In search of paralinguistic features

The aim of this paper is twofold: 1) to examine the nature, scope and function o f the paralinguistic features on the basis o f a survey of the previous studies, and 2) to make an attempt to search and exempli fy paralinguistic features operating at vari ous linguistic and non-linguistic units in s everal languages. A special emphasis will be placed on the paralinguistic functions o f phonetic elements including segmental a s well as prosodic features. The term "Par alinguistic feature" has been reexamined a nd its scope broadened in this paper so th at it can accommodate any phonetic featur es, whether intentional or not on the part of the speaker, that can perform the parali nguistic function of contributing and modi fying the basic meaning of words, etc. In view of the growing importance of paralin guistic features, a new term "Paraphonetic feature" is suggested to include exclusive ly vocal or phonetic media operating as p aralinguistic features in human communica tion. Therefore paraphonetic features inclu de not only prosodic features such as pitc h, intensity, duration, speech rhythm and i ntonation but also segmental elements suc h as vowels, consonants, voice quality and airstream mechanism involved. 1. Communicative Activities of Hum an Beings The communicative activities of human beings can be viewed as involving three distinct and yet interrelated activities: 1) li nguistic, 2) paralinguistic and 3) non-lingu istic. These three activities differ not only in kinds but also in the degree of their c ontribution to communicative efficiency, p ower and precision. The linguistic activity no doubt plays a central role in human c ommunication when compared to paraling uistic and non-linguistic activities. The thr ee communicative activities are all carried out by means of both the vocal and visu al media. Therefore the overall structure a nd the medium of the human communicati on activities can be represented as follow s: 1. Linguistic activity vocal(speech)/visual