Article summary of Nonverbal communication across disciplines. Volume II. Paralanguage, kinesics, silence, personal and environmental interaction. Chapter I by Poyatos - Chapter

What is this article about?

We need to use qualifiers or voice types to have effective interpersonal communication. With these qualifiers, the same verbal message can be interpreted in different, specific ways.

Voice modifiers are determined by biological factors (configurations of the larynx, lips, tongue), and physiological factors (muscular tension). These factors are also affected by psychological or emotional variables. There are also sociocultural functions. They are also related to bodily expressions.

Researchers are faced with many problems. For example, a) there is ambiguity in phonetic definitory labels, b) there is also ambiguity in the ordinary speaker’s usage, c) there is a lack of labels for certain effects, d) there is a lack of accurate physiological descriptions that would differentiate effects, e)the application of different labels to the same phenomenon in the literature makes it difficult to understand things such as ‘rough’, f) there is a lack of transcription symbol, g) there are no attempts to represent them in a text with qualifying symbols (for falsetto or surprise).

The authors suggest that individual qualifiers should be analyzed in terms of a) normal and abnormal anatomical configuration of the organ involved, b) muscular physiology, c) phonetic labels (harsh), d) auditory effects (twang), e) voice type or quality (husky voice), f) social label (authorative), g) phonological function (whispered in Hindi), h) paralinguistic function (expressing anger), i) abnormal occurrence (harshness), j) scalar degrees or lack of them, k) concurrent verbal, paralinguistic or kinesic behaviors, and l) transcription or notation symbols for recording voice qualities.

What is breathing control?

Breathing control is defined as the modifications undergone by our speech, which are the result of how we breath. Breathing is not only the result of our physiology, it is also determined by five factors.

1. Direction. Speech can be eggressive (short utterances) and ingressive (reflex-like verbal reactions of fearful surprise, expectancy or terror, and emotional questioning).
2. Channel. This is often the mouth, but can also be the pharyngeal and nasal cavities, or a combination.
3. The flow. This can spasmodic and out of phase with speech (in distressed breathing, states of anxiety, after physical exertion).
4. The duration of length of the inhalation and exhalation phases, ranging from fast and prolonged to slow.
5. Respiratory pressure or force. When it is light, then there is a relaxed conversation. When it is strong, there can be interjectional expressions. Sighed speech refers to prolonged inhalations, followed by longer exhalations.

What is laryngeal control?

The neutral mode uses moderate, and regular vibration of the vocal folds. This is called the modal voice. There are different subtypes: chest voice, and head voice (heavy voice).

Whispered voice

There are three types of whispering: soft-whispered voice, normal whispered voice, and forces whispered voice.

• Phonotary disorders are the result of abnormal vocal fold movements and are called aphonias. There is complete aphonia (total loss of voice), partial aphonia, and intermittent aphonia (voice and whisper alternate during speech).
• Murmured voice. Murmuring is neither whisper nor full voice. A similar voice is ‘crooning’, which refers to sing in hum or in a low, gentle tone. This is often associated with a sensual attitude.
• Breathy voice. This kind of voice is close to full voice, but it lets too much air through, probably because of a lack of muscular effort. It is related to emotional reactions, weariness, shock, confusion, and anxiety.

What is glottal stop?

Glottal stop refers to the shortest instance of voice sound. There is a distinction between ‘full glottal stop’ and ‘anterior glottal stop’. A special form of this stop is a glottal catch, which means ‘catching’ of the voice. This is related to the feeling of a ‘lump’ in the throat, nervousness and embarrassment.

• Laryngealized voice. This is also called pulsated voice, or creaky voice. Chinese language is characterized by this. It can also appear when lifting something heavy, physical pain, and by old age.
• Falsetto voice. Falsetto is defined as ‘light voice’. It is associated with innocence. It is also used to express emotion and attitudes, and is often present in Black American speech. There are also three higher forms of falsetto: ventricular falsetto (seal voice), flute falsetto (women and children), and a piping voice (high, falsetto voice).
• There is also whispery falsetto (crying woman and children), creaky falsetto (high-pitched ‘Eugh!’), and whispery creaky falsetto (typical of children, and women who exaggerate innocence).

Abnormal occurrence of falsetto voice is called eunuchoid voice.

What is harsh voice?

Harsh voice involves laryngeal strain and tension, and is related to labels such as intense, grating, metallic, rasp, shrill. It may combine in different ways, such as harsh creaky voice, harsh whispery voice.

Strident Voice and Shrill Voice

Strident comes from the Latin word ‘stridere’ for the sound of crickets and other insects. It is described as a grating, rasp noise. Shrillness is high in pitch and evokes a more penetrating sound compared to ‘strident’. It is used to refer to nonhuman sounds like piercing, high-pitched noise made by a loudspeaker. Squeaking, squealing, screeching, squawking and cackling are also related. Squeaking is defined as a as sharp, shrill, short, and not very loud cry or sound. Screeching is defined as a high, shrill, piercing cry as in terror or pain. Squealing is defined as a shrill, sharp, and prolonged sound to express anger, fear, or pain. Squawking is defined as a loud, harsh cry such as a parrot or chicken. Cackling is defined as speaking or laughing brokenly, noisily, and shrilly.

Metallic voice        

This concept is defined differently, using terms such as ‘sharp’, ‘harsh’, ‘grating’, ‘brassy’, ‘bright’, ‘clear’, ‘clean’, ‘keen’, ‘piercing’. It can be a phonatory or resonance problem.

Forms of ‘roughness’

There are two main types of roughness.

1. Husky. This type of roughness in women can be viewed as sensual, or as negative (masculine). It can denote different emotions, such as affection, love, but also anger, sadness, sensuality, sexual arousal, and happy weeping.
2. Hoarse voice. This type of voice is of low pitch and has a restricted range. It can be due to emotion, choking, a cold, or strain. It can also be caused by cancer. There are three types: dry hoarseness (increased intensity and breathiness), wet hoarseness (breathiness, low pitch, and creakiness), and rough hoarseness (low-pitched, and the voice is perceived as two-tone). Hoarseness can be combined with other voice types, such as whisperiness.

What is tremulous voice / quavering?

This type of voice is caused by muscular tremor which produces irregular or pulsating quality, because of uneven vibrato. It is typical of a nervous or emotional speaker. It is often found in literature.

Stammering voice

This is a type of broken speech with involuntary pauses, rapid repetitions of syllables or initial sounds which can arise from excitement, emotion, embarrassment, etcetera. It can also be a result of muscles spams which come from mental conflicts. Stuttering is a pathological from of stammering. 

On tense and lax voices

Tense voice (metallic) is defined as rash, loud, high-pitched and with higher air pressure. Lax voice (muffled) is defined as a breathy or whispery voice, low-pitched, moderate nasality, and is typical of relaxation.

Esophageal control

There are two voice types that are produced by laryngectomized persons without a prothesis. Vocal esophageal voice is known as ‘pseudowhisper’, and ‘pharyngeal voice’. It has to do with air storage in the pharynge and mouth. This type of voice is unintelligible, because there is a lack of consonants. The second type is belched esophageal voice, which is a strong and intelligible phonation which is a bit hoarsely.

What are different voices related to pharyngeal control?

There are six types of voices resulting from pharyngeal control: pharyngealized voice (mocking contempt, aggressiveness), pharyngeal huskiness (emotional stress, laughter), muffled voice (soft, dull, obscure), hollow voice (sounding like a sound made in a cave), faucalization (hilbilly speech), gulping (emotional tension, fear).

Velopharyngeal control

There are different types of nasal voice, which are related to velopharyngeal control: nasal voice (negative type of voice, characteristic of passionate speech, intoxication, laziness). There are two disorders: hypernasality (excessive nasal resonance), and denasality (insufficient nasal resonance, appears in rhinitis, adenoidal voice). Whining voice (high pitch, peevish and low, refers to contempt, stress, fear). A subtype of whining is ‘bleating voice’, which is referred to as the cry of a lamb, sheep, goat. It can be high- or low-pitched. Whimpering is a low whining (broken cry). Twangy voice results when we pinch our nostrils and is defined as a piercing sound which is often used by news vendors to hawk their wares. A moaning voice has a low-pitch and no muscular tension, it is also soft and feeble (‘the wind moaning in the trees’). Groaning voice is a tense and deeper creaky voice. It impeds proper voice articulation. This kind of voice is often reflected in Bible texts. Grunting is a deep, gruff sound in the throat. It has short intervals and often reflects negative attitudes such as disapproval, contempt, dismissal and unbelief. It can also appear when we are making a physical effort. A head-cold voice is defined as ‘a denasalized voice’. Anoidal voice is a voluntary behavior in the adenoidal-gap posture, and is caused by mouth breathing. Nasopharyngeal voice is a combination of oropharyngeal friction and nasalization. It is often used to express a harsh attitude.

What are other types of control?

The tongue can also affect language. Alveolarized voice exists when the tongue-blade is further front toward the upper teeth ridge, making voice lispy. Retroflex voice reflects the pronouncing of ‘t, d, n, l, s’ in American English. Velarized voice exists by raising the tongue-back toward the palate, which sounds tense. Palatalized voice exists when the tongue-front is near the hard palate, and sounds babyish.

Dental control

The teeth also play a role in speech production. For example, poor teeth can affect the person’s normal articulation.

Labial control

The lip is also important for speech production. There can be close-lip-rounding, which people use during ‘baby talk’. There can also be nasalization, which involves horizontal lip expansion, which people use when they express irritation. Horizontal lip constriction is often used during angry or irritated speech. Horizontal lip expansion voice is used during the expression of irritation, but with a higher pitch. Vertical lip constriction voice exists when we speak with contempt or repressed anger, and involves nasalization. Diagonal-upward lip expansion voice is often used during country folk in cultures, and has vocal and nasal resonance. Diagonal-downward lip-expansion voice refers to the stereotyped speech of film villains and thugs, and involves muscular tension which causes intermittent nasal resonance. Lastly, trembling lips often arise from cold or emotion, and affects labial articulations.

Mandibular control

The jaw affect speech production too. The voice types determined by the posture of the jaw can be identified in two dimensions: vertical and horizontal. Vertical openings can lead to wide-open-jaw-voice, which involves distorted articulations (comic, and special effects), and half-closed-jaw voice (clenched-teeth-voice), which is often used to express fear or anger. Muttering and mumbling are used to refer to speaking in a low voice, indistinctively and with partly closed mouth. It can also denote poor articulated voice, when people are fatigued and sleepy.

The horizontal dimension involves the protracted-jaw voice, which is characteristic of villains, gangsters, thugs. It involves thrusting the lower jaw forward and causing voice to resonate more nasally than orally. Retracted-jaw voice, in contrast, is caused by recession of the lower jaw, and causes nasality and improper articulation. It is often used to portray mentally retarded people, somber people, and shy people.

A rotating-jaw refers to the stereotyped growling or muttering villain, with a nasal and strained voice. A trembling jaw is used to refer to labial articulations, and can result from cold, and emotional tension.

What is articulary tension control?

This type of control reflects the joint action of the laryngeal, pharyngeal, lingual and labiofacial muscles. It can result in lax articulation, and tense articulation.

What is objectual control?

Objectual control refers to the effect that certain objects (food) have on our speech. For example, food and masticatories can lead to labial smacks, dorsal clicks, and suctional sounds. There are also other objectual obstructors, such as conversational props. For example, talking with a pipe in the mouth. Task-performing object-adaptors refer to holding a string, nails, pins between the teeth or lips, or while eating or drinking. Emotional object-adaptors refer to when we hold a handkerchief or tissue against the mouth or nose while talking or crying.

What is external control?

Sometimes, the environment has a big impact on our voice. For example, the din in public places, traffic noise, machinery, the surf of the sea, the clattering of the thunder, etcetera. These type of sounds make us raise our voices.