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Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Paralanguage,

Communication, and Education

Article · June 1985

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 TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 19, No. 2, June 1985

Actions Speak Louder Than Words:

Paralanguage, Communication,
and Education
ALASTAIR PENNYCOOK
McGill University

This article examines the importance of paralanguage (kinesics,

proxemics, and paraverbal features) in communication. Gestures,
facial expressions, interfactional synchrony, eye contact, use of
space, touching, aspects of voice modification, and silence are
shown to play a crucial role in human interaction and to be highly
culture-specific. The implications of this broad paradigm of com-
munication are discussed with respect to language development,
and it is suggested that paralanguage be included as a primary
facet of communicative competence. Finally, the importance of
awareness of paralanguage in the classroom is discussed, and a
number of suggestions are made to facilitate students’ acquisition
of paralanguage.

INTRODUCTION
The term paralanguage was first used by Trager (1958) as a
synthesis of the linguistic and psychological material collected on
the kinds and categories of voice modification which could be
applied to different situational contexts. According to his topological
classification, any human utterance could be fully accounted for in
terms of voice set, the physiological and physical peculiarities which
allow identification of mood, state of health, age, sex, body build,
and so on; voice qualities, recognizable speech events which include
degree of control of pitch range, articulation, rhythm, resonance,
and tempo; and vocalization, specifically identifiable noises (sounds)
such as laughing, crying, and whispering, as well as uh-huh (affir-
mation) or uh-uh (negation).
Trager was at this time engaged in providing a framework for
more general studies of culture and communication with anthro-
pologists Edward Hall and Ray Birdwhistell, who provided valuable
materials from their respective fields of proxemics, “social and
personal space and man’s perception of it” (Hall 1966:1), and

259
kinesics, gestures and other body movements, including facial
expression, eye movement, and posture. Thus, paralanguage became
one of a set of interrelated subsystems comprising one’s overall
communicative competence: “In analyzing a communication, one
must, to cover all the data, include material in the areas of
paralanguage and kinesics as well as in language” (Trager 1958:278).
A degree of confusion has arisen, however, since paralanguage
has been used as an umbrella term to cover paralanguage in its
original narrow sense and also to refer more generally to all aspects
of nonverbal communication. There is further confusion concerning
the exact perimeters of the terms kinesics and proxemics, as they
intersect with body language, haptics (touching), and so on. Thus,
with some authors, we may find paralanguage subsumed under
nonverbal communication, as with Duncan (1969), who includes
body motion, paralanguage, proxemics, olfaction, skin sensitivity,
and use of artifacts under the title of nonverbal communication,
while with others, all aspects of nonverbal communication are
subsumed under paralanguage.
The 1984 ERIC definition of paralanguage is the “study of those
aspects of speech communication that do not pertain to linguistic
structure or content, for example, vocal qualifiers, intonation, and
body language” (Houston 1984:185). This broader definition, which
appears to be gaining popularity at present, is used in this article and
is consistent with Loveday’s (1982:91): “paralanguage . . . the vocal,
kinesic (gestural) and proxemic (spatial) channels which accompany,
interfuse and partly synchronize the traditionally recognized ones. ”
Unfortunately, this still leaves a terminological problem: how to
distinguish between the narrow and broad definitions of paralan-
guage, both of which are contained in the literature. For this article,
paralanguage is used in the broad sense, and paraverbal features is
used to refer to paralanguage in the narrow sense. Under the rubric
paralanguage, therefore, are found kinesics, proxemics, and para-
verbal features.

THE COMPONENTS OF PARALANGUAGE

Before a more detailed discussion of these subsystems, we should
first be aware of the significance of paralanguage in any framework
of communication. According to Stevick (1982:163), “if verbal
communication is the pen which spells out details, nonverbal
communication provides the surface on which the words are written
and against which they must be interpreted.” Furthermore, this
communicative channel is in operation at all times: “Whatever
language, or whatever the purpose in communication, informational

260 TESOL QUARTERLY

or expressive, emotions and attitudes always project themselves in
an overlay of superimposed patterns” (Key 1975:9). More precisely,
Birdwhistell (1970:158) has stated that “probably no more than 30 to
35 percent of the social meaning of a conversation or an interaction
is carried by the words.” These figures appear to have gained fairly
wide acceptance, as a number of authors cite 65 percent as the
communicative load carried by the paralinguistic channels. Meh-
rabian and Ferris (1967), however, provide the following figures for
weight of importance in communication: face, 55 percent; tone, 38
percent; words, 7 percent.
Any such figures need to be treated with caution and are clearly
dependent on individual, contextual, and cultural factors, but they
nevertheless indicate the great significance of this area of study. The
relationship of language to paralanguage has been expressed perhaps
most pithily by Abercrombie (1968:55): “We speak with our vocal
organs, but we converse with our whole body.”

Kinesics
In his seminal work, Darwin argued for an evolutionary origin of
the expression of emotions in man: “The same state of mind is
expressed throughout the world with remarkable uniformity”
(1872:17). Since that time, much of the research in expressions and
gestures has sought to answer this nature/nurture controversy. Eibl-
Eibesfeldt (1974), who took up Darwin’s suggestion that congenitally
blind children be studied, found that deaf and blind children indeed
laughed, smiled, and cried (see also Knapp 1978, Chapter 2). She
also discovered a number of universal, cross-cultural trends, such as
the “eyebrow flash” of recognition and greeting that can also be
found among primates. In some cultures, however, such as the
Japanese, this expression was considered indecent and was sup-
pressed. Ekman has also been a strong proponent of the argument
for the universality of expressions. Ekman, Sorenson, and Friesen
(1969) compared the recognition of photographs displaying seven
emotional states—happiness, fear, disgust, contempt, anger, surprise,
and sadness—among people of both literate and nonliterate societies
and found a fairly high correlation. An experiment by Ekman and
Friesen (1975:24) showed that Japanese and American students used
“virtually identical facial expressions” when alone but showed “little
correspondence between . . . expressions” in the presence of another
person. They concluded that there was a pan-cultural element in
facial displays of emotion, that is, in the association between facial
muscular movements and discrete primary emotions, but noted that
cultures may still differ in what evokes an emotion, in rules for
controlling the display of emotion, and in behavioral consequences.
PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 261
 La Barre directly challenged the “innateness” argument by citing
differences across cultures in the expression of emotions, such as
smiling, which “may almost be mapped after the fashion of any
other culture trait, ” or laughter, which “is in some senses a geographic
variable” (1947:52). The strongest proponent of the nurture side of
the controversy has been Birdwhistell. Analyzing expressions through
the use of modern technology, rather than through the anecdotal
information used by La Barre, “in a new experimental world made
possible by the sound camera, the slow-motion analyzer, and the
tape recorder,” Birdwhistell (1970:5) has argued for a “reevaluation
of evolution.” After extensive research, he concluded that “although
we have been searching for 15 years, we have found no gesture or
body motion which has the same social meaning in all societies . . .
Insofar as we know, there is no body motion or gesture that can be
regarded as a universal symbol” (1970:81).
The safest position to take in this argument seems to be that
certain types of expressive behavior, such as perspiring or pupil
dilation, depend on the autonomic system and are presumably
innate, but for most other forms of nonverbal communication, the
expressive meaning differs greatly across cultures. Thus, there may
be a mixture of both innate and learned components in any social
signal: Greetings, for example, nearly always involve face-to-face
approach, touching, mutual gaze, and some type of verbal formula
(Argyle 1976). Yet, as everyone is no doubt well aware, greetings in
North or South America, France, Japan, or Russia, for example,
differ considerably. Even the handshake itself has different forms—
according to length, pressure, and style—and different functions—
whether greeting, farewell, or sealing a bargain (Hall and Hall 1983).
In East Africa, Creider (1977) identified seven different handshakes,
varying according to respect, age, and friendliness.
The observation and description of gestures have long been the
hobby of travelers and the work of anthropologists, Birdwhistell
(1970) has completed the most extensive survey of American
gestures and expressions, listing 57 facial kinemes (compare pho-
nemes), for example, 4 degrees of eyelid closure and 3 kinemes of
head nod, which may be combined into orderly structures of
behavior (kinemorphs) in an interactive sequence contributing to
social meaning. In addition to facial movements, Birdwhistell has
categorized movement and posture for the head, trunk, shoulder,
arm and wrist, hand and finger, hip, leg and ankle, foot activity and
walking, and neck.
On a less technical level, most of us—and especially ESL teach-
ers—probably have one or more amusing anecdotes to tell of
gestures that have been misinterpreted: the Japanese tour guide

262 TESOL QUARTERLY

trying to regather her group, only to find them dispersing even more
in reaction to her gesture (Seward 1968:42), or the unfortunate
results of using the “thumbs-up” gesture to hitchhike in Australia or
Latin America. That gestures may carry unambiguous meaning is
evidenced by the story of an Italian butcher, jailed for publicly
displaying the “cuckold” sign to his neighbor (Time 1965).
There are many fascinating accounts and descriptions of gestures,
some organized by type, for example, the signs for yes or no
(Jakobson 1972); some by country, for example, Japan (Morsbach
1973) or Puerto Rico (Nine-Curt 1976a); and some cross-culturally
(e.g., La Barre 1947 or Morris, Collet, Marsh, and O’Shaughnessy
1979). Creider (1977) found that although a number of African
gestures were shared, only 13 out of 69 were found in both Africa
and North America, and only 18 in both Africa and Latin America.
What is clearly demonstrated by all these studies is that gestures are
culture-specific, and their use or misuse can lead to amusement,
bewilderment, miscomprehension, or insult. As Hall (1976:76) sug-
gests, “the chances of one’s being correct decrease as cultural
distance increases. Even two people as closely related as the
Americans and the English have problems reading each other’s
kinesics.”
What is less obvious than these overt gestures, however, is that our
bodies are conveying information constantly during any interaction.
Furthermore, these body movements are coordinated with speech
so that it is possible to identify hierarchical structures of body
movement that correspond to linguistic segments: “When, in a
speaker, the body motion co-occurring with his speech is examined,
it is found that the points of change in the flow of sound coincide
with the points of change in body movement” (Kendon 1974:151).
These “kinesic markers’’—head nods, eye blinks, small lip move-
ments, chin thrusts, and other body movements—mark the rhythm
of the speech and are produced, according to Dittman (1974), as a
by-product of the speaker’s ongoing task of casting thoughts into
speech. Thus, such body movements provide important clues to the
listener in the ongoing task of understanding what the speaker has
said. There is, therefore, a close relationship between suprasegmen-
tals and other parts of the analogical system (Noonan-Wagner,
Acton, and Wood 1981). A study by Hadar, Steiner, Grant, and Rose
(1983) found that rapid head movements indicated stress, and
juncture was marked by contrasting ordinary movements with
stillness.
It is not only the speaker, however, who is in constant motion, for
the listener tends to mirror the movements of the speaker. This
interfactional synchrony is of particular significance, since it provides

PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 263

a means by which people signal their mutual attentiveness: “To
signal attentiveness, interactors use proximity, orientation, gaze,
head nods, alert posture and bodily movements” (Argyle 1976:72).
An important function of these interactions is to indicate not only
stress, junctures, pauses, or attentiveness, but also to organize
discourse and signal one’s readiness to yield or take a turn, or to
suppress an attempt to take a turn (Duncan 1974, 1976).
Eye contact plays an important role in regulating interpersonal
communication. In the United States, prolonged eye contact indi-
cates readiness to yield a turn (Heaton 1978), but eye contact may
differ extensively among cultures, as a number of authors have
noted. While many Western societies regard people as being slightly
suspicious or “shifty” if they avoid a certain amount of culturally
prescribed eye contact with a partner in face-to-face conversation,
Japanse children are taught to refrain from direct eye contact with
others (Morsbach 1973). In many Eastern cultures, downcast eyes
are a sign of respect, which can lead to misinterpretation in the West
(Levy 1979, Wolfgang 1979).
The movements that signal interfactional synchrony also differ
across cultures, according to the rhythm and discourse organization
specific to each language: “Rhythm in any language is always closely
tied up with other muscular rhythms of the body” (Allen and Corder
1974:45). This may be readily observed in dubbed films; no matter
how good the lip-synchronization, there is often nevertheless an
unsettling conflict between the rhythm and flow of the spoken
words and the nonverbal rhythm and flow. As Hall (1976:74) puts it,
“humans are tied to each other by hierarchies of rhythms that are
culture-specific and expressed through language and body move-
ment .“
Finally, it is interesting to note that we seem to have less control
over our nonverbal behavior than over our verbal behavior, so that
“nonverbal leakage” (Ekman and Friesen 1974 and compare Meh-
rabian 1972, Chapter 5) may often reveal what words do not.
According to Freud (1905/1953:77-78), “he that has eyes to see and
ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret.
If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes
out of him at every pore. ”

Proxemics
The study of proxemics and the closely related and often over-
lapping area of haptics has been dominated by the originator of the
term, Edward Hall, who found that American space judgments
depend principally on the tactile (whether parts of the body come

264 TESOL QUARTERLY

into contact during interaction) and visual senses. Hall (1966)
identified four different types of distance involved in interactions—
intimate, personal, social, and public—and calculated very precise
distances for each of these categories in the United States. As Hall
illustrates, however, these distances vary radically across cultures,
some—for example, Arab, Latin American, Greek, and Turkish—
being “high-contact” cultures, and others—such as Northern Euro-
pean, North American, and Japanese—being “low-contact” cultures.
This affects the layout of rooms, use of space, and attitudes toward
crowding and public places.
Different perceptions of what constitutes the private and public
domains greatly affect spatial and touching behavior. According to
Hall (1966), Germans tend to keep doors closed, while Americans
prefer to leave them open. TO an Arab, public space is exactly that,
so that the North American’s perceived right to personal space
would not be upheld. In Japan, the apparent contradiction between
a low-contact but highly crowded society can be explained in terms
of attitudes toward what is private and what is public: Although one
is often in very close proximity to others indoors, one would still
apologize for touching even a close friend or relative, but in public,
where touching is often unavoidable, an apology would not be
necessary. This would be the case even if touching could have been
avoided, for touching someone unknown is far more acceptable
than touching someone known. This is essentially the opposite of
North American behavior, where to touch a friend is acceptable but
the slightest contact with a stranger would elicit an apology. Another
instance of this type of cultural reversal has been observed by Nine-
Curt (1976a): Touching people of one’s own sex is much more
frequent in Puerto Rico than in the United States, but touching
someone of the opposite sex is much less common.
Jourard (1966) counted the number of times couples touched each
other in coffee shops across the world and produced the following
results: London, 0; Gainesville, Florida, 2 (“Were they possibly
Cubans?” speculates Nine-Curt [1983:43]); Paris, 110; and San Juan,
180. Different touching behaviors in different cultures can be seen
by comparing two replications of Jourard’s study, one in Japan
(Barnlund 1975) and one in Puerto Rico (Toro-Ventura 1982).
Barnlund found that as a channel of communication, touch appears
to be twice as important within the American culture as it is among
the Japanese.
In the United States, where “touch vocabulary” is limited to sexual
meaning, Jourard (1966) found large differences in quality and
access in reciprocal touching. Further differences were found
according to religion: Protestant and Catholic females reported

PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 265

being touched by their boyfriends on more body regions than did
Jewish females. Another interesting observation was that in U.S.
mental hospitals, staff-patient and patient-patient touching was
discouraged, whereas it was encouraged in France.
In any culturally specific context, proxemic signs are useful in
gauging the smoothness of an interaction or as indicators of hostility.
Proxemic signs may also, as Watson (1974:239) points out, be easily
misinterpreted: “My Arab, Latin American, and Southern European
subjects gave a composite picture of Anglo-American males which
characterized them as shy, uninterested, and generally ‘cold.’ “ The
close proximity and touching exhibited by these cultures seemed
oppressive and too intimate for the Americans, who drew back,
thereby giving the impression that they were cold and unfriendly.
On the other hand, the backslapping and touching used by Ameri-
cans as a sign of friendship might easily give offense in Japan or
China.
One further notion discussed by Hall (1966) which deserves
mention is the distinction between the sociopetal and sociofugal
arrangement of space, the former being conducive to com-
munication between people and the latter conducive to solitariness.
The distinction can clearly be seen in seating arrangements in cafes
(sociopetal) and waiting rooms (sociofugal).

Paraverbal Features
This final element of paralanguage refers to nonlexical aspects of
speech communication, largely characterized by distinguishable
degrees of intensity, velocity, extent and duration of pitch fluctu-
ation, duration of utterance segments, the use of sounds not occur-
ring in the standard language system, and the role of silence.
Voice quality may be affected by a number of factors. Key (1975)
identifies labialization, palatalization, nasalization, pharyngealization,
sound placement, and the use or nonuse of voice. Thus, nasalization,
which is a standard feature of the French language, is a paraverbal
feature in English, giving connotations of being tough, unattractive,
foolish, or lethargic. In one Bolivian language, however, nasalization
carries an honorific or a super-polite function, whereby individuals
of a lower socioeconomic status address those of higher ranks with a
prominence of nasalization for all vowels in the utterance (Loveday
1982). Labialization, found in French, German, and Scandinavian
languages, occurs in English only with baby talk. Loveday has also
noted that velarization, a characteristic of Liverpool English, is a
sign of masculinity in some Arab languages. Changes may occur in
voice quality as a result of talking while laughing, crying, or smiling:

266 TESOL QUARTERLY

“Levin was astounded to hear a smile in his voice” (Tolstoy
1878/1954:743). l
In a study of pitch variation, Loveday (1981) showed that while
standard English speakers of both sexes tend to employ a relatively
high pitch to express politeness, there is a significant divergence
between male and female pitch range in Japanese. In Japan, men
have traditionally used low, gruff voices, whereas women have used
high-pitched, dainty voices. If this distinction is carried over into
English, Japanese men will tend to sound bored, monotonous, or
rude. If English males carry their customary pitch range over to
Japanese, they may sound strangely feminine. Cammack and van
Buren (1967) comment that the nearest equivalent in English to
Japanese female paraverbal features denoting politeness, marked
by a distinct “breathiness, “ is a kind of feminine baby talk usually
associated with lack of intelligence or intimate male/female rela-
tionships. On the other hand, female English speakers often sound
harsh, raucous, rude, or overly masculine to a Japanese ear.
Batstone and Tuomi’s (1981) study of perception of female voice
quality showed that men found “passive” characteristics—soft,
gentle, sweet—most salient, whereas women found “active” ones—
lively, colorful, interesting—most salient. This suggests an interesting
difference between male and female perceptions of female char-
acteristics and roles.
Key (1975) suggests that the paraverbal suprasegmental features
may be seen as an overlay on the linguistic suprasegmental features.
Thus, when these features are used in the language system, they
indicate lexical and grammatical differences; and when they are
used in the paraverbal system, they indicate emotional and atti-
tudinal differences. Of course, as with all features of paralanguage,
there is a large degree of idiosyncratic variation. On hearing a voice,
however, one sets up a baseline for paraverbal features (Austin
1965) in much the same way as speakers of tone languages establish
a tonal baseline for each speaker, and it is against this that deviations
carrying affective information are measured. The baseline of Hum-
phrey Bogart, for instance, was nasal and slurred.
A number of vocalizations are not part of the standard language
system, but many of these have been given lexical equivalents that
have become widely accepted transcriptions. As Austin (1965:36)
puts it, “when we say he hemmed and hawed, we mean he resorted
to paralanguage [paraverbal features].” Examples in English are

1 For
fascinating studies of paralanguage in the theater and in literature, see Poyatos (1983,
Chapters 9, 10, and 11).

PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 267

(the “giddyup” signal to horses) use a click which is not part of
English phonology but which is similar to one found in Bantu
languages.
One should not overlook the importance of the absence of noise,
that is, silence. Duez (1982) analyzed the duration and distribution
of pauses in three different speech styles in French: political inter-
views, casual interviews, and political speeches. Nonsilent pauses
were found to be frequent and long in interviews, particularly in
casual interviews, and appeared to indicate hesitation and lack of
confidence. They were almost completely absent in political
speeches, the most striking feature of which were the silent pauses,
being approximately 50 percent more frequent and much longer
than in the interviews. Key (1975) suggests a number of possible
functions of a silent pause before a girl’s answer to a request for a
date, including wondering how to refuse, wondering how to avoid a
different date and accept this one, preventing a bystander from
overhearing, and so on.
If the function of silence may differ intralingually, then it may
certainly vary inter lingually. Japanese society has always considered
silence to be a great virtue. Satori (enlightenment) cannot be
achieved by talking about it; many proverbs exist that praise silence,
such as “One treats one’s mouth like a guarded jar, “ or “A mouth is
to eat with, not to speak with.” Wagatsuma (see Morsbach 1973:265)
states that “many American women need to be constantly told that
they are loved—they tend to feel lonely without verbal assurances.
Japanese lovers, when happy, remain silent, Americans TALK.” Hall
(1966) found differences between the British and American use of
silence. A British person might withdraw from a conversation by
remaining silent, whereas an American would be more likely to
withdraw physically, silence in the United States often being a sign
of hostility.
Perhaps the most remarkable instance of the communicative force
of silence is given by Morsbach (1973), who relates the story of an
American professor with an excellent command of Japanese. After a
meeting with his colleagues at a Japanese university, the professor
told one of them of his impression of the decision reached at the
meeting, only to be informed that the decision had in fact been the
opposite. Although he had understood the words, he had failed to
understand the silences. In a culture in which it is considered
improper to disagree directly, silence can play a very important
role.

Although the limited scope of this article has meant that many
areas of paralanguage have received but cursory attention and
268 TESOL QUARTERLY
some, such as the use of clothes and artifacts, have remained
untouched, it is hoped that at least some indication of the multi-
channeled nature of human communication has been conveyed.
Clearly a large proportion of any message, especially social and
affective meanings, may be carried by voice quality, posture, eye
contact, facial expression, gesture, body movement, touching, dis-
tance, and so on. Further, the nature of paralanguage and its use are
culture-specific, there being an incontrovertible link between culture
and communication: “Culture is communication and communication
is culture” (Hall 1959:191).
It is also important to note that the distinction between para-
language and language is by no means a clear one. Von Raffler-
Engel (1970) gives the example of an Italian boy, Albertino, who
pronounced both scarpa (shoe) and schiaffo (slap) as [kapa] but
distinguished between the two with facial expressions. The latter
meaning was conveyed by [kapa] with a stern expression, pre-
sumably as used by his father when using the word schiaffo. Nine-
Curt (1976a) discusses how a Puerto Rican’s smile can replace a
polite formula in English. These elements may also merge in
comparisons across languages (Abercrombie 1968): The Kaingang
of Brazil express concepts of degree and intensity through pitch,
facial expression, and bodily posture where English would require
formal linguistic devices. On the other hand, in Dakota, an American
Indian language, an emotional state such as annoyance, which in
English would be communicated by facial expression or tone of
voice, has formal linguistic expression by means of a particle added
at the end of the sentence.
There is, then, a constant interplay of different channels of
communication, verbal expression being only one facet of the
plurimodal process of interpersonal communication. This needs to
be considered in any model of language development, as “language
develops as a function of communication” (von Raffler-Engel
1971:195). Thus, Mehrabian (1972) and von Raffler-Engel (1976a)
argue that language acquisition cannot be fully understood unless it
is observed within its context of socialization and unless the con-
comitant paralinguistic behaviors are also observed. Poyatos
(1983:195) suggests that studies in “developmental kinesics” ought to
be applied to the “total linguistic-paralinguistic-kinesic complex.”
It has been claimed that the innate cultural rhythms that affect all
movement and language may be acquired prenatally through the
mother’s contact with the unborn child. After birth, the child
immediately has to start communicating, since the food supply is no
longer automatically supplied via the umbilical cord (von Raffler-
Engel 1981). The primary modes of communication for children at

PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 269

eight months are gesture alone and gesture with vocalization (Car-
penter, Mastergeorge, and Coggins 1983). There is therefore a
patterned emergence of communicative intention prior to speech
which is essentially paralinguistic. Paralanguage develops presum-
ably both phylogenetically and ontogenetically prior to language.
This is borne out by neurolinguistic evidence, which suggests that
the lymbic system may be responsible for nonverbal communication
and develops both phylo- and ontogenetically prior to the neocortex,
where most language functions are subserved (see, for example,
Lamendella 1977).

PARALANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

A question that remains to be answered is whether code switching
in a language necessarily accompanies paralinguistic code switching,
and vice versa (von Raffler-Engel 1976b). Birdwhistell’s (1974) and
Efron’s (1972) descriptions of the New York politician Fiorello La
Guardia would suggest that this may indeed be the case. Supposed-
ly, any observer who knew his three cultures—English, Yiddish, and
Italian—could immediately detect in which he was speaking, even
without hearing a word.
A study of bilingual francophone and anglophone children in
Ottawa (von Raffler-Engel 1976b) confirms this conclusion. “Striking
differences” were found between the two groups: Francophone
children signaled readiness to talk by leaning toward each other,
while anglophone children conveyed the same message by leaning
back in their chairs and extending their feet in a relaxed manner.
The francophones underscored what they said with gestures on the
word level, while the anglophones acted out whole situations, using
“discourse paralinguistics” (235). When the children switched lan-
guages, differences were also found in how they changed their
paralanguage. Anglophone children maintained their own system
but sometimes interspersed it with exaggerated francophone kine-
sics, whereas the francophone children switched not so much
according to language group as to the ethnic group of their audience
(they maintained francophone gestures when speaking English to
fellow francophones), Von Raffler-Engel concludes that kinesics
seem more closely associated with culture than with language.
The implications of these studies are that if we are to be bilingual,
we need also to be “bi-kinesic,” for a “target language spoken with
the body motions of the source language manifests a ‘foreign accent’
in more ways than simply in its inadequate gesticulation” (von
Raffler-Engel 1980:227). This is what Nine-Curt (1976a) has termed

270 TESOL QUARTERLY

“switching cultural channels” and is clearly an important part of any
individual’s communicative competence.
According to Canale (1983), communicative competence is com-
prised of grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic compe-
tence. Paralanguage is seen as part of grammatical competence, that
is, “mastery of the language code (verbal or non-verbal),” or as part
of sociolinguistic competence, which includes appropriateness of
kinesics and proxemics. In other models of communicative compe-
tence, paralanguage has fared much worse, being viewed as a few
gestures used as strategies to overcome linguistic deficiencies. If,
however, paralanguage is as important in communication as has
been suggested, it surely needs to be granted a far more significant
place than this. Since strategies in these models have never been
represented parsimoniously—strategies can, after all, be linguistic,
sociolinguistic, discourse, or paralinguistic—it is proposed that strat-
egies be considered as a means of producing “actual communication”
(Canale 1983) and paralinguistic competence be regarded as a
primary facet of communicative competence (see Figure 1). As
Brown (1980:202) says, “communicative competence includes non-
verbal competence—knowledge of all the varying nonverbal seman-
tics of the second culture and an ability both to send and receive
nonverbal signals unambiguously.”

FIGURE 1
Components of Communicative Proficiency

Communicative Competence

PARALANGUAGE AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING

Paralinguistic signals are being sent constantly:
Even in language classes, people do not communicate by words alone.
Tone of voice, body language, and many other channels carry at all
times, wil-we nil-we, messages that either confirm the words, or are
irrelevant to them, or contradict them (Stevick 1976:120).
If the bulk of communication between teachers and students is sent

PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 271

through paralinguistic channels,2 then teachers need to be aware of
the messages they are sending to their students and of the messages
their students are sending to them. Nonverbal leakage should also be
considered, for teachers who say one thing but send a contradictory
paralinguistic message should realize that it is the latter which will
be conveyed to their students.
Fairly extensive research has been carried out on the importance
of nonverbal communication in the classroom (for a review, see
Smith 1979). C. Galloway (1976:33) talks of the “silent yet thunderous
impact of nonverbal language” in the classroom, a significant area of
study for enhancing communication. By observing the interactive
patterning of the paralanguage of teachers and students, we may be
able to shed “important new light on the learning process . . . as well
as help objectify the elusive notion of the ‘effective teacher’ ”
(Harris 1972:9).
On meeting a new class, a teacher must establish what will make
the students feel welcome and secure. Much of this, as Stevick
(1982:6) points out, will include body language:
The way you use your eyes, the distance you stand from your students,
the way you touch or refrain from touching them—all of these carry
signals which will have a profound effect on your students’ feelings of
welcome and comfort with you.
Miller (1981) identifies six aspects of paralanguage that play a
crucial role in classroom interaction: intonation, face, eye contact,
touch, social distance, and dress. Posture and gesture might be
added to that list.
Research into different aspects of peer tutoring by Allen and
Feldman (1976) indicates that children may be better at decoding
other children’s nonverbal messages than are adults, which suggests
that “children’s nonverbal encoding may be different from that of
adults, and perhaps frequent interaction with peers facilitates chil-
dren’s ability to decode the nonverbal behavior of other children”
(123). Again, these findings emphasize the need for greater awareness
of paralanguage and also add a possible further argument in favor of
pair and group work. As Stevick (1982) and Barnett (1983) mention,
effective use of paralanguage can be a great asset to a teacher in
managing classroom interaction, lessening the inhibitions which often
plague language students, and reducing “teacher talking time.”
Perhaps most important, however, teachers need to be aware of
cross-cultural differences in paralanguage, so that they can convey
appropriate messages to students, interpret students’ messages cor-
rectly, and avoid unnecessary problems caused by insisting on
2 Grant and Hennings (1971) reported that 82 percent of the motions used in classrooms by the
teacher were nonverbal and only 18 percent were verbal.
272 TESOL QUARTERLY
behavioral changes. Fuller (1978) and Wolfgang (1979) give the
example of eye contact between children being scolded and their
teachers. Jamaican children, for whom it would be aggressive and
insulting to look a teacher in the eye at such a time, naturally hold
their heads in shame. This is also true for most Southeast Asian
(Wilson 1978), Puerto Rican (Nine-Curt 1976a), and American
Indian children (Levy 1979). For most North American teachers,
however, the required behavior is to have one’s gaze returned; to
look away is an admission of guilt or an indication of dishonesty.
The distinction made earlier between sociopetal and sociofugal
space arrangements might be recalled at this juncture. Which do our
classrooms resemble more closely: station waiting rooms or French
cafes? Traditional classroom seating arrangements are not conducive
to communication, or only to one-way communication with the
teacher. As Watson (1974) points out, fixed seating plans restrict the
nature of communicative possibilities for every individual.
Let us now turn more specifically to second language learning.
Although we have shown that paralinguistic signals are being sent at
all times, the teacher may feel, as did Gannon (1977:11), that one
“actually has to teach some aspects of paralanguage” or that one
should at least play a more active role in facilitating its acquisition,
language—and paralanguage—being both the vehicle and the goal
of language classrooms.
In discussing this question, let us adopt a model of learning that
distinguishes between implicit and explicit learning yet avoids the
overly rigid acquisition/learning dichotomy that has been in vogue
of late: a continuum passing from learning through, through learning
with, to learning about.
The first requisite to facilitate acquisition of paralinguistic compe-
tence is a classroom interactive structure that does not inhibit
communication. Situations that prevent full communication should
therefore be avoided. As Butzkamm and Dodson (1980:296) point
out: “A situation where pupils are desk-bound and are required to
utter teacher-directed responses can only lead to the exclusion of
paralinguistic behavior in both pupils and teachers. ” In any normal
communicative setting, we use all available means to communicate,
and to limit the use of any of those means will limit our communi-
cative competence and force overdependence on certain channels:
“Eliminating the visual modality creates an unnatural condition
which strains the auditory receptors to capacity” (von Raffler-Engel
1980:235).
It is important that native-speaking teachers be able to “uncon-
sciously model the nonverbal dimensions of the language being
taught” (Nussenbaum 1983:123). V. Galloway (1980) showed that

PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 273

non-native teachers tended to ignore paralanguage and to concen-
trate only on language, while native speakers were much more
receptive to the communicative content of nonverbal behavior used
by students. Teachers also need to be aware of their own para-
language, for although they will inevitably be modeling paralan-
guage, its presentation will be unplanned and unsystematic. This can
lead the students to perceive the behavior “merely as a function of
teachers’ personality (idiolect), not culture (sociolect)” (Nussenbaum
1983:123). It is also important to provide more than one model,
through videos, films, television, guests, and so on.
One of the basic tenets of learning—that learning is achieved
through “doing’’—should also be kept in mind: “Understanding
culture is a lot like figure skating: to really understand its nuances,
you have to go through the actions” (Heaton 1978:1). Everything
mentioned so far, implicit learning that could be classed as learning
through, would seem well suited to the acquisition of paralanguage,
for we are generally far less conscious of paralanguage than we are
of language. Nevertheless, the very importance of paralanguage in
communication suggests that there may also be good cause for more
explicit learning—learning with and learning about—to create an
awareness in our students.
Schnapper (1979) has devised a number of techniques to help
Peace Corps volunteers become more aware of the role of para-
language in communication. These include exercises in which the
trainees are divided into two groups, one being given a set of
directions and the other not, so that when they re-form into pairs,
one partner will gradually become aware of the other’s peculiar
behavior. In an exercise on proxemics, for example, the directed
group are told to establish a distance of comfort with their partners
and then gradually to decrease that distance inch by inch. When the
distance has diminished by about six inches, the partner will start to
feel uncomfortable and may try to move back. Levy (1979) also uses
exercises in which different groups are given different sets of
instructions: to sit closer to a partner, to avoid eye contact, and so
on.
In a similar vein, Melamed and Barndt’s (1977) “Dumb Crambo”
activities use two teams with different sets of instructions. In “Eye
Contact Patterns,” Team A tries to persuade Team B to do some-
thing, while Team B has instructions to avoid eye contact throughout
the interaction. In “Silence,” both teams nod a greeting to each
other, sit down, and remain silent for as long as they find com-
fortable. Different styles of greeting and farewell are dealt with in
“Hello and Goodbye,” in which handshakes are prolonged for 30
seconds by Team A and then the farewell is accompanied by a

274 TESOL QUARTERLY

warm embrace. A particular advantage of this type of activity is that
without knowing exactly what is happening, the students feel the
strength of the affective messages carried by the paralinguistic
channels and thus arrive at firsthand awareness of the importance of
these channels.
Some role-playing activities that also foster valuable humanistic
interaction involve a more overt focus on paralanguage. Most of
Nine-Curt’s (1976b) well-thought-out materials fall into this category.
Using readings from the course text on paralanguage (Nine-Curt
1976a) as a starting point, students act out or create dialogues with a
strong emphasis on nonverbal communication, organized around
topics such as kinesics, proxemics, haptics, smiling, staring and eye
contact, silence versus noise, and greetings and farewells. Nine-Curt
(1983:51) suggests that “because of the intensity of emotional
reactions involved in all nonverbal behavior,” paralanguage is hard
to teach, but recognizing its immense importance, she provides, for
example, “slow and patient practice in teaching my students to
‘gaze’ the Anglo way when speaking in English to Anglos” (1983:51).
Other interesting activities include students’ creating their own
dialogues in which language and paralanguage are contradictory or
trying to guess the words in blanked-out cartoons or videos with the
sound turned down. Various authors have addressed the problems
of teaching the paraverbal features of intonation and rhythm.
Berkowitz (1982) encourages her students of French to make
“Romance language motions” while speaking, and Noonan-Wagner,
Acton, and Wood (1981) have encouraged their students to mirror
the movements of the interlocutor. They have also emphasized the
body movements that occur with the suprasegmentals in speech:
“Many times, by simply having students ‘move’ correctly, the
rhythm takes care of itself” (45). Students may also enjoy trying to
understand hummed sentences merely from the intonation patterns.
Gestures provide a rich source of materials and activities. Levy’s
(1979) “Hand Talk” and “Body Talk” are similar to the party game
charades, in which students attempt to portray emotions through
gestures and body movement. Both Nickels (1978) and Morain (1978)
use lists of emotions and directions that have to be acted out and lists
of gestures that can be performed. Students can try to guess the
meaning of the gestures as they see them and also to compile lists of
gestures from their own culture. The compilation of lists of gestures
or other features of paralanguage may be given as homework
assignments and can be gathered from the surrounding community
by ESL students or, for EFL, from television, movies, and even books
(see footnote 1). Heaton (1978) prepared videotapes of five different
groups representing various North American subcultures for his

PARALANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND EDUCATION 275

classes, and von Raffler-Engel (1980) has called for a far greater
awareness of paralanguage by textbook writers.
Activities to increase awareness of paralanguage may be per-
formed in and outside the classroom. Melamed and Barndt’s (1977)
“How Big Is My Bubble?” has students measure the distance
between each other while talking in dyads; Morain (1978) asks
students to invade people’s “space bubbles” outside the classroom
and to report what happens. She has also devised a questionnaire,
including questions such as, “Have you ever felt hostile or friendly
toward someone just because of his appearance?” and Nine-Curt
(1976b) includes some tests on paralanguage in her teacher training
materials. Any of the above activities and materials may also serve
as excellent starting points for discussions on paralanguage and may
induce students to continue their own research into this fascinating
area.

CONCLUSION
A number of teachers, already feeling burdened by the expansion
of their task from the more narrow linguistic confines to which they
have been accustomed to encompass the sociolinguistic aspects of
language, may balk at the addition of paralanguage. Several points,
however, should be considered.
First, the argument of this article is that much paralanguage will
be acquired if the classroom interactive structure facilitates com-
munication. Second, if we claim to be teaching people how to
communicate in a second language (L2), then the paradigm should
surely be broadened to include all relevant facets of communication
(C2). Third, we should ask ourselves whether aspects of language
that we are teaching areas important as aspects of paralanguage that
we are not teaching. As V. Galloway (1980) and Loveday (1982)
suggest, it is not so much linguistic errors as it is sociolinguistic and
paralinguistic errors that lead to breakdowns in communication or
cause serious offense or insult, for people are generally far less
aware of these often subtle aspects of communication, which may
nevertheless be the principal bearers of affective information.
Finally, as von Raffler-Engel (1980) argues, the inclusion of
paralanguage in the classroom may not, in fact, increase the burden
of the teacher; rather, it should simplify the learning process by
increasing the means for comprehension and expression. According
to V. Galloway (1980), the use of paralanguage in the classroom
should be encouraged because speakers will be able to show
increased desire to transmit a message and will thereby hold the
listeners’ attention better. Macnamara (1973) argues that both L1

276 TESOL QUARTERLY

and L2 learners use meaning as a clue to language rather than
language as a clue to meaning. A great deal of that meaning may be
conveyed through paralanguage.
Paralanguage is not a frill but a must (Nine-Curt 1976a), which
will greatly enrich our classrooms and increase our communicative
competence. Teachers who are aware of paralanguage, of the multi-
channeled nature of communication—kinesics, proxemics, and para-
verbal features—should be better teachers: They will increase their
skills as directors of classroom behavior; they will be better equipped
to interpret student messages, which is especially significant when
those students come from different cultural backgrounds; they will
help their students become more culturally aware; and they will be
more able to facilitate the acquisition of C2 in their students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Professor May Frith for her support and helpful comments on
an earlier draft of this article; Professor Judith Carmen Nine-Curt for her suggestions
and additional materials; and Professor Stephen Gaies for his invaluable editorial
assistance.

THE AUTHOR
Alastair Pennycook has facilitated the learning of ESL/EFL in England, Germany,
Japan, and Canada and is currently a graduate student at McGill University,
Montreal.

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