BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

5.3. Para-verbal Communication
Para-verbal communication is communication by the mean of
nonverbal cues of the voice. Various acoustic properties of speech such as
tone, pitch and accent, loudness of speaking, manner of speaking, keeping
silent, meaning of interrupting or interfering the conversation collectively
known as prosody, can all give off nonverbal cues.
Paraverbal communication refers to how we say something, not
what we say. The paraverbal message accounts for approximately 38% of
what is communicated to someone. A sentence can convey entirely
different meanings depending on the emphasis on words and the tone of
voice. For example, the statement, "I didn't say you were stupid" has six
different meanings, depending on which word is emphasized:
Or, if you say the sentence “Cynthia likes you” with a lilting tone
you are probably teasing someone. However, if you stress the word likes,
“Cynthia likes you”, the message comes out, “Whatever made you think
she didn’t?” Stress the word you this time, “Cynthia likes you" and you
might be saying, “I wish she liked me”.
The linguist George L. Trager developed a classification system
which consists of the voice set, voice qualities, and vocalization
The voice set is the context in which the speaker is speaking. This
can include the situation, gender, mood, age and a person's culture.
The voice qualities are volume, pitch, tempo, rhythm, articulation,
resonance, nasality, and accent. They give each individual a unique "voice
print".
Vocalization consists of three subsections: characterizers,
qualifiers and segregates. Characterizers are emotions expressed while
speaking, such as laughing, crying, and yawning. A voice qualifier is the
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