Are all social workers employed by the NHS as big a waste of our money as this one?

You'd have thought that all social workers would understand the basics of interaction and/or how to communicate with people they haven't met before.

But the one I've just been interrogated by one who broke every rule of turn-taking that's so far been described by conversation analysts and other researchers -- e.g. absurdly long pauses for no apparent reason, giving no hint whatsoever about what kind of response he might be expecting and randomised facial expressions and non-verbal behaviour, etc., etc.

And 'interrogation' is, alas, the operative word. As co-author with Paul Drew of a book on courtroom language  (Order in court: the organisation of verbal interaction in judicial settings, Macmillan Press, 1979) we learnt about some of the differences between examination in chief and the more aggressive cross-examination.

This particular social worker used cross-exmination continuously and, when asked why he was doing it, confessed that he didn't know there's a difference, let alone what any such difference might be.

I could write a book about him but have neither the time nor or inclination to embark on such a depressing project.

Meanwhile, let's hope he's the only incompetent twit we're paying for...

Regional accents

A fascinating piece on the regional accents of the British Isles. Well worth close study...

Does anyone else have and/or know to whom these books might belong?

Thorstein Veblen, The theory of the leisure class, The Macmillan Company, 1899.

Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people, Cedar Book, 1953.

David Kogan & Maurice Kogan, The Battle for the Labour Party,  Fontana Paperbacks, 1982.

Bertrand Russell,  Has Man a Future?  Allen & Unwin, 1961 (a Penguin Special 2'6).

HINT: From schoolboy to sociologist to ...?

Blogging continued...

First, many thanks to loyal readers who've kept on visiting during my unannounced 'Spring Break' - which is now over.

Second, I'll still be blogging on some of the themes touched on in my previous 1,000+ blog pages.

Third, I'll be touching on some new themes that may sometimes  seem to be verging on the obscure.

And, if you're wondering why there are only three points above - says he modestly - read one of my books and/or watch this space...

Flood defence staff and floating voters

In case you missed last night's News Quiz on BBC Radio 4, the opening newspaper report is well worth listening to for another triggered metaphor worth adding to those mentioned in my last post about people being in the same boat and out of their depth in their comments on the flooded Somerset Levels:

"From the Guardian G2: 'About 550 flood defence staff are threatened with redundancy. Chris Smith hopes that, with an election around the corner, the views of floating voters might well force a change of heart.'"

Metaphors from the flooded Somerset Levels playing field

The Sky News website has been reporting some linguistically interesting comments on the floods on the Somerset Levels (above).

According to Gavin Sadler, a member of campaign group Flooding on the Levels Action Group (FLAG): "We were in the same boat last year and were told it was a one in a 100-year flood - now it's happened again."

Meanwhile,  shadow environment secretary Maria Eagle told Sky's Murnaghan programme "The Environment Secretary appears to me to be out of his depth. He's just not taking it seriously".

'Triggered metaphors' are close relations of 'triggered puns', on which I've blogged previously from time to time and on which you can see more HERE and HERE.

Needless to say, contributions of similar examples are always welcome ...

Capturing details in a speech: a musical reminder of failure

Yesterday, I had my first piano lesson for 55+ years, which reminded me of something I gave up on when starting the research into political speeches that eventually resulted in Our Masters' Voices in 1984 - links to the story of which can be found HERE.

It was easy enough to collect tapes of political speeches, but many of the most significant findings from conversation analysis had come from detailed transciptions of recordings of actual conversations (for more on the methodology of which, see Structures of Social Action (1984).

So the first challenge was how to transcribe the lines spoken just before bursts of applause in the speeches. Variations in intonation clearly mattered, not least because the way speakers talked in speeches featured more (and longer) pauses and much more marked tonal shifts upwards and downwards than is typically found in everyday conversation.

I started by trying to capture such details by trying to transcribe syllables, words, sentences and phrases on the different lines and spaces in the staves of blank musical manuscript paper. But two obstacles stood in my way.

One was that it was far more time-consuming than doing the transcripts in Our Masters' Voices - which took well over an hour to transcribe each 10 seconds of speech.

The second one, as I realised again yesterday, was that I was never much good at sight-reading music anyway, so my attempts to capture details of the beat, timing and positioning of words on the lines and spaces of a stave were doomed to failure.

I'm hoping that it may not be too late to improve my sight-reading of music - but have no illusions about my chances of ever being able to write music, let alone to transcribe speeches, on manuscript paper...

Does English really work as a common language of communication (?) revisited...

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog asking 'How well does English really work as a common language of communication?'.

Today, I received an email from a senior executive of a leading international research company in the UK with advice to staff on the same issue.

It doesn't say anything about where it came from, but one can't help wondering whether John Rentoul's Banned List had anything to do with it (see also @johnrentoul on Twitter):

If you are working on an international project on in a cross-cultural team here are a few things to consider:

WHAT THE BRITISH SAY	WHAT THE BRITISH MEAN	WHAT FOREIGNERS UNDERSTAND
I hear what you say	I disagree and do not want to discuss it further	He accepts my point of view
With the greatest respect	You are an idiot	He is listening to me
That's not bad	That's good	That's poor
That is a very brave proposal	You are insane	He thinks I have courage
Quite good	A bit disappointing	Quite good
I would suggest	Do it or be prepared to justify yourself	Think about the idea, but do what you like
Oh, incidentally/ by the way	The primary purpose of our discussion is	That is not very important
I was a bit disappointed that	I am annoyed that	It doesn't really matter
Very interesting	That is clearly nonsense	They are impressed
I'll bear it in mind	I've forgotten it already	They will probably do it
I'm sure it's my fault	It's your fault	Why do they think it was their fault?
You must come for dinner	It's not an invitation, I'm just being polite	I will get an invitation soon
I almost agree	I don't agree at all	He's not far from agreement
I only have a few minor comments	Please rewrite completely	He has found a few typos
Could we consider some other options	I don't like your idea	They have not yet decided

A 'backie' of Miliband's speech about bankers?

Ed Miliband's speech today had been trailed by the media and social media all week, so what he had to say about the banks hardly qualified as news. But where and to whom he was speaking remains a bit of a mystery.

Some, like ITV and the Daily Telegraph, were helpful enough to tell us that he was speaking at the University of London. But at which of its many colleges or at which of its even more numerous departments did this happen? It might, of course, have been at a political club somewhere in some college of London University, but no one bothered to tell us that either.

Blue tie to the front
Nor did anyone note or comment on why the Labour leader was wearing a blue tie and we were left wondering whether he or his aides thought that dressing up like a Tory would be a subtle ploy while confronting the banks.

Audience to the back
And no one will be surprised that I was also left wondering (yet again) why our leading politicians are so obsessed with speaking with their backs to part of the audience. I'm still waiting to be told which of their advisors think it's such a good idea - not to mention why they recommend it.

A defence sometimes made is that it's a neat way of showing what a mixed bunch of supporters they have (if supporters they were). Yet women seem rather poorly represented in this particular audience (at about 3:25), as too are youth and the elderly (0).

But, however uninspired they may look, no one yawns or goes to sleep. At least one - in a grey jacket on the lower left of the picture - had brought along his tablet to distract him (and viewers like me).

At about 26 seconds in, he starts to take a photograph of Mr Miliband's back, after which he spends quite a while admiring his efforts.

A backie?
So one question arising from the Mr Miliband's speech is whether 'backies' have started to replace  'selfies' or are merely yet another new word for pictures made possible by innovations in portable technology...

Today's North Korean triumph - how to clap visibly

After posting Alexander Solzhenitsyn's warning about never being the first to stop applauding, here's a  clip from today's Kim Jong-il anniversary with a number of weird aspects for serious students of clapping behaviour (and/or agents of the North Korean secret police).

One is the apparent reluctance of Kim Jong-un to do much applauding at all.

The other is the curious position in which the applauders hold their clapping hands - too high to look or feel  'natural', or just the right height to be visible to anyone monitoring who is clapping when and for how long?

As for the speech, you don't have to be able to speak the language to be able to tell at a glance what a pitiful performance it was...

Last words on Australia regaining the Ashes by Geoffrey Boycott?

Geoffrey Boycott's verdict on Australia regaining the Ashes in Perth. But will anyone who matters take any notice?

Or will it appear on Twitter as yet another #QTWTAIN from @johnrentoul ?

Don't ever be the first to stop applauding

The barmy list of 'crimes' for which the uncle (top left) of North Korea's supreme leader (top right) was executed included half-hearted clapping that apparently 'touched off towering resentment' among those in the audience:

'When his cunning move proved futile and the decision that Kim Jong Un was elected vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea at the Third Conference of the WPK in reflection of the unanimous will of all party members, service personnel and people was proclaimed, making all participants break into enthusiastic cheers that shook the conference hall, he behaved so arrogantly and insolently as unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping, touching off towering resentment of our service personnel and people' (more on the offences of this 'despicable human scum' HERE).

The accountability of not clapping or not clapping vigorously enough is something I've blogged about before HERE and HERE.

But the most alarming, if slightly less ruthless, precursor to last week's execution in North Korea was the fate of any audience member daring enough to be the first to stop clapping Stalin in the former Soviet Union, as described by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago (pp. 60-70):

At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name).... For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the 'stormy applause, rising to an ovation,' continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin.

However, who would dare to be the first to stop?... After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who quit first!... At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly - but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them?... With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers!...

Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.

That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:

‘Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.’

Will Geoffrey Boycott's sporting similes be enough to save England's batsmen?

After Adelaide, England are two test matches down and Australia only have to win the third match in Perth to win back the Ashes.

At the close of play on the first day, our bowlers haven't left us in a very promising position and we still have to wait to see whether or not our batsmen take any notice of Geoffrey Boycott's profound advice after the second test match (above).

I was rather less impressed by his statements of the obvious - such as "You can't win a test match if you can't bat"- than by his use of sporting similes:

"We're playing cricket like a 50 over game: crash, bang, wallop - and out."

"It's like climbing a mountain without any shoes and socks on" 

and

"it's like playing chess: you can't win a chess game in the first few moves; you can sure as hell lose it."

My fear, alas, is that the question at the top of today's blog will turn out to be what Twitter followers of @johnrentoul will recognise as a #QTWTAIN...

How Obama the student discovered he could move a crowd at an anti-apartheid demonstration

In his speech at today's memorial service for Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama referred to his first political experience at a student anti-apartheid demonstration.

He did not, however, mention the fact that it also appears to have been the moment when he discovered that he had an ability to move and interact with an audience - as described in his own words (Chapter 5 of his book Dreams from my Father - with some key passages highlighted in italics):

   It was around that time that I got involved in the divestment campaign. It had started as something of a lark, I suppose, part of the radical pose my friends and I sought to maintain, a subconscious end run around issues closer to home. But as the months passed and I found myself drawn into a larger role-contacting representatives of the African National Congress to speak on campus, drafting letters to the faculty, printing up flyers, arguing strategy-I noticed that people had begun to listen to my opinions. It was a discovery that made me hungry for words. Not words to hide behind but words that could carry a message, support an idea. When we started planning the rally for the trustees’ meeting, and somebody suggested that I open the thing, I quickly agreed. I figured I was ready, and could reach people where it counted. I thought my voice wouldn’t fail me.

   Let’s see, now. What was it that I had been thinking in those days leading up to the rally? The agenda had been carefully arranged beforehand-I was only supposed to make a few opening remarks, in the middle of which a couple of white students would come onstage dressed in their paramilitary uniforms to drag me away. A bit of street theater, a way to dramatize the situation for activists in South Africa. I knew the score, had helped plan the script. Only, when I sat down to prepare a few notes for what I might say, something had happened. In my mind it somehow became more than just a two-minute speech, more than a way to prove my political orthodoxy. I started to remember my father’s visit to Miss Hefty’s class; the look on

Coretta’s face that day; the power of my father’s words to transform. If I could just find the right words, I had thought to myself. With the right words everything could change-South Africa, the lives of ghetto kids just a few miles away, my own tenuous place in the world.

   I was still in that trancelike state when I mounted the stage. For I don’t know how long, I just stood there, the sun in my eyes, the crowd of a few hundred restless after lunch. A couple of students were throwing a Frisbee on the lawn; others were standing off to the side, ready to break off to the library at any moment. Without waiting for a cue, I stepped up to the microphone.

“There’s a struggle going on,” I said. My voice barely carried beyond the first few rows. A few people looked up, and I waited for the crowd to quiet.

   “I say, there’s a struggle going on!” The Frisbee players stopped. “It’s happening an ocean away. But it’s a struggle that touches each and every one of us. Whether we

know it or not. Whether we want it or not. A struggle that demands we choose sides. Not between black and white. Not between rich and poor. No-it’s a harder choice than that. It’s a choice between dignity and servitude. Between fairness and injustice. Between commitment and indifference. A choice between right and wrong...”

   I stopped. The crowd was quiet now, watching me. Somebody started to clap. “Go on with it, Barack,” somebody else shouted. “Tell it like it is.” Then the others started in, clapping, cheering, and I knew that I had them, that the connection had been made. I took hold of the mike, ready to plunge on, when I felt someone’s hands grabbing me from behind. It was just as we’d planned it, Andy and Jonathan looking grim- faced behind their dark glasses. They started yanking me off the stage, and I was supposed to act like I was trying to break free, except a part of me wasn’t acting, I really wanted to stay up there, to hear my voice bouncing off the crowd and returning back to me in applause. I had so much left to say.

   But my part was over. I stood on the side as Marcus stepped up to the mike in his white T-shirt and denims, lean and dark and straight-backed and righteous. He explained to the audience what they had just witnessed, why the administration’s waffling on the issue of South Africa was unacceptable....