HUL 1OO
Viviana Duran
Speech and Communication
VHS 960 THE HUMAN VOICE: EXPLORING VOCAL
PARALANGUAGE
I. Summary
This video emphasizes in the importance of the Human Voice. When we speak
our voice reveals who we are, our gender, age, emotional state, level of education, and
our relationship with others. The Human Voice is a way to communicate with other
people by reading their voices, as they explained in the video when we speak, we
“encode” important information about ourselves, and when we listen to others, we can
“decode” important information about them. They also explained how spoken language
contains two different types of communication. One is ‘text” which means the words by
themselves. The other is “vocal paralanguage” which means the many different ways in
which any given word can be say like sarcasm way, emotion, etc.
They also talked about some different types of clues that the Human Vocal
Paralanguage contains like our emotions, feelings, when we speak to a children, and our
national accents. In the video they gave some examples where certain people had to
blindfold and they distinguished other people’s voices like gender, age, or even their
backgrounds. This video talked about the strong power and the importance of the vocal
paralanguage. For example, how our voice reveals what we are feeling, or what our voice
reveals about us. Finally, they deducted how every person has their own vocal identities
like their normal voice, altered voice, or different lifestyles and how the vocal
paralanguage is very important for the human communication.
II. How this video could be used in a communication class?
In my opinion this video could be used in a communication class by applying all
these methods to our voice. For example, how the way we speak reveals who we are male
or female? What does our voice reveals about us? How people can recognize our accents?
How our voice reveals what we are feeling? All these methods will help the students to
improve their voice diction as well as their pronunciation and be able to keep a
conversation going. In addition, students will feel more confident when they have to talk
in front of people making presentations. This video will be very useful for a
communication class because the Human Voice is an extraordinary gift of the human
speech. Therefore, anyone who sees this video will know the variety, and importance of
the spoken word. This video is great to show the students the power of the Human Voice,
our ability to read vocal paralanguage, and reference materials on the voice and
nonverbal communication.
III. Analysis
First of all, I chose this video because I really enjoy hearing or seeing anything
involve with this subject as it is the voice diction or vocal paralanguage. In addition I take
music lesson, but in Spanish so I think this video “The Human Voice: Exploring Vocal
Paralanguage” was very interesting to see because I could learn interesting topics that
now I can use it for my daily life. For instance, they way people talk can tell me how they
are feeling, their gender, age, etc. I also liked to see this video because it showed how to
speak clearly, so that others can understand what you saying and how to use different
vocal paralanguage. This video was very helpful in the way that now I am more
enthusiastic in learning more and more about the strong power of the Human Voice. In
addition I can encourage to other friends like me that wants to improve their
pronunciation or be able to understand with others to see this video or other similar, so
that they can have an idea that the Vocal Paralanguage is very important, powerful and
vital part of the human communication. I think the way we see others and the way we are
seen by them depends in large part on what is heard in the human voice. I really enjoyed
watching this video.