ABSTRACT
Within the comprehensive science of communication, paralinguistics deals with the investigation of phonetic signals of non-verbal character (i.e. signals that cannot be linguistically segmented) as well as with their communicative functions. Such paralinguistic factors are, for example, particular types of articulation and phonation (breathing, murmuring, whispering, or clearing one’s throat, crying, and coughing), individual types of language (pitch, timbre, rhythm of speech) and intonation. A distinction can be drawn between languagespecific vs language-independent signals as well as between language-associated vs separate signals. Many researchers include the investigation of non-vocal, non-verbal actions ( kinesics) in paralinguistics. ( also non-verbal communication, prosody)
References
Abercrombie, D. 1968. Paralanguage. Repr. in J. Laver and S.Hutcheson (eds), Communication in face to face interaction. Harmondsworth, 1972. 64-70.
