Semantics and pragmatics

Verbal and non Verbal Signaling/ Communication

And paralinguistic phenomena

Presentation Topic

MA'AM PRIYA AVAIS

PRESENTED TO:

PRESENTED BY:

1.Jaweria Mushtaq2.Sehar

Jabeen Ejaz3.Aqsa Naveed

Verbal communication

Verbal communication is the use of sounds and language to convey the message or for giving

information.

Non-verbal Communication

Non-Verbal communication refers to the communication through signs, body language and

gestures. It is informative but not always communicative.

What are signals:Signals are sounds OR gesture that have a natural or self-evident meaning. Signals are transmitted in

In the Vocal Auditory Channel or not.

• Human speech is the combination of verbal and non-verbal signals, while speaking the words human also use gestures and pauses that determine the meaning of speech and convey the message appropriately.

• Verbal signaling consists of words and linguistic units of sounds and speech organs take a prominent position among the production and transmission of signals.

Relationship between verbal and non-verbal signaling/ communication

• Non-Verbal signaling It consists of two-layered phenomena that consist of :• Vocal signals • Non-vocal signals

The signals that are produced through the vocal tract and are used for communication and giving information.

Vocal signals

Kinds of vocal signals

Vocal Reflexes

Voice set(quality)

• All vocal signals that are not linguistics are called vocal reflexes( ~ reflex is an action or movement of the body that happens automatically as a result to something).

Examples: sneezing , coughing , snoring

Vocal reflexes

Characteristics Physiologically determined

External to language

Operate independently of language

• introduce noise into the

channel.During speech

• intentionally to communicate. • e.g. “cough” to catch

someone’s attention Or warn someone

Use by Individual or in cultural convention

Function:

A fixed vocal background for an individual’s speech is called voice quality.

Voice Set (Quality)

Characteristics Known as extra-linguistics

Cultural and physiological

component

Function:Necessary attendant to speaking.

Expressive and social function because determines:

identity of a speaker.

Self-presentation (information about him/her)

Non-vocal signal

Non-vocal signals includes body language(facial expression, eye movement, hand movement, nodding the head etc.) that covey the silent message in regards to spoken language. Such as: Eye contact, Sign of OK• Usually it is:• Known as extra-linguistics• Cultural and physiological component

Verbal and non verbal components of Utterances/speech/communication.

1. Prosodic features

2.Paralinguistic features

Stress Intonation

Eye movement Facial expression

Hand and Body Movement

Intonation and stress are the principle prosodic features that operates in English utterance. They are:

Prosodic features:

• because they are overlying on the string of forms (e.g. consonant ,vowel ) and essential part of verbal signals

verbal component

• because they do not use to identify the word-forms by which the utterance or speech is composed.

Non-verbal

component

Stress:

• Stress may be determined by:• Grammatical function of utterance. (e.g. noun, verb, adjective)• By the attitude of a speaker.For example, in the answer of the question:“ have you seen Mary?”“I haven't seen Marry.”( seen is stressed)It means that “ Although I haven't seen Mary but I have a news of her.” but if“I haven't seen Marry.” (Marry is stressed)It means that “I haven't seen Marry , I have seen someone else”

Stress may serve to distinguish one word form from another. For

example the noun” produce” distinguishes from the verb “ produce” on

the bases of stress that the former carries stress on first syllable and the

later on second syllable.

Stress serves to distinguish derivationally related verbs and nouns in the

spoken language. e.g. amaze= amazement, refuse= refusal

Stress serves to distinguish inflectionally (~distinct forms of the same

lexeme) related forms. For example in Spanish canto( I sing) vs canto

(he/she sings)

Stress serves to distinguish morphologically unrelated lexemes. For

example differ vs defer and die vs dye

Stress as a verbal component of utterance/vocal signal:

It differentiate the words in spoken language and changes the meaning by

differences of pitch that one word is pronounced with high tone and one from low

tone.

Example:

In Chinese, different lexemes are separated by the tone not by contrasting

consonant and vowels as in English.

In many west African languages inflectional forms of same lexeme are kept apart

by the tone as compare to English where it does by the use of particular suffix.

Function:

Commonly referred to Tone- language

Integral part of the verbal component (bolinger,

1972)

It can be determined:

By the grammatical structure of the utterance.

By the attitude of a speaker. For example

ironical, surprised, sad.

Intonation

Paralinguistic features OR paralinguistic phenomena

• The term “paralinguistic” means the communication through

Paralanguage (~ the use of manner of speaking to communicate

particular meaning).

• Basically, it is a non-verbal phenomena but it covers some features of

verbal signals.

It includes:

Non prosodic vocal phenomena (pith, loudness, duration, frequency)

non-vocal phenomena (gestures, facial expressions, eye movement

hand movement etc.,) .

It plays a supporting role in speech and verbal communication to clear the meaning.

Determine the structure of the meaning of utterance.

Adjust the development of a conversation and the interpersonal relation.

Function of Non vocal

phenomena

• Abercrombie said:“We speak with our vocal organs, but we converse with our

entire bodies.”

So the paralinguistic features both vocal or non-vocal are an

essential part of all normal language behavior( communication).

• It occurs alongside spoken language, interact with it and

produce with it a total system of communication.

• The conversational use of spoken language cannot be

properly understood unless appropriate paralinguistic elements

are taken into account.

Paralinguistic features and spoken language

If the specific paralinguistic cues are

omitted:

o The participant get confused and nervous.

o Conversation may lose the flow and become less coherent.

o Conversation is restrained.

Functions of the paralinguistic phenomenaParalinguistic features modify our speech and also make our speech affective on the basis of their following functions:

Modulation

Punctuation

Cultural function

• “It’s not what he said but the way he said”

Modulation

Modulation of an utterance is the particular attitudinal coloring upon an utterance to illustrate the speaker’s intention in what he is saying and his desire

to impress or convince the listener.

The tone of the speaker and the frequency of hearing and different body movement in the speech determines the modulating function along with vocal

features because tone recognize the voice dynamic, tempo and continuity.

Example: a speaker will speak more loudly and in an unusual pitch when he is exited or angry.

“Punctuation of an utterance is “ the marking of boundaries”: • At the beginning and end of an utterance.( for pause)• At various point within the utterance.

Punctuation:

Functions

To segment the utterance

To manage the information

To take the listener’s permission for the utterance to be continued.

Examples:

Nodding the Head:• The non-vocal paralinguistic phenomena having both

modulating and punctuating function is “nodding the head” with or without an utterance to show agreement or disagreement.

• The movement of head and hands and facial expression which modulate and punctuate language utterance.

• Eye contact:Eye contact reflect Interest in what the person is saying OR Paying attention to what is being said Or Respect but on the other side eye contact is considered disrespect, anger, aggression, sexual interest and the lack of eye contact shows lying, discomfort etc.

Cultural function

Both vocal and non vocal paralinguistic phenomena differs from language to language and also from culture to culture.

For example, a Turkish or Greek speaker throw he head back rather than move it from side to side for disagreement.

There are two concepts that are originated by Birdwhistell and Hall with the connection of paralinguistic feature/non vocal features and linguistic semantics that are:

Paralinguistic features and linguistic semantics

Kinesics Proxemics

The investigation of signaling-system making use of gestures and other body movements.

The use of interpersonal space in social interaction according to the degree of intimacy and social roles.

Semiotic function of paralinguistic

The semiotic functions fulfilled by paralinguistic signal (vocal or non-vocal) exclusively expressive and social.• For example: During a conversation the speaker requires continual feed back from the listener that is following him. Most of the feedback consists in head-nods, grunts and eye movement.

:The distinction between prosodic and paralinguistic features

It is impossible to distinguish between paralinguistic feature and prosodic features in general phonetic terms.

Their function on semantics grounds differentiate them because prosodic features are internal to language while paralinguistic features are external to language.

Prosodic features include the grammatical function of the utterance as well as the attitude of the speaker while paralinguistic feature only determine by the attitude of the speaker.

Generalization about linguistic Semantics on the basis of various (verbal and non verbal )components of

utterance/speech

First Generalization: ( classification of the component in a signaling system)

It would be agreed by linguists that Although all the components( that we have discussed in previous slides) are essential but: the verbal component is more essential than the non verbal component prosodic features are more central than paralinguistic featuresStress and intonation are more necessary than the others like syllable.Paralinguistic features are more important than the voice set(quality).

Reason:The reasons is that the more specific to a particular component is the more highly structured it is “grammatically” and more specific to human language by contrast with other species’ signaling system.

Second generalization: (semiotic function of the components)

It has to do particularly with the semiotic function of the different component of language. Verbal and non-verbal/ linguistic or non-linguistic signals typically convey two kinds of semantic information:Verbal/linguistic= descriptiveNo-verbal/ non-linguistics= social and expressiveIt is very difficult to draw a distinction among these three information , because verbal component can also be expressive and non-verbal can also be descriptive. They are complimentary rather than contrasting.

Example: “He will do it by Tuesday.” it’s a purely predicative and descriptive statement. Uttered with the suitable prosodic and paralinguistic features it may be interpreted as a command or request.

Reason: It can’t be supposed that verbal components are always descriptive.They may have expressive and connotative.The choice of the words by speaker is more indicative of his attitude towards what he is describing and what may have the effect.

When there is a contradiction between the semantic information conveyed by the verbal part of an utterance and the information conveyed by associative non-verbal( prosodic and paralinguistic) features it is the latter which determine the utterance as a question rather than a statement or as a command rather then a question.

Third generalization: (Contradiction)

Reason: There is sometimes a conflict

between the information signaled verbally and non-

verbal component. the conflict may be due to the contradiction of different

components transmitted in the vocal auditory channel or

difference in modality.

To be sum up it can be said that:• There is a well-knitted relationship among verbal and non

verbal/ prosodic and paralinguistic features because the semantic meaning of speech is completed by the combination of both.

• The verbal and non-verbal components always comes in mind with the consideration of linguistic and non-linguistic signaling system.

Conclusion

• `Without the consideration of non-verbal (vocal and non-vocal) signals in the speech the speech would become flat.it is like:

“human without heart”

signals

verbal

Non-verbal

components

Paralinguistic and

prosodic

Verbal/ non verbal communic

ation

phrases

sentences

words

Vocal reflexes

verbal

Non-verbal

Voice-setprosodic paralinguistic

stress

intonation

Facial expressions

Body movement

Loudness,duration