vocalics

 Vocalics is an enormous part in our everyday communication with one another. It contributes to how we comprehend the meaning of a word, determined by how the person speaking it uses pitch, rate, tone, attitude, volume, pronunciation, pauses and more. It can change the meaning of a word, and change the emotion of an entire conversation.
To show the use of vocalics it must be shown in an auditory way so that examples can be pulled and listened to, for the full comprehension of each meaning. Above is a clip from the 2011 golden globe awards the was hosted by Ricky Gervais who is a well known comedian, actor, producer as well as many other titles. In this clip he plays with his own vocalics to play on a comedic monologue.
To start off his introduction to the night ahead he states "Its going to a night of partying and heavy drinking, ( he pauses) or a charlie sheen calls it, breakfast(pause)"  Ricky doesn't pause because he forgets what he is going to say next he, he pauses for a dramatic effect and to let his audience laugh. which in his job is just as important as the words he is saying.  As a comedian he knows what he's doing. When he pauses his audience will laugh not only because they think that what he is saying is funny but also to give them the time to laugh. Through-out this monologue he does this multiple times to initiate laughter.
When given his speech he also keeps it at a slower rate with clear pronunciation which is a key thing to use when giving speeches in big rooms and so that people understand what hes communicating with them. Another thing that can be heard in Ricky Gervias's speech is his use of a variety of pitches. He switches these up to stress on certain subjects such as when he speaks about charlie sheen, during which his pitch goes up "she was locked in a cupboard" pauses " and that was a Monday" his pitch goes to a much lower state and then back up when saying " what did he do for new years eve?" also going up to imply the question. after this he pauses again to give the audience a time to laugh.  His pitch goes through more ups and down when talking about the 3D movies of the year and when making fun of the "tourist" it drops to almost imply the disappointment in the movie. Especially heard in his statement "I haven't even see the tourist (higher pitch) pauses, and then lowers his pitch " who has?" with an implied questioning in his voice as a slight higher pitch at the end.

Without these changes in pitch, variations in attitude and simple but effective pauses, His  (first two minutes evaluated) speech would be boring and unsatisfactory for an entire room to listen to. ?It would lose the comedic effect that Ricky Gervais wants his audience to hear and laugh at.

                   I wanted to select this video not to describe for blog post 5 due to them not exactly speaking words but they show off a key in the communication between human beings. They show great use of vocalics, using pauses, different pitches, variety of rates, high and low volumes and  at many times getting their point across to their twin by overlapping and interrupting the other. They show us that even without the use of language/words they seem to be having an entire conversation between themselves with no true words and with only the use of vocalics and few gestures

spring break and facial reactions

I interviewed my friend Brianne Dibetta , over her spring break she went to Jamaica

E:“What did you do over your spring break?”

B:“I went to Jamaica “  when she responded her face and body stayed at a calm, neutral  position .

E:“What was the most exciting part about going to jamacia?”

B:“ Definitely the weather and being able to drink legally” when she responded this time she had a smirk on her face and when she talked about drinking legally her eyebrows raised, showing a sign of enjoyment and fun.

E: “ Did you do anything that you thought was scary?”

B: “Yea walked on the roads when the local Jamaican people just yelled at us trying to pick us up and begged for rides. It was really hard seeing them respond to us like that.” Her eyebrows furrowed and  her face scrunched more with a face of concern.

E:“ Is their an experience that was most memorable about being there?”

B:“Yea, when we would go in to town we would see all of them and how they lived in the shacks and how unfortunate and poor they were, it made me feel really fortunate and lucky for all the things I had. “ again her face was a face of concern she showed true concern and sorrow for these people her face and mouth drooped and eyebrows raised in the center of her forehead.

E:“Can you name something you did that surprised you about being in the tropics?”

B:“It was really different being able to buy alcohol legally, like we would go into the bars and feel really strange about being allowed to buy drinks and drink them with no one caring we were only 20” her face was smiling, she was chuckling it seemed that she thought it was funny that is weird for her to do this. Her body language had her lean forward and her hands opened up almost to seem like “you know what I mean?”

E:“Any other experiences you thought was really fun?”

B:“We went cliff diving which was insane, it was an adrenaline rush,” her face was a big smile at this comment

B:“It was also neat seeing the local school come to our hotel putting on a dance recital to raise money for their school, they were actually really good, surprisingly” she smiled and her eyebrows raised  and she tilted her head towards me.

B:“Another thing I found cool was meeting kids from all over the U.S that were also on spring break and just looking to have fun just like us!”

Her face stayed in a smile at this point and seemed to grow into a bigger smile, it was also a genuine and very happy smile the entire time which made me extremely jealous of her for the experience she got toi have!

what our "body language" really says

Nonverbals are so important in our world and half of the time we unconsciously are sending them for others to decode and unconsciously decoding messages from strangers, and friends. Nonverbal messages as we've learned can be up to almost 90 percent of the messages we communicate with one another everyday. Unfortunately some people are better at displaying and picking up on these cues then others. I had the chance to watch a girl who obviously lacked communication skills in the nonverbal sense in the Academic Forum.

The Academic Forum is always busy, people around sending and receiving nonverbal and verbal messages constantly. It is a atmosphere that most consider a place to eat relax, socialize, study and, or get to class. When looking for a group to study I quickly found 2 girls and 2 guys to sit and watch have a lunch together.

Girl A and Girl B seemed to be engaged in conversation at first which well call, both leaning in towards each other even with their seats aligned with one another side by side. If it was my guess they had been talking about the 2 boys sitting across from them also engaged in a conversation but laughing with guy C sitting over himself shaking his salad up but his face in the direction of the guy D who was telling the story. Girl A adjusts her seat as to get closer to guy C. This action seemed to be a good thing by the way guy C's face changed into a smile. He also faced her direction adjusting his body towards girl A and they both smiled and engaged in conversation. By these signs I had guessed that girl A and guy C had some sort of relationship closer than guy D and girl B. While I analyzed the couple 1 (guy C, girl A) as girl A's chest appear open her posture was tall but also leaning towards guy 1, Guy 1 couldn't keep his eyes off of girl 1 once her attention and talking became in his direction.

Guy D and girl B, here is where the story becomes unfortunate. Girl B has not only an interesting choice of outfit with nonverbal cues that are inappropriate( cleavage, tight clothing that doesn't really fit) She also seemed to be trying to hard to get guy 2's attention.

At this point I had guessed that guy C and girl A were in a relationship, girl A and girl B were best friends, guy C and guy D were best friends and girl A was trying to set up girl B with guy D, but this is only a guess by nonverbal.

Girl B was playing with her shoulder length brown hair constantly she twirled it a little too much and kept pushing it from side to side, showing that she could be nervous and or stressed. She also kept her posture leaned forward towards guy D. Guy D had his arm between himself and girl B almost blocking himself from her. Unfortunately girl B must have decoded this as a positive because she began to touch his shoulder that lay in between them, Guy D would look at her hand and quickly change his attention to guy C attempting to get guy C to engage in conversation, that guy C couldn't pick up on because his smile and focal attention lay on girl A.

As I continued to analyze their lunch break Guy D kept sending facial expression with raised eyebrows, few uncomfortable smiles and nods when Girl B spoke directly to him. Girl B kept leaning towards Guy D and her smile didn't come off her face nor did she stop playing with her hair in flirty ways and couldn't keep her focus off of the uncomfortable guy D.

Girl A and Guy C seemed to still have good nonverbal communication shared, they held hands when they were done eating and laughed many times with in engaged conversation between them and the table. they appeared to adjust themselves by how the other sat one would lean or face the other when one spoke and it would switch off when the other spoke.

Sadly I had to go to class before I could see how the lunch ended but by means of what I got Girl B should probably take Dr. Bocks nonverbal class so she can learn others nonverbal messages and decode them the correct manner at which they seem to be encoded. This exercise and this class have me more conscious on what I do and how others respond to them. It also makes me more attentive how easily misread our messages can be decoded and encoded.

proxemics

To almost all people we have one place that is very special to us and is a place that we can feel comfortable and "at home". For many that place is their bedroom.  The bedroom is normally a private and personalized   area that reflects on someones personality, lifestyle, and what in their life is most important. Our bedroom becomes a place that we claim to be our own private space that typically shows a continual territory that is ours. Our nonverbal communication through proxemics is proven everyday  and i'll provide how my own proxemics is seen through my dorm room.

In our culture  privacy is a huge deal in our everyday life. We value our privacy to high importance and value our own territory. Our privacy and our territory give us a boundary from others even when sharing a bedroom such as in my own displayed above in our college years we seem to mark our territory and claim things with decorations and adornments.

In my dorm room last year privacy could be hard to come by. Even though me and my roomate were very respectful of each other and made certain agreements to maintain our own space we clearly made our own territorial markers and decorations.

I have my area of the room distinctly marked with items as indexical markers that are very important to me. Some of these items include pictures and posters.Not only do these show my personality through my memories but also provide a way for people to see how much I love photography and the stories each photo tells to me

I have my bed with my head pillows facing the door to not only to show others a  welcome feeling into my bedroom but to also see who is coming into my territory..

 Using nonverbal cue consciously and unconsciously proxemics has proven  to be fundamental in my bedroom design with the use of space, distance and territory. When looking at the picture I provided for my room you can see the my bed is the biggest and most decorated area showing that not only this is my area but also that is the main area provided in my room and probably the most used. It is decorated in patterns and colors that were very different from my roomates. I had made sure to this with agreement of her colors in our room as green and orange and mine as pink and purple. Making my bed and possessions clearly marked with lots of pink and with the use of territorial markers such as my purse keys pillow and blankets I do not want others to disturb my territory.

Using proxemics and design we all show our nonverbal signs and cues in how we arrange our room. Unconsciously and consciously we do things that mark our territory  for privacy but also show area that are welcomed to others.

After reading mine and seeing my own display shows my nonverbal cues will you rearrange ur room to show your own nonverbal cues to make them stronger?

 Reflexive cycle

Inventory Self: I believe that my nonverbal behaviors can be very expressive, I would think that i come off as very independent, I feel that at times my nonverbal behaviors can be misread as a very flirtatious message when I mean for them to be friendly and outgoing. On a positive note I have been a dancer in many productions, companies and teams. Doing this I have had to be able to express many different moods and messages to crowds confidently and correctly through my behaviors, such as body movement and facial expressions. Negatively on that note I can be misread because of my ability to have a stage presence sometimes others can see this as confidence but Im not always feeling the confidence I let others see.

Change Self:

 I decided that to change myself as to not be decoded incorrectly I needed to make sure as to not come off to my peers as flirtatious and watch how I encode messages through behaviors such as hugging, smiles/facial expression, touch and specific eye-contact.

Inventory others:

 When observing how others reacted covertly to my flirtatious behaviors I purposefully used them on male friends that I felt I could get somesort of reaction back. When doing so I found that they became more flirtatious with me back, smiling, laughing, putting their arm around me, and making steady eye contact.

Overtly observing I asked close guy friends that I had either been specifically flirting with for this and ones that I am close with and see on a daily basis. They all came to the same conclusion stating that I was a very flirtatious girl but also that my confidence was a huge role in the non verbal behaviors I had done previously. My shoulders back and my ability to not be afraid or timid when walking in a room affected the way others saw me and became an attraction to them to want to flirt back with me

Transact with others:

As said in my previous step when encoding and decoding messages nonverbally with male friends and using conversation, they had responded to my nonverbal confidence as well as my flirtatious behaviors such as touch and facial expressions similar to batting my eyes, but they were complimented with verbal messages such as laughing, creating jokes, complementing one another as well as easy conversation.

Reflect, Access and Re-inventory self:

            I think that this makes me more aware of how my behaviors nonverbally and verbal messages can be taken the wrong way but also that its not always a bad thing. Letting others believe in self confidence can help in many situations and that flirtatious gestures and touch if used correctly are important in human communication and in finding someone that relates to you in a sense of attraction and significant others