Vociferation

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A painting by Edvard Munch entitled Skrik (Scream).

A scream, shout, holler, vociferation, or yell is a loud human audio vocalization in which the person makes a loud cry by expelling air from the lungs.

Contents

[edit] Motivation

These exclamations may be motivated by extreme emotion such as fear, excitement, surprise, anger or pain.

[edit] Fear

When human beings are taken over by extreme fear they may scream for various and sometimes intermingled reasons. These reasons include scaring away an attacker or calling attention to themselves for help. Another reason of screaming caused by fear may be from a practical joke and may cause embarrassment.

[edit] Happiness

People may yell out when overcome by joy or excitement. People may scream when winning a prize or meeting a loved one after a long interlude.

[edit] Pain

When people suffer from injuries which are very painful such as broken bones or gun shot wounds, they often scream in pain or surprise. This may be a vocalization used to deal with the shock of the incident or perhaps an evolutionary adaptation used to warn others of danger.

[edit] Surprise

When people are not expecting something and it comes suddenly they are surprised. If someone comes up to you and jumps on you or talks in your ear when you do not know they are going to do this, most of the people scream in surprise or shock.

Two people arguing in a "shouting match".

[edit] Purpose

[edit] Dialogue

Some people, when arguing begin to raise their voices to the point that they are screaming at each other in anger while continuing their debate exchange. Terminology includes "shouting match".

[edit] Military

Drill instructors frequently use this tactic and its associated fear and intimidation to train recruits whilst fostering obedience and expedience.

A USMC drill instructor yelling.

[edit] Music

Sometimes, screaming or louder-than-normal vocals are used in music, and are an increasingly common vocal technique.

[edit] Audio

The decibel levels of scream pitches may be very high, and this has become an issue in the sport of tennis, particularly with regards to Maria Sharapova's loud tennis grunts which have been measured as high as 101.2 decibels.[1] The human range for screaming in decibels is between 0 and 112.8 which is the world record held by Alan Myatt.[2]The pitch varies depending on the justification for a scream.

[edit] Popular culture

The Wilhelm scream is film's most familiar scream and has been used into many movies since 1951.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tennis grunters told to stop the racket, by Linda Pearce, The Age.com, retrieved December 19, 2007
  2. ^ Quiet night's sleep for 'world's loudest man', BBC Health News, June 19, 2001
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