The Codes of Communication: Non-Verbal Signals and Language Variation
Non-Verbal Communication Codes
Paralinguistics: Sound Elements of Communication
Paralinguistics studies the sound elements that accompany utterances, which constitute signals and communicate information. These elements include:
- Intensity or Volume of Voice: How loud or soft the speech is.
- Tempo: The velocity of emission of statements.
- Pitch: The height of the musical sounds.
- Nuances in Intonation and Syllabic Duration: Syllabic lengthening occurs to comfort someone or express hesitation, while shortenings express impatience and irritation.
Kinesics: Gestures, Manners, and Body Postures
Kinesics is the study of gestures, manners, and body postures.
Movements of the face and body provide data on the personality and emotional state of the individual. The face expresses joy, fear, or surprise. Posture conveys the attitude in interaction with others, such as tension or boredom.
Proxemics: The Use of Space in Communication
Proxemics analyzes the arrangement of subjects and objects in space, as well as the significant use subjects make of this space.
Indoors, almost stationary distributions are observed: chairs in waiting rooms are often placed centrifugally, while in bars they are placed centripetally. The distances between individuals range from intimate to social character, and these distances are sometimes highly regulated.
Varieties of Language
Diatopic Variety (Dialects and Geographical Extent)
Diatopic varieties are produced along the geographical extent where a particular historical language is spoken, and they occur in dialects.
Dialects are systems of a language derived from a living or dead language. This is the case of the Romance languages produced by the fragmentation of Latin.
In Castilian (Spanish), the following dialects can be differentiated:
- In the Spanish State: Septentrional varieties, Southern varieties (Andalusian, Extremaduran, and Murcian speech, Canary Islands), and varieties in contact with Catalan, Galician, Basque, Leonese, and Aragonese.
- Outside of Spain: Latin American varieties.
Diastratic Variety (Sociolects and Sociocultural Levels)
Diastratic varieties depend on the sociocultural level of the speakers and are materialized in social dialects or sociolects. Cultural differences determine different degrees of knowledge of the language of their community. These are the levels of language:
Cultivated Level
The cultivated speaker has a high domain and correction in language use, which allows them to specify the relationship between language and thought more effectively. This level is considered the standard language.
Colloquial Level
The common or joint talker shows less fluency in communication. They use fillers in spoken language and other elements of the phatic function of language, resulting in a reduction of vocabulary and the use of less complex sentences.
Vulgar Level
At this level, speakers have serious difficulties in the relationship between language and thought, resulting in hesitation, the use of crutches and wildcard words, or grammatical problems. In the vulgar level, violations of the rule, sometimes called slang, are frequent, and sometimes they revert to the regional dialect.
Diaphasic Varieties (Styles and Registers)
Diaphasic varieties include the different types of modes and form styles or language registers. Language is used differently according to any communicative situation.
Registers and Situational Factors
By using one register or another, speakers fit the message to the communicative situation. The use of a specific register is determined by:
- Activity and Subject: A doctor will use different styles when referring to a particular disease than when discussing a game of football.
- Identity of Participants: The relationship between participants and the purpose of the communicative situation. A teenager does not use the same register with a friend as they do with a teacher.
- Form of Transfer of the Message: Especially significant is the distinction between oral and written varieties.
Jargon and Slang
Jargon: Certain group members use a type of variant, little understood by outsiders, which are called professional jargons (e.g., medical, legal).
Slang: The term slang refers to the language of marginal groups (e.g., prison slang, drug slang).