Paralanguage refers to the non-verbal elements of communication used to modify meaning and convey emotion. Nonverbal communication (NVC is usually understood as the process of Communication through sending and receiving Wordless messages Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way Paralanguage may be expressed consciously or unconsciously, and it includes the pitch, volume, and, in some cases, intonation of speech. Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the Many observers throughout history have argued that there are influences on Consciousness from other parts of the Mind. Pitch represents the perceived Fundamental frequency of a sound The volume of any solid plasma vacuum or theoretical object is how much three- Dimensional space it occupies often quantified numerically In Linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch whilst speaking which is not used to distinguish words Speech refers to the processes associated with the production and perception of Sounds used in Spoken language. Sometimes the definition is restricted to vocally-produced sounds. The study of paralanguage is known as paralinguistics.

The term ’paralanguage’ is sometimes used as a cover term for body language, which is not necessarily tied to speech, and paralinguistic phenomena in speech. Body language is a term for Communication using Body movements or Gestures instead of or in addition to sounds verbal language or other communication The latter are phenomena that can be observed in speech (Saussure's parole) but that do not belong to the arbitrary conventional code of language (Saussure's langue). Ferdinand de Saussure (fɛʁdinɑ̃ də soˈsyːʁ ( November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Ferdinand de Saussure (fɛʁdinɑ̃ də soˈsyːʁ ( November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist

The paralinguistic properties of speech play an important role in human speech communication. There are no utterances or speech signals that lack paralinguistic properties, since speech requires the presence of a voice that can be modulated. This voice must have some properties, and all the properties of a voice as such are paralinguistic. However, the distinction linguistic vs. paralinguistic applies not only to speech but to writing and sign language as well, and it is not bound to any sensory modality. A sign language (also signed language) is a Language which instead of acoustically conveyed Sound patterns uses visually transmitted sign patterns Senses are the physiological methods of Perception. The senses and their operation classification and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields Even vocal language has some paralinguistic as well as linguistic properties that can be seen (lip reading, McGurk effect), and even felt, e. Lip reading, also known as lipreading, speech reading, or speechreading, is a technique of understanding speech by visually interpreting The McGurk effect is a perceptual phenomenon which demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in Speech perception. g. by the Tadoma method. Tadoma is a method of communication used by deafblind people in which the deafblind person places his/her thumb on the speaker's lips and his fingers along the jawline

One can distinguish the following aspects of speech signals and perceived utterances:

• Perspectival aspects

Speech signals that arrive at a listener’s ears have acoustic properties that may allow listeners to localize the speaker (distance, direction). Sound localization functions in a similar way also for non-speech sounds. Sound localization is a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in distance and direction or the methods in Acoustical engineering to simulate The perspectival aspects of lip reading are more obvious and have more drastic effects when head turning is involved.

• Organic aspects

The speech organs of different speakers differ in size. Speech organs produce the many sounds needed for Language. Organs used include the Lips Teeth, Tongue, Alveolar ridge As children grow up, their organs of speech become larger and there are differences between male and female adults. The differences concern not only size, but also proportions. They affect the pitch of the voice and to a substantial extent also the formant frequencies, which characterize the different speech sounds. A formant is a peak in the Frequency spectrum of a sound caused by acoustic Resonance. Within Phonetics, a phone is a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the Phonology of a Language The organic quality of speech has a communicative function in a restricted sense, since it is merely informative about the speaker. It will be expressed independently of the speaker’s intention.

• Expressive aspects

The properties of the voice and the way of speaking are affected by emotions and attitudes. Typically, attitudes are expressed intentionally and emotions without intention, but attempts to fake or to hide emotions are not unusual. Expressive variation is central to paralanguage. It affects loudness, speaking rate, pitch, pitch range and, to some extent, also the formant frequencies.

• Linguistic aspects

These aspects are the main concern of linguists. Ordinary phonetic transcriptions of utterances reflect only the linguistically informative quality. Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human Language. The problem of how listeners factor out the linguistically informative quality from speech signals is a topic of current research.

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 known as the "frequency code" (Ohala, 1984). John Ohala is a Professor Emeritus in Linguistics at the University of California Berkeley. 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 phylogenetically 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 emoticons, font and color choices, capitalization and the use of non-alphabetic or abstract characters. Electronic mail, often abbreviated to e-mail, email, or originally eMail, is a Store-and-forward method of writing sending receiving The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by Mass media to describe any form of Synchronous conferencing, occasionally even Asynchronous conferencing An emoticon is a symbol or combination of symbols used to convey emotional content in written or message form In typography a font (also fount) is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular Typeface. Capitalization (or capitalisation &mdash see spelling differences) is writing a word with its first letter as a Majuscule (upper case letter Nonetheless, paralanguage in written communication is limited in comparison with face-to-face conversation, sometimes leading to misunderstandings.

See also

• Body language
• Kinesics, Proxemics
• Metacommunicative competence
• Intercultural competence

References

• Robbins, S. Body language is a term for Communication using Body movements or Gestures instead of or in addition to sounds verbal language or other communication Kinesics is the interpretation of Body language such as Facial expressions and Gestures — or more formally non-verbal behavior related to movement either The term proxemics was introduced by anthropologist Edward T Hall in 1966 to describe set measurable distances between people as they interact Metacommunicative competence is the ability to intervene (in a guiding or constructively controlling way within difficult Conversations and to correct communication Problems Intercultural competence is the ability of successful Communication with people of other Cultures This ability can exist in someone at a young age or may be developed and Langton, N. (2001) Organizational Behaviour: Concepts, Controversies, Applications (2nd Canadian ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall
• Traunmüller, H. (2005) "Paralinguale Phänomene" (Paralinguistic phenomena), chapter 76 in: SOCIOLINGUISTICS An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, 2nd ed. , U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K. Mattheier, P. Trudgill (eds. ), Vol. 1, pp 653-665. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York.
• Ohala, J. J. (1984) An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica, 41, 1-16.

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