Paralanguage

Definition•The nonverbal part of speech that involves aspects of the spoken message•The way the delivered message sounds and conveys meaning

Components•Pitch•Volume•Rate•Quality•Intonation•Vocalized pauses

Pitch• The highness or

lowness of vocal tone

• Applied in two ways:• Tone• Intonation

Example•Deep Voice for the Gay Man•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewqVFUVblSw•1:11-1:58

Tonal Languages• Each syllable has an inherent pitch

contour• Many words are differentiated solely by

tone, and each syllable in a multisyllabic word often carries its own tone

• Includes: Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Most Sub-Saharan African Languages

Mandarin Tone Guide

Volume• TOO LOUD• Obnoxious, pushy, dominant• “more aggressive, dominant, and self-assured”

(Page, 1978)• TOO SOFT• Timid, unsure of themselves

Matilda (4:45)

•What differences do you notice about the volume of Miss Trunchbull and Miss Honey’s voices?•Who appears to be

the more dominant in the conversation? Who appears to be more timid?

Study• “Sixty-three male and female college students

listened to a tape-recorded interview in which they heard a female interviewee answer questions in either a low, moderate, or high voice volume” (Page, 1978)• High volume: perceived as most aggressive

Rate of Speech• The speed at which a person speaks• Normal rate of speech is 150 wpm• There are negative effects on listeners for the

rate of speech being too fast or too slow• Studies show that a slower speech rate increases

listening comprehension (Pashek, G.V. & Brookshire, R.H, 1982) • Do not want to bore listeners by speaking too

slowly though• Speakers may lose credibility in the eyes of their

audience if their rate of speech is too slow

Rate of Speech

• The perceived importance of the information that is presented in a lecture decreases as the speech rate increases (Robinson et al., 1997)• If the rate of speech is too fast, listeners

can lose the ability to understand the information presented• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIaUfB

jHjpI

Discussion•At what speed is Boomhauer’s rate of speech? Fast, Slow, etc……?•How did his rate of speech affect the listener’s comprehension?

Quality• Vividness of hue• The identifying character of a vowel sound

determined chiefly by the resonance of the person uttering it (Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia)• The way the melodic, rhythmic, and

harmonic materials are combined in a composition• An inherent or distinguishing character

(Wikipedia)

Hannah Montana

•One example of quality of voice

Intonation• Intonation is the inflection in one’s voice.• No intonation = monotone• Too much intonation = distracting

Context and Intonation• Context and intonation are interrelated- they are

both interpreted together to decode meaning from a message (Woodland & Voyer, 2011).

According to a study done by Woodland and Voyer in 2011:• Speaker said either a positive or negative

statement with either sarcastic or sincere tone• “Statements paired with an incongruent tone of

voice tended to reflect a response from the participant that was closer to “neutral” on the scale rather than either sincere or sarcastic.” Positive statement + sarcastic tone = neutral message

Ben Stein•What made Ferris’s teacher so hard to

pay attention to? • If a person had too much intonation,

what kind of message would this convey about the idea they are trying to communicate or about the person’s personality?

Vocalized Pauses•A pause that occurs when a speaker

fills the silence between words with vocalizations such as uh, er, and, um (public speaking tips website)•Vocalization- to produce with voice•My definition: A pause in a fluid

speech in which the speaker uses filler words to complete the silence

10 Steps to Stop Using word “Like”• Know how it is used• Pause• Record yourself• Stop using “like” when quoting someone• Don’t use “like” to approximate• Stop using it before adjectives and adverbs• Improve your vocabulary• Quit using it altogether• See how long you can go without saying “like”(wiki how website)

Vocalized Pauses

•When used repeatedly, vocalized pauses are irritating to listeners and unnerving to the speaker• In one study, “vocalized pauses and

repetitions were employed as categories of verbal disturbance likely to affect audience judgments of the speaker” (Miller and Hewgill, 1964).

References• Boyd, Stephen. (2012). Public Speaking Tips. • Fromkin, Victoria A. (ed.). (1978). Tone: A linguistic survey. New York: Academic Press.• How to Stop Saying the Word “Like.” (n.d) • Miller, G. R., & Hewgill, M. A. (1964). The effect of variations in nonfluency on audience

ratings of source credibility. Quarterly journal of speech, 50(1), 36.• Page, R. L. (1978). The effect of voice volume on the perception of personality. Journal of

social psychology, 105(1), 65.• Pashek, G.V. & Brookshire, R.H. (1982). Effects of rate of speech and linguistic stress on

auditory paragraph comprehension of aphasic individuals. Journal of Speech of Hearing Research, Vol. 25 377-383.

• Pennycook, A. (1985). Actions speak louder than words: Paralanguage, communication, and education. Teachers of english to speakers of other languages, inc., 19(2), 259-282.

• Pike, Kenneth L. (1948). Tone languages: A technique for determining the number and type of pitch contrasts in a language, with studies in tonemic substitution and fusion. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

• Quality. Merriam Webster, An Encyclopedia Britannica Company. • Quality. (26 January 2012). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. • Robinson, S.L., Sterling, H.E., Skinner, C.H., Robinson, D.H., & Mississippi State University.

(1997). Effects of lecture rate on students’ comprehension and ratings of topic importance.

• Woodland, J. & Voyer, . (2011). Context and intonation in the perception of sarcasm. Psychology Press, 26(3). 227-239.