Paralanguage

1. Paralanguage

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

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

4. Pitch • The highness or lowness of vocal tone • Applied in two ways: • Tone • Intonation

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

6. 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

7. Mandarin Tone Guide

8. Volume • TOO LOUD • Obnoxious, pushy, dominant • “more aggressive, dominant, and self-assured” (Page, 1978) • TOO SOFT • Timid, unsure of themselves

9. 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?

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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=bIaUfBjHjpI

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

14. 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)

15. Hannah Montana • One example of quality of voice

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

17. 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

18. 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?

19. 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

20. 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)

21. 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).

22. 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.