We read attitudes through expressions and voice tones and inflections.
Here’s why. In the long, long history of man, a speaking language even remotely resembling what we use today is a recent invention. So recent, you might say, in terms of the great clock of time, that we developed language only this morning. For millions and millions of years, man got by with little more than moans and groans and grunts and growls.
So, for millions of years men communicated with other men by body and facial expressions and sounds, not words. And we still communicate our attitudes, our feelings toward people and things, the same way. Aside from direct body contact, body movements, facial expressions, and sound are the only way we have to communicate with infants. And those young ones show an uncanny ability to spot a phony.
~ David J. Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big