From the first minute of the pilot episode of Friends, each characters

paralanguage (how words are spoken rather than the words

themselves) helps the audience to determine a lot about the
characters backgrounds. For example, in the opening exchange, each
characters current emotions and their relationships with the other
characters around them can be divined using only paralanguage.
Monica opens the episode by saying:
Theres nothing to tell! Hes just some guy I work with!
to which Joey responds:
Cmon, youre going out with the guy! Theres gotta be
something wrong with him.
Chandler adds: So does he have a hump? A hump and a
hairpiece?
Monica is clearly upset that the others are interrogating her. When she
says Theres nothing to tell! her voice is raised both in volume and
pitch. She emphasizes the word nothing in nothing to tell, but her
raised voice gives a sense of defensiveness and panic. The raised pitch
of her voice indicates her nervousness. Joeys response of Cmon
starts out exasperated, because he draws out the word and raises the
pitch of his voice towards the end. When he says youre going out
with the guy the emphasis is on youre implying that there is
something wrong with Monica, because if they mystery guy is going
out with her, there must be something wrong with him because he
cannot see what is wrong with Monica. Joey speaks slowly, which
demonstrates hes not emotionally invested in the situation, but
merely wanted to get a jab in at Monica. Chandler jumps on the
teasing train. When he says So does he have a hump? A hump and a
hairpiece? he speaks quickly, but adds a bit of silence between his
sentences, which gives him time to give a disparaging look at Monica.
His fast speech rate gives him the appearance of being quick-witted,
and his low volume (relative to the other two characters in the
exchange) gives him the appearance of being relatively disinterested
in the argument.
Another instance in the episode where paralanguage becomes
important in determining the emotions of the characters is when
Rachel is on the phone with her father (whose part of the conversation
we cannot hear) and she is explaining why she did not want to get
married.
Rachel: Daddy, I justI cant marry him! Im sorry. I just dont
love him.
Rachel: Cmon Daddy, listen to me! All of my life, everyone has
always told me, Youre a shoe! Youre a shoe, youre a shoe, youre a
shoe! And today I just stopped and I said, What if I dont want to be a
shoe? What if I wanna be a- a purse, yknow? Or a- or a hat! No, Im not

saying I want you to buy me a hat, Im saying I am a ha- Its a

metaphor, Daddy!
Rachels voice is high pitched and childish, and as she attempts to
explain her metaphor, the volume of her voice rises until her father
cuts her off, and then by this point she is yelling at him trying to
explain her metaphor. This and her poor enunciation (wanna) and her
use of verbal fillers (yknow) shows that she does not have a good
handle on the situation and what she is trying to communicate to her
father. If the paralanguage were absent from Rachels character, we
would have no idea that she is angry and indignant; most of the feeling
would simply be lost from the exchange.