Paralanguage, also known as vocalics, is a component of meta-communication that may modify meaning, give nuanced meaning, or convey emotion, by using techniques such as prosody, pitch,

volume Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). ...

, intonation, etc. It is sometimes defined as relating to nonphonemic properties only. Paralanguage may be expressed

conscious Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

ly or unconsciously. The study of paralanguage is known as paralinguistics and was invented by George L. Trager in the 1950s, while he was working at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. His colleagues at the time included Henry Lee Smith,

Charles F. Hockett Charles Francis Hockett (January 17, 1916 – November 3, 2000) was an American linguist who developed many influential ideas in American structuralist linguistics. He represents the post-Bloomfieldian phase of structuralism often referred to as ...

(working with him on using descriptive linguistics as a model for paralanguage), Edward T. Hall developing proxemics, and Ray Birdwhistell developing kinesics. Trager published his conclusions in 1958, 1960 and 1961. His work has served as a basis for all later research, especially those investigating the relationship between paralanguage and culture (since paralanguage is learned, it differs by language and culture). A good example is the work of

John J. Gumperz John Joseph Gumperz (January 9, 1922 – March 29, 2013) was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching ...

on language and social identity, which specifically describes paralinguistic differences between participants in intercultural interactions. The film Gumperz made for BBC in 1982, ''Multiracial Britain: Cross talk'', does a particularly good job of demonstrating cultural differences in paralanguage and their impact on relationships. Paralinguistic information, because it is phenomenal, belongs to the external speech signal ( Ferdinand de Saussure's ''parole'') but not to the arbitrary conmodality. Even vocal language has some paralinguistic as well as linguistic properties that can be ''seen'' ( lip reading, McGurk effect), and even ''felt'', e.g. by the Tadoma method.

Aspects of the speech signal

Perspectival aspects

Speech signals arrive at a listener's ears with acoustic properties that may allow listeners to identify location of the speaker (sensing distance and direction, for example). Sound localization functions in a similar way also for non-speech sounds. 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. 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. 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

Paralinguistic cues such as loudness, rate, pitch, pitch contour, and to some extent formant frequencies of an utterance, contribute to the emotive or attitudinal quality of an utterance. Typically, attitudes are expressed intentionally and emotions without intention, but attempts to fake or to hide emotions are not unusual. Consequently, paralinguistic cues relating to expression have a moderate effect of semantic marking. That is, a message may be made more or less coherent by adjusting its expressive presentation. For instance, upon hearing an utterance such as "I drink a glass of wine every night before I go to sleep" is coherent when made by a speaker identified as an adult, but registers a small semantic anomaly when made by a speaker identified as a child. This anomaly is significant enough to be measured through

electroencephalography Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocorte ...

, as an N400. Autistic individuals have a reduced sensitivity to this and similar effects. Emotional tone of voice, itself paralinguistic information, has been shown to affect the resolution of lexical ambiguity. Some words have homophonous partners; some of these homophones appear to have an implicit emotive quality, for instance, the sad "die" contrasted with the neutral "dye"; uttering the sound /dai/ in a sad tone of voice can result in a listener writing the former word significantly more often than if the word is uttered in a neutral tone.

Linguistic aspects

Ordinary

phonetic transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the I ...

s of utterances reflect only the linguistically informative quality. 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 described by

John Ohala John Jerome Ohala (July 19, 1941 – August 22, 2020) was a linguist specializing in phonetics and phonology. He was a Professor Emeritus in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Career He received his PhD in linguistics in 19 ...

as the "frequency code". 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 Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

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 Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...

, paralinguistic elements can be displayed by emoticons, font and color choices, capitalization and the use of non-alphabetic or abstract characters. Nonetheless, paralanguage in written communication is limited in comparison with face-to-face conversation, sometimes leading to misunderstandings.

Specific forms of paralinguistic respiration

Gasps

A gasp is a kind of paralinguistic respiration in the form of a sudden and sharp inhalation of air through the mouth. A gasp may indicate difficulty breathing and a panicked effort to draw air into the lungs. Gasps also occur from an

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definitio ...

of surprise,

shock Shock may refer to: Common uses Collective noun *Shock, a historic commercial term for a group of 60, see English numerals#Special names * Stook, or shock of grain, stacked sheaves Healthcare * Shock (circulatory), circulatory medical emerge ...

or disgust. Like a sigh, a yawn, or a moan, a gasp is often an automatic and unintentional act.Rachel Broncher, ''A labor of love: a complete guide to childbirth for the mind, body, and soul'' (2004), p. 145. Gasping is closely related to sighing, and the inhalation characterizing a gasp induced by shock or surprise may be released as a sigh if the event causing the initial emotional reaction is determined to be less shocking or surprising than the observer first believed. As a symptom of physiological problems, apneustic respirations (a.k.a. apneusis), are gasps related to the brain damage associated with a stroke or other trauma.

Sighs

A sigh is a kind of paralinguistic respiration in the form of a deep and especially audible, single exhalation of air out of the mouth or nose, that humans use to communicate emotion. It is voiced

pharyngeal fricative A pharyngeal consonant is a consonant that is articulated primarily in the pharynx. Some phoneticians distinguish upper pharyngeal consonants, or "high" pharyngeals, pronounced by retracting the root of the tongue in the mid to upper pharynx ...

, sometimes associated with a guttural glottal breath exuded in a low tone. It often arises from a negative emotion, such as dismay, dissatisfaction, boredom, or futility. A sigh can also arise from positive emotions such as

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

, particularly in response to some negative situation ending or being avoided. Like a gasp, a yawn, or a moan, a sigh is often an automatic and unintentional act. In literature, a sigh is often used to signify that the person producing it is lovelorn. Scientific studies show that babies sigh after 50 to 100 breaths. This serves to improve the mechanical properties of lung tissue, and it also helps babies to develop a regular breathing rhythm. Behaviors equivalent to sighing have also been observed in animals such as dogs, monkeys, and

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

s. In text messages and internet chat rooms, or in comic books, a sigh is usually represented with the word itself, 'sigh', possibly within asterisks, *sigh*. Sighing is also a reflex, governed by a few

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa ...

Moans and groans

Moaning and groaning both refer to an extended guttural sounds emanating from the throat, which typically indicate displeasure, and are made by humans beginning in infancy. Although moaning is associated with pain and suffering, moans may also accompany pleasurable physical experiences such as eating stimulating food, receiving a massage, or engaging in sexual activity. Moans and groans are also noises traditionally associated with

ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to re ...

s, and their supposed experience of suffering in the afterlife.

The throat-clear

Clearing one's throat is a metamessaging nonverbal form of

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

used in announcing one's presence upon entering the room or approaching a group. It is done by individuals who perceive themselves to be of higher rank than the group they are approaching and utilize the throat-clear as a form of communicating this perception to others. The throat-clear is also used to convey nonverbalized disapproval. And in

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative t ...

social hierarchy, this utterance is a sign of rank, directed by alpha males and higher-ranking chimps to lower-ranking ones and signals a mild warning or a slight annoyance. As a form of

metacommunication Meta-communication is a secondary communication (including indirect cues) about how a piece of information is meant to be interpreted. It is based on the idea that the same message accompanied by different meta-communication can mean something entir ...

, the throat-clear is acceptable only to signal that a formal business meeting is about to start. It is not acceptable

business etiquette Etiquette () is the set of norms of personal behaviour in polite society, usually occurring in the form of an ethical code of the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed and practised by a ...

to clear one's throat when approaching a group on an informal basis; the basis of one's authority has already been established and requires no further reiteration by this ancillary nonverbal communication.

Mhm

is between a literal language and movement, by making a noise "hmm" or "mhm", to make a pause for the conversation or as a chance to stop and think. The "mhm" utterance is often used in narrative interviews, such as an interview with a disaster survivor or sexual violence victim. In this kind of interview, it's better for the interviewers or counselors not to intervene too much when an interviewee is talking. The "mhm" assures the interviewee that they are being heard and can continue their story. Observing emotional differences and taking care of an interviewee's mental status is an important way to find slight changes during conversation.

Huh?

"Huh?", meaning "what? (that is, used when an utterance by another is not fully heard or requires clarification), is an essentially universal expression, but may be a normal word (learned like other words) and not paralanguage. If it is a word, it is a rare (or possibly even unique) one, being found with basically the same sound and meaning in almost all languages.

Physiology of paralinguistic comprehension

fMRI studies

Several studies have used the

fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area ...

paradigm to observe brain states brought about by adjustments of paralinguistic information. One such study investigated the effect of interjections that differed along the criteria of lexical index (more or less "wordy") as well as neutral or emotional pronunciation; a higher hemodynamic response in auditory cortical gyri was found when more robust paralinguistic data was available. Some activation was found in lower brain structures such as the pons, perhaps indicating an emotional response.Dietrich, S., Hertrich, I., Kai, A., Ischebeck, A., Ackermann, H. (2008). Understanding the emotional expression of verbal interjections: a functional MRI study. ''Brain Imaging'', 19(18), 1751–1755.