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Paralanguage, also known as vocalics, is a component of meta-communication that may modify meaning, give nuanced meaning, or convey emotion, by using suprasegmental techniques such as prosody, including pitch, loudness, intonation, etc. It is sometimes defined as relating to Phoneme properties only. Paralanguage may be expressed or Unconscious mind.
The study of paralanguage is known as paralinguistics and was invented by George L. Trager in the 1950s, while he was working at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. His colleagues at the time included Henry Lee Smith, Charles F. Hockett (working with him on using descriptive linguistics as a model for paralanguage), Edward T. Hall developing proxemics, and Ray Birdwhistell developing kinesics.Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (1990). Notes in the history of intercultural communication: The Foreign Service Institute and the mandate for intercultural training. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 76, 262–281. Trager published his conclusions in 1958,Trager, G. L. (1958). Paralanguage: A first approximation. Studies in Linguistics, 13, 1–12. 1960Trager, G. L. (1960). Taos III: Paralanguage. Anthropological Linguistics, 2, 24–30. and 1961.Trager, G. L. (1961). The typology of paralanguage. Anthropological Linguistics, 3 (1), 17–21.
His work has served as a basis for all later research, especially those investigating the relationship between paralanguage and culture (since paralanguage is learned, it differs by language and culture). A good example is the work of John J. Gumperz on language and social identity, which specifically describes paralinguistic differences between participants in intercultural interactions.Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The film Gumperz made for BBC in 1982, Multiracial Britain: Cross talk, does a particularly good job of demonstrating cultural differences in paralanguage and their impact on relationships.
Paralinguistic information, because it is , belongs to the external speech signal (Ferdinand de Saussure's parole) but not to the arbitrary conmodality. Even vocal language has some paralinguistic as well as linguistic properties that can be seen (lip reading, McGurk effect), and even felt, e.g. by the Tadoma method.
Consequently, paralinguistic cues relating to expression have a moderate effect of semantic marking. That is, a message may be made more or less coherent by adjusting its expressive presentation. For instance, upon hearing an utterance such as "I drink a glass of wine every night before I go to sleep" is coherent when made by a speaker identified as an adult, but registers a small semantic anomaly when made by a speaker identified as a child.Van Berkum, J. J., Van den Brink, D., Tesink, C. M., Kos, M., & Hagoort, P. (2008). The neural integration of speaker and message. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 580–591. This anomaly is significant enough to be measured through electroencephalography, as an N400. Autistic individuals have a reduced sensitivity to this and similar effects.Groen, W. B., Tesink, C., Petersson, K. M., Van Berkum, J., Van der Gaag, R. J., Hagoort, P. and Buitelaar, J. K. (2010). Semantic, factual, and social language comprehension in adolescents with autism: an fMRI study. Cerebral Cortex, 20(8), 1937–1945.
Emotional tone of voice, itself paralinguistic information, has been shown to affect the resolution of lexical ambiguity. Some words have homophonous partners; some of these homophones appear to have an implicit emotive quality, for instance, the sad "die" contrasted with the neutral "dye"; uttering the sound /dai/ in a sad tone of voice can result in a listener writing the former word significantly more often than if the word is uttered in a neutral tone.Nygaard, L. C., Lunders, E. R. (2002). Resolution of lexical ambiguity by emotional tone of voice. Memory & Cognition, 30(4), 583–593.
Some of the linguistic features of speech, in particular of its prosody, are paralinguistic or pre-linguistic in origin. A most fundamental and widespread phenomenon of this kind is described by John Ohala as the "frequency code".Ohala, J. J. (1984) An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica, 41, 1–16. . This code works even in communication across species. It has its origin in the fact that the acoustic frequencies in the voice of small vocalizers are high, while they are low in the voice of large vocalizers. This gives rise to secondary meanings such as "harmless", "submissive", "unassertive", which are naturally associated with smallness, while meanings such as "dangerous", "dominant", and "assertive" are associated with largeness. In most languages, the frequency code also serves the purpose of distinguishing questions from statements. It is universally reflected in expressive variation, and it is reasonable to assume that it has Phylogenetics given rise to the sexual dimorphism that lies behind the large difference in pitch between average female and male adults.
In text-only communication such as email, chatrooms and instant messaging, paralinguistic elements can be displayed by , font and color choices, capitalization and the use of non-alphabetic or abstract characters. Nonetheless, paralanguage in written communication is limited in comparison with face-to-face conversation, sometimes leading to misunderstandings.
As a symptom of physiological problems, apneustic respirations (a.k.a. apneusis), are gasps related to the brain damage associated with a stroke or other trauma.
Scientific studies show that babies sigh after 50 to 100 breaths. This serves to improve the mechanical properties of lung tissue, and it also helps babies to develop a regular breathing rhythm. Behaviors equivalent to sighing have also been observed in animals such as , , and .
In text messages and internet chat rooms, or in comic books, a sigh is usually represented with the word itself, 'sigh', possibly within , *sigh*.
Sighing is also a reflex, governed by a few .
In chimpanzee social hierarchy, this utterance is a sign of rank, directed by alpha males and higher-ranking chimps to lower-ranking ones and signals a mild warning or a slight annoyance.Primatology, Delmar 1984:46.
As a form of metacommunication, the throat-clear is acceptable only to signal that a formal business meeting is about to start. It is not acceptable business etiquette to clear one's throat when approaching a group on an informal basis; the basis of one's authority has already been established and requires no further reiteration by this ancillary nonverbal communication.Book of Etiquette and Manners, Chapter 3, by Nimeran Sahukar & Prem P. Bhalla.
is between a literal language and movement, by making a noise "hmm" or "mhm", to make a pause for the conversation or as a chance to stop and think.
The "mhm" utterance is often used in narrative interviews, such as an interview with a disaster survivor or sexual violence victim. In this kind of interview, it is better for the interviewers or counselors not to intervene too much when an interviewee is talking. The "mhm" assures the interviewee that they are being heard and can continue their story. Observing emotional differences and taking care of an interviewee's mental status is an important way to find slight changes during conversation.The healing effect of storytelling, Gabriele Rosenthal 2003
Huh is claimed to be a universal syllable. A 2013 study suggested that the word/syllable huh is perhaps the most recognized syllable throughout the world. It is an interrogative which crosses geography, language, cultures and nationalities.
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