Topic - 8 - Paralinguistic Features

Paralinguistic

The messages that you send with your voice are known as paralanguage.

Elements of Paralanguage:

(1) Pitch: Pitch is the highness or lowness of the voice; it is similar to pitch on a musical scale. We associate higher pitches with female voices and lower pitches with male voices. We associate low-pitched voices with strength, sexiness, and maturity, and high-pitched voices with helplessness, tension, and nervousness.

We also vary our pitch to reflect our mood and interest in conversing. Your pitch expresses your emotional state; or making a statement or asking a question.

(2) Volume: The power of your voice, its loudness or volume, also affects perceptions of intended meaning. Some whisper or blast through their volume. An aggressive person is often very louder. In contrast, if you are soft spoken, others may take your behavior nervousness. Effective Interpersonal Communicators Regulate Volume in an Effort to Promote Meaningful Interaction. Your volume should reflect the nature of your message.

(3) Pace/Rate: Speaking rate is the third vocal signal affecting the communication of meaning. Most of us speak at an average rate of 150 words per minute. When we speed up our speech, exceeding 275 to 300 words per minute, it is difficult for others to comprehend what we are saying, and our message thus becomes virtually unintelligible. In contrast, if we speak too slowly, others may perceive us as tentative or lacking in confidence or intelligence. It quickens to relay agitation, excitement, and happiness, and it falls to convey seriousness, serenity, or sadness.

(4) Articulation and Pronunciation: The sound attributes of articulation and pronunciation affect message intelligibility as well as perceptions of credibility. Articulation is the way you pronounce individual sounds. Ideally, even during person-to-person contact, the sounds of your speech are sharp and distinct. When you fail to utter a final sound (a final t or d, for example), fail to produce the sounds of words properly. When you mispronounce a word, you may suffer a loss of credibility, and those listening to you may find it more difficult to make sense of what you are saying.

(5) Voice Modulation: Intonation refers to the tonal variation, modulation pertains to the way we regulate, vary, or adjust the tone, pitch, and volume of the sound or speaking voice. Modulation of voice brings flexibility and vitality to your voice, and you can express emotions, sentiments, impatience, careful planning, despondency and suspicions etc. If you do not pay special attention to the modulation of your voice, then your voice becomes flat. Word stress and sentence stress also play an important role in voice modulation. 

(6) Hesitations and Silence: Hesitations and silence are the final paralinguistic variables we will consider here. Knowing when to pause is a critical skill. When nervous or tense, we may exhibit a tendency to fill all pauses. Some time we insert meaningless sounds or phrases such as uh, you know, or okay in the effort to fill voids. These non fluencies, or hesitation phenomena, disrupt the natural flow of speech and adversely affect how others perceive your competence and confidence.