A Cross Cultural Study Of Paralanguage In Western And African Movies The Examples Of The Proposal And Knocking On Heavens Door

ABSTRACT This study examines the use of paralanguage in western and African movies from a cross- cultural perspective. It focuses on the analysis of kinestics in movies using a pragmatic model; being the principal constituent of language as used nonverbally in movies. Features of forty randomly selected postures were extracted from the selected movies with a breakdown of twenty each from the Western and African movies respectively and the visual contents were pragmatically analysed with the aim of examining how paralanguage is deployed in movies. The aspects that were looked into are facial expression, body movement, gesture, silence and hand movement. The study adapts Austin‘s Speech Act Theory and Lawal‘s Aspects of Pragmatic Theory as the framework for the analysis, thus, making it eclectic. These theories helps in accounting for background information, Speech Acts, types and context/competencies in tabular form which are the bases for the analysis. The findings reveals that nonverbal communication does not impede meanings in movies but rather, helps in making verbal communication more explicit, it also shows how nonverbal communication plays numerous pragmatic roles in movies by performing various acts. The study further finds out that nonverbal communication is universal to some degree and cross-cultural though its usage is culture specific. The study concludes by underlying that meanings could be deficient with the absence of paralanguage.

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