Paralanguage
Definition
"Auxiliary communication devices that generally assure clarity by transmitting the same message in different ways at the same time. These include variations in tone and character of voice along with such non-verbal forms of communication as kinesics, proxemics, clothing, and makeup."[1]
Online, paralanguage takes the form of profile pictures, wall posts and other creations of self.
Description
Paralanguage is everything that accompanies an utterance without being part of its words. In speech this includes pitch, volume, speed, breathiness, hesitation, laughter, and the length of a pause; alongside it run kinesics (gesture, posture, facial expression), proxemics (Edward T. Hall's term for the use of interpersonal distance), and the semi-permanent signals of dress, grooming and adornment.
Its function, as the definition notes, is redundancy in the information-theoretic sense: the same message transmitted along several channels at once so that noise in any one does not destroy it. Redundancy is also what allows contradiction to be meaningful. Sarcasm, irony and politeness all work by sending words down one channel and their opposite down another, and both channels must be present for the effect to exist at all.
The Problem of Text
Written communication strips almost all of this away, which is why text has always been an unusually poor medium for anything except assertion. The recipient of a plain sentence has the words and nothing else: no tone, no face, no pause, no distance. Ambiguity that speech resolves automatically becomes permanent, and the default reading of an ambiguous message tends to be the least generous one.
Networked writing has therefore reinvented paralanguage from scratch, repeatedly. The channels available are new but the functions are old:
- Prosodic substitutes. Capitalisation for volume, letter repetition for duration, italics for stress, ellipses for hesitation, punctuation or its absence for tone. The full stop at the end of a short message now carries a reliable, entirely unwritten meaning.
- Facial substitutes. Emoticons, emoji and reaction images doing the work of expression, particularly the work of marking non-serious intent.
- Kinesic substitutes. Typing indicators, read receipts, seen-at timestamps and response latency, all of which communicate attention and hesitation without content.
- Adornment. Avatar, banner, username, handle, bio, pinned post — the online equivalent of clothing and makeup, chosen deliberately and read constantly.
- Proxemic substitutes. Which channel a message is sent through, whether it is public or direct, and how quickly it is answered, all encode social distance.
Consequences
Because these channels are constructed rather than bodily, they can be composed, edited, and faked in ways that vocal paralanguage largely cannot — a profile is a deliberate performance in a way that a voice is not. They are also platform-specific and generationally stratified: the meaning of a given punctuation choice or emoji differs sharply by community and by age, which makes paralanguage one of the most reliable markers of a social dialect.
Related Reading
References
- ↑ Dennis O'Neil, "Glossary of Terms," Cultural Anthropology Tutorials, Palomar College. Originally at http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/cglossary.htm — the tutorials were retired and this URL no longer resolves.
