Chapter 6 Vocal Behavior Flashcards
(37 cards)
Vocalics
The study of the communicative value of vocal behavior or PARALANGUAGE
Paralanguage
Includes all oral cues in the stream of spoken utterances except words themselves
Sarcasm
Saying one thing but communicating something else
It is learned
Children don’t understand sarcasm
We don’t appreciate sarcasm of people from other cultures
Vocal behaviors and cues can transmit other messages:
Status, background, gender, age, socioeconomic status, where we grew up, etc.
Trager’s categories of vocal behavior
Voice set
Factors
Trager’s categories of vocal behavior: Voice set
Setting of an act of speech
The vocal environment or contextual background is to some measure a result of the speaker’s voice
Closely related to who the speaker is
Ex. Say “I love it “ (business person, girlfriend, truck driver, teacher)
Trager’s categories of vocal behavior: factors
Age, gender, present condition of health, state of enthusiasm, fatigue, sadness, and/or other emotions
Voice qualities
Tempo, resonance, rhythm control, articulation control, pitch control, glottis control, vocal lip control, and pitch range
Vocalizations
Audible vocal cues that do not have the structure of language and may not be accompanied by words
3 types of vocalizations
Vocal characterizer
Vocal qualifier
Vocal segregates
Vocal characterizer
Crying, laughing, whimpering, sobbing, snickering, sighing, moaning, yawning, growling, muttering
Vocal qualifier
Intensity, pitch height, context
Vocal cues that serve the function of accenting are served by vocal qualifiers
Ex., put that down… (pause) NOW
Vocal segregates
Audible but not linguistic
Voice printing (used for identification similarity like DNA)
Vocalizations that include “Shhh” “uh huh” “ahh” “er”
Voice printing
Similar to fingerprinting in how it is used to identify us - especially in court cases
However there is dispute over how accurate it really is.
50-90% accurate so more is needed for conviction and exoneration
Silences and pauses
Silence generally discussed in terms of pauses during streams of speech
Unfilled and filled pauses
Unfilled pauses are periods when vocal activity stops DURING spoken utterances
Filled are interruptions of the stream of utterances with “ah” and “uh”
3 classifications:
Hesitation silence
Psycholinguistic silence
Interactive silence
Hesitation silence
Caused by anxiety and uncertainty about what to say next
Psycholinguistic silence
Related to encoding and decoding of speech
Interactive silence
A product of interaction denoting relational status
Ex. Silence lovers share, cold silence, silence respecting elders
Grammatical or ungrammatical pauses
Goldman-eisler 1968- grammatical pauses occur as a rule of language punctuation:
At end of sentences (periods) or before conjunctions (commas) etc.
Response latency
The time between your silence and when your partner begins talking
Interruptions
Tannen’s (1990) work to indicate that women talk more in private settings and men more in public settings
Accent and dialect
Accent refers to the different ways words are said. It is a paralinguistic concern
Dialect refers to the use of different words to reference similar meanings. It is a linguistic concern
Mulac (1976) says we judge accents with three primary dimensions:
Sociointellectual status (status, occupation, income, literacy)
Aesthetic quality (how pleasing or displeasing the accent is)
Dynamism (how aggressive, assertive, strong, loud, or active the voice is)