Paralanguage

The term paralanguage (or vocalics) refers to the vocal but nonverbal dimensions of communication that characterize the utterance of verbal sequences—for example, stress, pitch, rate, rhythm, volume, and presence of pauses. Vocalizations require the presence of voice, which can be variously modulated; therefore, each utterance has specific paralinguistic properties. Theories on paralanguage have been included consistently in the canon of communication theory since the 1950s.

Each of the properties of paralanguage can be examined by structuring the related variables within a system of contrasts. In this way, researchers have been able to study contrasts and degrees of articulatory characteristics, such as pitch direction, pitch range, loudness, tension, resonance, nasalization, labialization, advancement or retraction of the tongue, and so on. As a general rule, these properties can be heard, but sometimes they can also be seen (such as in lip reading) and even felt (such as in communication methods for deaf and/or blind people). Moreover, as Fernando Poyatos stated in the 1970s, authors of literary texts can refer to paralinguistic characteristics through punctuation marks and/or descriptions of people's behavior.

Research on paralanguage emerged in the 1950s with the pioneering study by George Trager. Trager developed a classification system consisting of the voice set, voice qualities, and vocalization. The voice set is associated with the context in which the speaker is speaking; it includes such aspects as culture, age, gender, and mood. Voice qualities embrace volume, pitch, tempo, rhythm, articulation, resonance, nasality, breathiness, hoarseness, and accent. The whole of these characteristics gives each voice a unique print.

Vocalization, the last of Trager's categories, includes vocal characterizers, vocal qualifiers, and vocal segregates. Vocal characterizers express emotions during speech, for example, laughing, crying, and yawning. Vocal qualifiers are the different styles of delivering a message—for instance, yelling or whispering. Vocal segregates are short nonlexical utterances, such as uh-huh, which notify the speaker that the listener is listening and help both emitter and receiver to regulate and maintain the dialogue.

In the 1960s and 1970s Träger, Charles Hockett, Isamu Abe, and William Thorpe considered paralanguage analogous to the symptomatic signs and expressive vocalizations of certain animal species. Interestingly, the fundamental and widespread phenomenon called frequency code is common to both animals and humans. In the same period, Dwight Bolinger also stated that in human communication high or rising fundamental voice frequency marks questions and conveys social messages such as deference, politeness, submission, and lack of confidence. On the contrary, low or falling fundamental frequency marks statements [Page 730]and conveys social messages such as assertiveness, authority, aggression, confidence, and threat.

Indeed, among animals as well as humans the fundamental voice frequency can indirectly convey an impression of the size of the signaler. Among animals, size is closely related to social status, and among humans it is related to adulthood. In fact, overall body mass is correlated with the mass of the vibrating membrane, which produces vocalizations, and the mass of the vibrating membrane is inversely related to the emitted frequency. Thus, among humans as well as among other animals, an antagonist can produce vocalizations as low as possible in fundamental frequency to give the impression of being adult, large, and dangerous; vice-versa, vocalizations can be produced as high as possible in fundamental frequency to give the impression of being small and nonthreatening.

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