Paralinguistics:How the Non‐verbal Aspects of Speech Affect our Ability to Communicate

There is an old adage which points out “it's not what you say, it's the way that you say it”. Of all the various types of “body language” that are currently being toted as conveying up to 75 per cent of the “real” meaning of any communication, paralinguistics have received the least attention. And yet, in Western European languages at any rate, the non‐verbal aspects of speech play an immensely important part in conveying to the listener what is really on a speaker's mind or what his “reality map” is like. Paralinguistics, or the way we say what is on our mind, can be divided into any number of headings but for simplicity's sake I have come up with seven categories — timing, emotional tone/inflection, speech errors, national or regional accent, choice of words/sentence structure, verbal “tics” and tonic accent. I will discuss each of these paralinguistic categories in turn giving examples and quoting research studies.