Your Man Friday’s Ideas: Hearing Voices
It seems the reason chimps can’t talk may have more to do with the structure of their mouths and the location of their vocal chords than with their brains. There is plenty of evidence that they can communicate words, perhaps even simple sentences, using sign language or ‘icon typing’. But for us, our voices have always been our primary mode of communication, and our voices convey more than the written word. They overlay and enrich the words with emotion. Tone matters. Tone communicates. “Your so smart!” can easily mean the opposite, depending on the tone of voice. Those silly email emoticons are a lame attempt to compensate for the inadequacy of the words alone to convey tone; for example, to make it clear whether or not one is being sarcastic. Skilled writers know the tricks that effectively convey tone, but even they are often misinterpreted. Voice matters to us. Even aside from tone, pitch and accent bias our response to a voice.
Man Friday links here: http://kenstange.com/yourmanfriday/?p=1502
