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BS: Tones of Voice
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Subject: BS: Tones of Voice From: Ebbie Date: 19 Jun 12 - 01:44 PM A few minutes ago I viewed a video of the 'mushroom cloud' over Bejing. A private video, the speakers were evidently all Chinese and there was no English spoken. What struck me was that it was easy to follow the conversation. I have often wondered at the phenomenon that human beings tend to use the same tone of voice to express questions or fear or joy or amazement or friendship or animosity. Why is that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 19 Jun 12 - 01:54 PM Super point Ebbie, I'm very interested in things to do with language and communication. As you know, Chinese is a tonal language, so their voices go up and down in odd places. Yet the gist can be fairly easily picked up. In my travels I've found myself understanding most of what a person was saying without knowing a word of their language. For instance in Barcelona, an old priest was telling me all about his church and its history, in Catalan, which I don't speak at all, and I totally understood. Similarly I've listened to Wolof and Djola and more or less twigged. There are more similarities among peoples than differences I suppose. And knowing the context helps. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Rapparee Date: 19 Jun 12 - 02:01 PM Ebbie, a little known martial art is kiai jutsu. It's the use of the voice, and only the voice, as a weapon. You can search for it on web if you want to learn more. I am not trained in it, but I have on several occasions used the power of my voice to stop someone from doing something or to prevent them from doing something. The human voice is capable of expressing many, many things even if you cannot see the speaker's face. I don't pretend to know why this is, but if you have ever enjoyed a song in a language unknown to you you have experienced it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 19 Jun 12 - 02:28 PM Just remembered to add that, of course, my cats don't speak or understand English, yet they can quickly tell by my tone of voice what I'm on about! If I find one of them has done a small 'wee' up the wall, I only have to start and they're out of the door fast! I took in a dog a few weeks ago, just for the weekend, and (knowing nothing about dogs) I found I could get through to her by my tone. She was naturally a bit nervous, but a kind voice can work wonders. Prince Charles still maintains that even plants respond to an encouraging tone. He may be right! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Ebbie Date: 19 Jun 12 - 03:04 PM Off the subject but marginally related: Why is it that human beings around the world have recognizable, repeatable differences in physiognomy (color, eyelid shapes, teeth, body mass, perhaps others) but our animals don't? An animal displays according to its breed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Highlandman Date: 19 Jun 12 - 03:35 PM Anybody remember the late Andy Kaufman's early standup routine? He would come out and start talking in that gibberish made-up language of his, and after a bit people in the audience would actually begin to "understand" what he was saying. Before long he could tell a joke, as it were, and when he got to the punch line the audience would laugh even though nobody could possibly have understood a word. I loved it. -Glenn |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: JennieG Date: 19 Jun 12 - 06:15 PM Every mother sometimes uses The Voice to her children - the words are less important than the tone! It often goes hand-in-hand with The Look. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Ebbie Date: 19 Jun 12 - 06:25 PM But why is it that humans, no matter what the language and the culture, have utilized and perfected the *tone*? * Why does the voice rise at a question? * Why does a voice get either loud or soft in anger? * In excitement, why does a voice 'suspend'? * Why do we all understand threatening tones? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Bobert Date: 19 Jun 12 - 06:50 PM People are a lot like dogs and cats who also act on tone of voice... I love doing my sexy, low voice on the P-Vine... Doesn't much what I say -eck, I could be reading out of the phone book - for it to come off as real naughty... (You shouldn't have told that story, Boberdz...) B;~) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: gnu Date: 19 Jun 12 - 06:59 PM It's inate. And it's not just in humans. It crosses species. I use voice and gutteral "growls" or whatever and body language to train pets. As for Ebbie's "Why do we all understand threatening tones?", well now, that's a poser at a very basic level. Very basic. Do we also need visual confirmation with the threatenting tone? Does the tone work without same if the tone is new to the receiever? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Ebbie Date: 19 Jun 12 - 07:31 PM My guess, gnu, is that if I received a telephone call from a stranger that was meant to threaten or intimidate - no matter what the words - the message would come through. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Jim Dixon Date: 19 Jun 12 - 07:40 PM It's amazing they bother to put subtitles on foreign films! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Bev and Jerry Date: 19 Jun 12 - 08:15 PM Most communication "experts" agree that the majority of the information we exchange when we talk is in our tone of voice, facial expressions and body language and very little of the actual information is contained in the words we speak. That is why Mudcat postings are often misunderstood no matter how carefully we try to word them. It's also why emoticons were invented as a poor substitute to convey the info that's not in our words. Bev and Jerry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: gnu Date: 19 Jun 12 - 08:31 PM Ebbie... I agree. When I would growl at a dog or cat, they knew right quick like what the message was. The ex might have scolded them in her voice and they might have taken note... or not as they were pushing the envelope at times. When I growled, they sit up and took notice. They knew the growl was the final word. Hehehe... I recall Cheucy (huge Calico female) growling back at me but still coming in the house under protest when I told her it wasn't her call by growling in a manner she understood. She was a true lady cat. I miss her. And Maggie, who would come to me on command and fetch like a dog and sic the dog from down the street on command when it squatted on my lawn. Am I an odd duck for being able to train cats? I was always able to train dogs in jig time... cats in jigjigjig time or a bit longer, but I always managed to train them. Hmmm... am I an alpha pussy? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Janie Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:34 PM Got flamed by my ex last night immediately after what I considered an unproductive meeting with a family therapist regarding our son. We were out on the street by our cars. His words "The two of you drove me crazy." (referring to the therapist and me) "I guess I used inflamatory language and my tone was passionate so the two of you misinterpreted what I said." My deliberately calm reply. "I'm going to challenge that. If you use inflamatory language and your tone is harsh and angry, but that is not representative of what you are actually thinking or feeling, the problem is not primarily that we are misinterpreting. The problem is you are miscommunicating. All we have to go on is what you say and your tone of voice." He lit up like a roman candle. I said I was sorry he was upset and that I was leaving. Not feeling calm, I nontheless said a calm goodnight, got in my car, closed the door and drove off, with him still raging at me in the street. I'm really looking forward to our next meeting in two weeks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 20 Jun 12 - 03:32 AM janie, you did well to remain calm and to reflect that in your tone of voice. I did the same (often) when teaching and confronted by eg a playground fight among boys. Shrieking or shouting and showing that I was upset would've been no use at all. I usually found a calm and slightly deeper voice worked wonders. I had a colleague who almost 'sang' in a rich contralto when admonishing her class. (A bit like recitative in an opera) It always worked. Student teachers reduced to shouting and even screaming at their disobedient pupils got absolutely nowhere and ended up in tears! With regard to gesture, I wonder if the blind are much disadvantaged by not seeing the facial expressions and body language of a speaker? I should imagine it does hamper them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Rapparee Date: 20 Jun 12 - 07:34 PM I suggest that every teacher, male and female, develop the command voice. "School shooters" have been halted by a teacher simply commanding "Stop!" in the correct manner. The military has been using it for years and yes, it does take some practice. Once you have it you'll never lose it. Some hints: 1. Make the command short and "snappy." 2. Project the command. 3. Issue the command with confidence that you'll be obeyed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Amos Date: 20 Jun 12 - 08:50 PM Strikes me that a guy in that condition is not particularly sensitive to the actual feelings he is embroiled in from moment to moment and probably is not up to taking ownership of them enough to control them. It is --in my opinion-- important to recognize the bandwidth that runs from physically felt emotions up to non-symbolic communications (inflections and tones embodying feeling but not using morphemes of any particular meaning). This is a range of gut level interaction that occurs behind the foreground of our signifying, and when the two are not in synch with each other, a cognitive dissonance between the feeling shown and the meaning spoken can put your hair on end or twist your guts up, it can be so strong. I often get that reaction when listening to politicians when they say sweet thoughts while they seem to be feeling like Darth Vader. Primal sound exchange is certainly harder to fake than formulated syla-bobbles. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 21 Jun 12 - 08:01 AM Rapparee, I would say your third point is probably the most essential. When issuing commands or taking control, you must spend a millisecond mustering your confidence and absolute certainty that you will be heard and obeyed. Children especially have a weird talent at sussing out whether you really are tough and strong or just pretending. Your tone will convey not only your instructions, but your rock-hard determination which brooks no disobedience. Body language and facial expression are also IMO vital. A child will look at your face for a second to ascertain the type of character you are. If there's even a trace of weakness there, you've had it! Your stance and body position are also subtly involved. This works with dogs too, as Cesar Millan (US dog-trainer, the Dog Whisperer) has shown. And the less said the better, as you say. And don't ever shout, as it's counter-productive. The most scary teacher I ever had as a child was Miss Cartman, who only ever murmured her commands. We were terrified of her! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: JohnInKansas Date: 21 Jun 12 - 09:38 PM There is a definite difference between yelling and screaming and a proper "command voice." And the command voice is something that has to be learned, and that not all are able to learn. But as also mentioned, once you learn it, it never goes away (and sometimes it's difficult to remember not to use it inappropriately.) ... "microphones???? what microphones??? WE DON'T NEED NO STEENKIN' MICROPHONES!" John (once a totally incompetent ROTC Drill Team Commandant for a while, because I was the only one who'd learned it.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Janie Date: 21 Jun 12 - 09:47 PM You nailed that one, Amos. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Rapparee Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:04 PM I have spoken to an audience of 525+ people without a microphone. You just need to project correctly. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Ebbie Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:38 PM The church where we hold our folk club concerts has marvelous acoustics - the stage is set low and the rows of seats are banked upward in a fan shape. We have checked it from stem to stern, so to speak, and there is no dead spot anywhere. We don't normally even use a sound system. (Another church where I have attended concerts is rectangular in shape and just about the only good seats are in the first two rows. The churches are from basically the same era.) When I speak in the first church I aim my voice at the people in the topmost row and never strain. I'm heard perfectly well. However. The breathy, wispy voices I hear all around me, in the halls and on the streets, would never be heard clearly no matter where they were. imo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: JohnInKansas Date: 22 Jun 12 - 02:45 AM An abstract of a "technical article" purporting to have "proved" that a specific genetic defect has been shown to be the cause of a familial inability to remember, recall, or communicate, that has persisted through at least four generations of a family that was studied. Since the source is not one where I've found much in the way of "scientific" information I didn't attempt to read more than the abstract, but it might be worth noting that there might be reason to expect fairly wide variability in the ability of individuals to "follow a conversation without knowing the language" if there's even slight validity of those authors' proposal. A more completely reported effect was one At Can't carry a tune to save your life? By Meghan Holohan "I know only two tunes: one of them is 'Yankee Doodle,' and the other isn't," quipped Ulysses S. Grant. Grant famously disdained military music and many speculate that the 18th President of the United States suffered from tone-deafness or amusia. "Amusia is a general term that applies to a group of musical deficits," says Daniel J. Levitin, James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal. Tone-deafness and amusia remain misunderstood. Bad singers could be one of four types—people unable to hear pitch; people who can't capture rhythm; people who sing in a monotone; and people with voices that others don't prefer, says Levitin. He peppers his explanation with song, singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" monotonically then performing it as if he is Bob Dylan (he does a pretty passable impression!). "[Dylan] actually hits all the pitches, he is very precise; he has an unusual voice," Levitin says. Critics call Dylan tone deaf simply because they dislike his voice. Being a bad vocalist does not mean one is truly amusic. Being amusic means a person lacks musical ability; she might not be able to distinguish pitch or create different sounds. "Normal people have some musical ability—if I play you a piece of music and I miss a note, you would know something wrong with that. Amusics can't [tell]," says Psyche Loui, a neurology instructor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston. "The main compliant is that they cannot sing in tune." Anywhere from 4 to 9 percent of the population suffers from amusia. It's difficult to obtain solid estimates because people dubbed tone-deaf earn the distinction because of terrible singing, not because they have been tested for amusia. (And these are real tests.) ... Loui says experts remain unsure about what causes amusia, but most believe a combination of environmental and genetic factors lead to disruptions in the brain, contributing to "unawareness and poor memory for sounds, especially pitches." Being amusic makes life tricky (and not just for those who suffer through a screeching rendition of "Call Me Maybe" at karaoke). Many Asian and African languages are tonal and one word possesses different meanings based on how it's pronounced. Loui, whose native language is Cantonese, provides an example. If she says 'ma' one way it means mother, if she says it with different inflection it means horse. Amusics who speak tonal languages are often unfairly pegged as having learning disabilities. "If you cannot perceive tone, you can't produce it," says Loui. In most languages, being unable to understand inflection or pitch can lead to misunderstandings, says Levitin. "A lot of emotion and intention is conveyed by tone," he says. People understand sarcasm because they hear the tone. For a person unable to discern such nuances, a conversation can be confusing. "[Amusia] is definitely a real phenomena and has neural underpinnings," says Loui. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Ebbie Date: 22 Jun 12 - 04:04 AM John, that post makes me wonder - you know, they say that sociopaths are incapable of empathy, that severe autism sufferers are isolated because they cannot understand others' nuances of feeling, that people with issues of severe narcissism literally think no one else is as important as they are (broadly speaking) - and now, this article says that a certain percentage of people are incapable of perceiving or replicating tones that other people can hear - is there a chance that these deficiencies are connected, related in some way? I don't mean at all that a 'tone-deaf' person is a psychopath or autistic or narcisstic - but might there be a component in the brain of the human being that manifests itself in different ways? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Musket Date: 22 Jun 12 - 06:37 AM My Mum used to say "Don't look at me in that tone of voice!" Normally just before my defiance led to the slipper appearing...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: JohnInKansas Date: 22 Jun 12 - 03:57 PM Ebbie - I was afraid the first comment about that post up above would be an objection to someone saying "Dylan isn't really tone deaf." I guess I forgot the thread is "below the line." It would seem reasonable to try to find all the reasons why people with each kind of disorder don't recognize/respond to emotions in others, and this little quirk might be one possible factor to consider; but I wouldn't want to assume that every deficit of empathy is likely to be related to any single cause, without a lot of more specific confirmation for each separate trait where symptoms may just be somewhat similar. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: GUEST Date: 22 Jun 12 - 07:20 PM Maybe this is odd, but, what the heck. Janie... maybe his erratic behaviour stems from fear?... fear of losing what he truly loves? fear of his own inadequacy in being worthy of you? Not that it matters because anyone who cannot deal with that situation is worthy of staying away from. It's just that I don't get why the therapist hasn't explored this... maybe the therapist has? Anyway... I ain't no therapist. I'll just shuffle away now. Just a thought. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Janie Date: 23 Jun 12 - 01:02 AM I think it unlikely, Ebbie. Narcissism and sociopathy do overlap. Autism is entirely different, as is tone deafness or the more extreme amusicality. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: GUEST,Lighter Date: 23 Jun 12 - 08:45 AM "Linguistic universals" are tricky because there are several thousand known languages and nobody can study them all to reach detailed conclusions about them all. But a number of languages, including Hawaiian and Greenlandic, are said to employ a *falling* intonation for questions. Mandarin does this for "does-it-or-doesn't-it" questions, but uses a rising sentence intonation for other kinds. It's all rather complicated. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Rapparee Date: 23 Jun 12 - 09:35 AM Not to mention the languages that are all but extinct. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: GUEST,Lighter Date: 23 Jun 12 - 10:04 AM Or completely extinct. What did Cro-Magnon questions sound like? Ya got me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Tones of Voice From: Ebbie Date: 23 Jun 12 - 11:26 AM Cro-Magnon questions? I remember. |
