Is there a science that researches implied speech?

Question

I am wondering if there is a type of science that researches body and implied speech. For example you shrug your shoulders and most people would know your saying "I don’t know", or you point at something and most people know that means "look at that". Well has anyone tried to define all of the implied speech elements? Also by adding tones to speech there are implied ideas, for example if you raise the pitch of your voice at the end of a statement many people would take that as asking a question.

Answer 1

Linguistics, expecially sociolinguistics, studies that. I'm not sure if there's an entire field dedicated to nonverbal communication, but I've done plenty of study regarding the sort of meaningful gestures and phatic you're describing during my undergrad work in linguistics.