PARALANGUAGE

The vocal cues that accompany spoken language are termed paralanguage. Among the ingredients of paralanguage are pitch, speed, volume, pause and silence. People use the basic elements to transfer the emotional and intellectual meanings of their messages.

Pitch is highness or lowness of the voice, and it can serve as an emotional marker. The Chinese counterpart “hao” or “dui” can be uttered in many ways to show different emotions, attitudes and meanings. The way these little words are said is very important.

Speed or tempo can also carry strong emotions. And there is also difference between Chinese speech and American speech. Chinese TV and radio speakers are far slower than their American counterparts. The underlying causes of this marked difference may be explained in two ways. One is that speech tempo tends to increase with the development of industry. Industrialized countries have a faster speech tempo than non-industrialized countries. The other is that the English language has much more polysyllabic words and carries less information per syllable than the Chinese language does. That is to say, the same amount of information can be contained in fewer Chinese syllables. Therefore, Chinese speech can afford to be slower than American speech.

Volume is another important component of paralanguage. The ways of manipulating volume of speech vary across cultures. Americans and Chinese use different speech volumes in adjusting their volume levels according to the size of the audience and the physical environment. While making an address in public, Americans may laugh heartily, they will often laugh loudly on a joyful and relaxed celebration. However while giving a lecture, conversing or telephoning, their volume of sound is much lower than Chinese’s. As a result, when talking with a Chinese or hearing a Chinese telephoning, Americans are not accustomed to the volume of sound of a Chinese. They are surprised to see that Chinese talk loudly in places, ships, buses and other public places. But it seems that many Chinese people lack this ability. A Chinese in America often has some difficulties in adapting to the extra low voice that Americans are accustomed to. He may not get used to the low voice in classroom discussions, telephone conversations and office interviews. On the other hand, an American who first comes to China may wonder why Chinese people like quarrelling on the streets. Never do they realize that these people are actually talking loudly.

Different traditions view silence much differently. Chinese people value silence more than the use of words, many of them believe that inner peace and wisdom come only through silence, just as the old sayings “Silence is gold”; “Silence speaks louder than sound”, etc. But in American culture, Americans tend to think there is no communication in silence. For instance, in response to the question “Will you marry me”, silence in America would be interpreted as uncertainty; while in China it would be interpreted as acceptance. We now look at a few cultural differences between Chinese and Americans in the use of silence so that we might better understand how a lack of words can influence the outcome of any communication event. So if the complicating of all these nonverbal signals makes you frustrated and then, just keep silence, you are absolutely wrong when you do business with people coming from America. Silence is treated as passive or negative reaction, not a signal of agreement as in China. So when businessmen from American culture show no reaction to a proposal or presentation, it should be taken as a negative attitude.