Suprasegmentals and The Role They Play in Communications

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This is a look at Suprasegmentals and their role in communications universally. That even in another language that the emotional message at least for the main emotions of anger, fear, excitement, happiness or neutral emotions are decoded by 66%. There are many cues that add to the decoding of speech and though tones are only one area they play a big part in our overall awareness of communications in general. There have been experiments that have been done in this area resulting in concepts about suprasegmentals. The relevance of pitch, tone, loudness and rhythm and how they are decoded may change the message that is received largely.

This is a look at Suprasegmentals and the role they play in communications.

When we talk face to face there are many different cues for us to read from body language and facial expressions, culture, maybe the area the person is from, derelicts and education, life knowledge, syntax and then of course all the verbal cues like tone, pitch and loudness and rhythm or the speed of the speech if there is a waiver in their voice like when someone is nervous. All these cues help use to decode the message we are getting even if the person is speaking in another language we can know if someone is happy or angry.

Though languages have many different sounds, symbols and rules humans have ways to signal danger and emotional expressions of warmth, love, fear, happiness, joy, agreement, nervousness and aggression. There are many vocal sounds like a scream; laughter and crying that are universal. The degree that cultures express emotion or their exact meanings socially may vary slightly. A mother humming to a baby cooing and clucking all such sounds are very universally made.

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... degree of person perception, culture and replication of say the quiver of a nervous tone that in real life is hard to conceal. To fully appreciate real emotion messages from different culture one needs to use real like situations so that the emotion is encoded with the real tones of vocal expressions not acted out in a controlled scenario.

Music and singing are a medium of emotional expression that also uses volume, pitch, rhythm and tonal changes to express emotion and feelings as a part of its natural form of expression. Think of a Hollywood movie that plays dramatic louder movie to signal dangers etc. It would seem then that we have a natural inclination to universally understand these changes even if we are unconscious about their seconding’s. Other cultures use different tones and scales but still have the same dynamic in music as they do in speech.

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