Verbal Associates
Kinds of Verbal Associates
Verbal associates are audible signals which are not technically regarded as part of body language or nonverbal communications; but they are also important to give attention to.
Verbal associates are quite different from the spoken words, and they can all convey more and/or different meaning compared to the spoken words themselves.
Some examples of verbal associates as provided by Chapman (2010) are as follows:
Pitch (the constant musical note of the voice) |
Pace (speed or rate of talking) |
Volume, which ranges from whispering to shouting |
Volume variation (how volume changes in phrases or longer passages of speech) |
Intonation and ‘musicality’ (how the pitch changes according to what is being said) |
Timbre (quality or sound of the voice, and how this changes) |
Emphasis (of syllables, words, or phrases) |
Projection (where the voice is being projected to—for example, lots of projection, as if talking to a big group, or none, as if mumbling) |
Silences, and hesitation |
rm’s and erh’s |
Gasps, tuts, and other intakes and exhalations of breath |
Habits, such as ‘I think ...’ , ‘You know ...’, ‘Like ...’ |
Laughing and giggling (which can be interspersed within speech, or separate signals, such as nervous laughter) and all sorts of other audible/vocal effects, including:
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