their lives.
Right.
And is smiling important in your culture?
I think it's probably more important than it is in others, relatively speaking, because you see people smiling, hear compared to other cultures.
So this open signaling of emotion is part of how we interact with each other, which is less so in other places.
Why do most people smile in photographs?
That's also a good question, actually.
I've never really thought about it.
Maybe it's because people want to show their emotions and you cannot really convey how you're feeling in a picture without some kind of visual aid.
So the smile is a visual aid to show that everybody is having a good time.
That is just a guess, though.
I don't really know.
Do you think people who like to smile are more friendly?
I think that depends on the type of smile that it is really, doesn't it?
Because if it's genuine, like a genuine, authentic smile, and the person with it has a friendly disposition or demeanor, then it seems like a fairly safe assumption that they're a friendly person.
But if it's like a sinister smile or it doesn't match the situation or the emotions being expressed, then it might unnerve people quite a lot.
Are there any occasions when people need to pretend to smile?
Probably, yeah.
Like if you're at an event that you're not really having a good time at and you just sort of put on a perfunctory smile to try and get through it without bringing other people down along with you, then you would pretend to smile.
I don't know how believable it would be, but that's one reason, yeah.
And some people rarely smile or never smile.
Why?
Well...
It could be a personality thing.
Some people are just not prone to open expressions of emotion.
Or it could be a cultural thing for basically the same reasons that I just gave there.
Maybe open smiles are not something which is encouraged because of a variety of reasons.
Maybe it's associated with stupidity, for example.
So those are two of the foremost ones.
Another reason could be they have some kind of facial paralysis, perhaps.
Like, oh, what's that thing?
What's it called?
Yes, it's facial ataxia.
Ataxia just means that you lose control of some muscles so you can't smile.
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Thank you very much, Rory.
Look at us using, like, complex medical terminology.
Wow yeah, dear listeners, definitely band 9 and the examiner will be all interested in you.
You know, maybe googling this word.
And it's okay if the examiner doesn't know the word, you just educate the examiner.
Yeah, that's fine.
So you can show off your profound knowledge of medical terms and you know diseases with muscles.
So right, delicious smiling okay, and some silly questions.
So who smiles more younger or older people?
Here, rory chose our favorite strategy.
I don't know really, but well yeah, i don't know like, who smiles more younger or older people, but now you do know because, according to google and google tells the truth and knows everything yeah, so we trust google Children smile more often than adults.
So that's, yeah, a fact.
Why?
Because many studies suggest... No, no, I mean, like, why do they smile more?
They counted that children may smile up to 400 times a day.
Dear listener, if you have a child, you can count how many times your child smiles a day.
Compared to an average adult who smiles how many times a day?
Roy.
An average adult smiles how many times a day?
I don't know.
20.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
That few.
I thought it would be more.
20 times.
Because children smile like all the time.
At strangers, at dogs, you know, stray dogs, dirty dogs, happy dogs, unhappy dogs.
Like they smile seriously.
So we say that children smile more.
Fair enough.
I'm tempted to say, like, temptation.
This is another way of expressing our uncertainty.
I'm tempted to say this just because.
And then if you're not sure about your answer, at least you said, like, it's not absolute.
I don't know this 100%.
And children tend to be more optimistic.
So they smile more.
There we go.
And they may have more events that make them smile.
And then an even more stupid question about women and men.
And here Rory uses the same strategy but different words.
I have absolutely no idea.
Which means I don't know.
But check out the language.
I have absolutely no idea.
Or I've no idea.
And that's fine.
We can answer like this with something else.
Now you know that, according to Google and studies some studies we don't know women smile more often than men.
Because research has indicated women smile up to 62 times per day and men only 8 times a day.
Wow.
Poor man.
Oh, yeah.
Hard life you have, Rory.
Rory, your task for today no, for tomorrow will be count how many times you smile and how many times your maybe, like brother or your friend, your flatmate smiles.
I'll do that.
But it's interesting because actually I think my task I have daily tasks to try and be more mindful.
And the one today is make three people smile.
So it's funny we're talking about this.
And I seem to have managed with you and Vanya who is listening in.
So that's good.
I have one more person to make smile.
Hopefully that is the person listening to this podcast.
Dear listener, if you're listening, just smile, you know.
Put on a nice silly smile on your face because now I'm smiling.
Yeah.
And we have LifeDentalGroup.com.
And the reasons why do women smile more than men?
The science of smiling.
Ooh la la.
Because women have better control over their facial muscles.
Women have less stress hormones in the bodies.
And check it out, they have a grammar mistake.
Fewer.
Stress hormones grammar.
Fix your grammar.
Maybe they're talking about the combination of stress hormones together, in which case it would be less.
But if they talk about individual hormones, then there we go.
Dear listener, now you know and you can use the the word gender.
So i don't think it's a gender thing.
But now, according to science, And you can quote LifeDentalGroupcom with wrong grammar on their website
So you can say that yeah, according to this, you know, to a website, I read research, I read studies.
Yeah.
And yeah, according to recent studies, women smile more often because they control their facial muscles, the muscles in their face.
The list is as long as my arm, so that means that the list of reasons why people smile is very long.
This is just buying more time though, because i was like what a weird question, i.
And then i was like okay, there are all these ideas um, but i need to organize them, yeah and um, people usually smile Because it's a social signal that communicates positive emotions.
Okay, according to bbcsciencefocus.com.
So when people feel good, when people are pleased to see someone, we smile.
Or if you're not pleased to see them, you can force a smile.
People smile in photographs.
So in photos.
Okay.
Okay.
And if you have nothing to say, you can say, whoa, that's a good question, actually.
Actually, your intonation goes up.
That's a good question, actually.
I've never really thought about it.
Rory, could you read out this sentence with your beautiful Scottish intonation?
English, British.
That's an interesting question.
I've never really thought about it, actually.
Maybe it's because da-da-da or it's because this.
So people usually convey their emotions.
So we show our emotions and we convey.
So convey, pretty much like show.
We convey our emotions in the photo with a smile.
Convey, express.
We express our emotions.
And there is Joe Rainey who actually wrote an article.
Why do we smile in the photographs?
And this Joe says that it's the social expectation.
So people, most people expect you to smile in photographs.
And it's a nice idea.
Yeah, and this history behind it.
When the first camera appeared.
Just for natural or social reasons, people just started smiling in photographs.
Also because of the adverts, like advertisements TV, social media.
They also promoted smiling in photos.
And again, when we see a smile, we feel happiness, we feel kind of safe, right.
So it's connected with happiness, pleasure in our minds.
So dopamine, serotonin and endorphins, there we go, our super hormones where, because we are expected to smile yeah, and some people can force a smile, dear listener.
So if you don't want to smile and you just put on a smile, It's not real.
Or you force a smile.
Or you can say you fake a smile.
So not real.
Smile.
A perfunctory smile.
What's perfunctory?
Perfunctory.
Could you give us a sentence, an example?
I think perfunctory is just in order to do the thing, really.
It's to do with the social expectation.
You're not doing it because of a genuine interest.
It's because you're just expected to do it.
Yeah, perfunctory, something that is done quickly without taking care or interest.
Like her smile was perfunctory, like not real, not genuine.
But if a person smiles genuinely, or if it's an authentic smile, a genuine smile, real smile then, like other people, feel happy with this person.
You would hope so.
And C2 moment, DLS number 9, vocabulary, disposition.
The particular type of character a person has.
For example, she's of a nervous disposition, she's of a cheerful, like happy, disposition.
And if a person has a friendly disposition and smiles, then they tend to be more friendly.
But if a person doesn't smile, or if a person doesn't have a genuine smile, a person has a sinister smile, this sinister look.
Well, it's sinister if it looks like there's a bad intention behind it.
Maybe you could have a different smile, like a fake smile.
And that's not sinister.
It's just fake.
It's not authentic.
Then this person can unnerve.
So if you unnerve people, you make them nervous.
You make people less confident and frightened.
So he unnerved many of his colleagues.
Now you know that people smile mainly to express positive emotions like joy, happiness, amusement.
Amusement, when you are amused, when you're glad, and also it's a social signal to convey, to express friendliness, to express that you are a friendly person with a friendly disposition character yeah, and like to bond with people, to connect with people.
You smile at them first genuinely, dear listener.
Yes, you don't just smile without being genuine.
Then it's fairly obvious.
Thank you very much for listening.
Keep listening, keep working on your English and we'll get back to you in our next episodes.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Do people smile more when they're younger or older?
I don't know, really.
I'm tempted to say, younger people smile more because they've had fewer letdowns in life and Everything is newer and shinier.
So there's bound to be more optimism in smiles.
But maybe if you're older and more experienced, you can make the events that make you smile happen more often.
So it's anybody's guess.
Do women smile more than men?
Surely that's more about personality rather than a gender thing.
If I'm pushed though, maybe women mostly because there's this idea that women show their emotions more freely.
I think that's a pretty broad generalization, don't you?
Why do people smile then, in general?
God, I think that list of reasons is as long as my arm.
I'm trying to organize it in my head.
So I suppose the first and foremost reason is that it's to show that they're happy, and you show the other person that you're happy, and so that is part of building a relationship and a shared understanding and experience of the situation.
Some people do it to calm a situation by showing there's no need for any tension because they are happy.
So they're openly displaying their emotions to calm things.
Other people do this when they are nervous in an attempt to do the calming as well.
So there's all kinds of reasons.
It could also just be an automatic reaction that people have to good things happening in their lives.
Right.
And is smiling important in your culture?
I think it's probably more important than it is in others, relatively speaking.
Because you see people smiling more openly here compared to other cultures.
So this open signaling of emotion is part of how we interact with each other, which is less so in other places.
Why do most people smile in photographs?
That's also a good question, actually.
I've never really thought about it.
Maybe it's because people want to show their emotions and you cannot really convey how you're feeling in a picture properly without some kind of visual aid.
So the smile is a visual aid to show that everybody is having a good time.
That is just a guess though.
I don't really know.
Do you think people who like to smile are more friendly?
I think that depends on the type of smile that it is really, doesn't it?
Because if it's genuine, like a genuine, authentic smile, and the person with it has a friendly disposition or demeanor, then it seems like a fairly safe assumption that they're a friendly person.
But if it's like a sinister smile or it doesn't match the situation or the emotions being expressed, then it might unnerve people quite a lot.
Are there any occasions when people need to pretend to smile?
Probably, yeah.
Like if you're at an event that you're not really having a good time at and you just sort of put on a perfunctory smile to try and get through it without bringing other people down along with you, then you would pretend to smile.
I don't know how believable it would be, but that's one reason, yeah.
And some people rarely smile or never smile.
Why?
Why?
Well, it could be a personality thing.
Some people are just not prone to open expressions of emotion.
Or it could be a cultural thing for basically the same reasons that I just gave there.
Maybe open smiles are not something which is encouraged because of a variety of reasons.
Maybe it's associated with stupidity, for example.
So those are two of the foremost ones.
Another reason could be they have some kind of facial paralysis, perhaps.
Like, oh, what's that thing?
What's it called?
Yes, it's facial ataxia.
Ataxia just means that you lose control of some muscles so you can't smile.
