Building a life is like baking a cake – it requires a multitude of ingredients and layers. Developing skills for a secure job, establishing a residence, cultivating relationships, finding ways to express your personal creativity.
Communication is a major component for success in these endeavors and the voice, a major player. But the voice does not live on its own when it comes to getting your ideas or feelings across. It makes up just one part of a trio that also includes our emotions and our body.
Communication involves a transmitter and a receiver, a speaker and an audience. Meaning can be expressed through both vocal tone and physical signals. Our eyes and ears are at work while we listen, integrating what we see and hear into our brain for processing.
We speak to each other for many different reasons. Small talk may not deliver important facts, but is essential in developing and maintaining relationships. Exchanging and sharing information is a common goal of communication as is expressing our opinions, sometimes for the purpose of persuading someone to our side. Or the sense of power that comes with the strength and clarity of using and hearing our own voice. “I speak therefore I am”.
I am sure we have all experienced moments when our voices give away our emotional state or our bodies convey caution or openness. Eye contact can be personal or shift around sending messages of deep listening or disinterest. Sincerity, warmth or distance can seep through our facial expressions.
So although voice is our main vehicle of lingual communication, it is important to understand the various levels of “transmitting” we do that can be even more telling than our words.
Your Voice Is Your Business. Barone, Orlando R & Tellis, Cari M. Pural Publishing. 2009 Speech Science Primer: Physiology, Acoustics and Perception of Speech, 3rd ed. Borden, G., Harris, K. & Raphael, L. Williams & Wilkins. 1994
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