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Wobbly Williams also knows about 3 part lists, poetics and alliteration!!!
Why does the Tory media spend so much time attacking the PM?
In the wake of the hacking trial yesterday, I still don't understand why the Conservative-supporting press and media are so anti-Cameron.
Can anyone enlighten me on this???
3 part lists revisited again!
Today Mendip District Council only collect our recycling boxes, but NOT our green wheelie bins - see the late great Gail Jefferson, above, on 3 part lists (and at http://maxatkinson.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/why-so-many-lists-of-three-mystery.html).
Who'd have thought any local authority smart enough to know about Gail and the power of three part lists?!
Not to mention a pub at Lulworth Cove in Dorset which has a welcoming three part list on its wall that reads:
SLEEPING
EATING
DRINKING!!!
EATING
DRINKING!!!
Trailer for my new book coming out in 2014 and featuring extracts from this blog
TURN A DEAF EAR
CONVERSE, COMMENT, COMMUNICATE
MAX
ATKINSON
By the same author
Discovering
Suicide: Studies in the Social Organization of Sudden Death (1978) London, The Macmillan Press
Order in
Court: The Organisation of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings (with Paul Drew) (1979) London, The Macmillan Press.
Structures of
Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis
(edited with John Heritage) (1984) New York, Cambridge University Press
Our Masters’
Voices: The Language & Body Language of Politics, London and New York, Methuen, 1984, (reprinted by Methuen, 1986,
reprinted by Routledge, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1994, reprinted and transferred to
digital printing by Taylor and Francis 2005)
Lend Me your
Ears: All you need to know about making speeches and presentations (2004) London, Vermilion; Random House, New York, Oxford University
Press 2005), translated into Russian and Spanish (2014)
Comments on the title and/or anything else about the project (e.g how long should it be) will be especially welcome.
"20 is plenty" in the Somerset village where I live
Readers of this blog and/or any of my books such as "Lend Me Your Ears", "Our Masters' Voices", "Speech-making and Presentation MADE EASY" and/or anyone attending one of my courses will know that poetic elements often play a really crucial part in effective communication by the greatest speakers of all time.
But, thanks to Mendip District Council and/or Somerset County Council, you can forget what so-called experts like me drone on about in their courses. Why else would they entertain us with needlessly expensive road signs like the one you see on entering Old Ditch:
"TWENTY IS PLENTY"
Time, methinks, I retired, don't you think....
And I did actually retire on 29th April 2014, but am still running courses and writing books!
And I did actually retire on 29th April 2014, but am still running courses and writing books!
What's news about meeting and talking to an Afro-Carribean cyclist in deepest Somerset?
Today, during an hour's walk through the beautiful countryside near my home, I was surprised to meet an Afro-Carribean dressed in full kit for a long stint at cycling.
It was a very expensive bike with the latest in gear-changing equipment.
It was a very expensive bike with the latest in gear-changing equipment.
- Should I have been surprised?
- Should I be ashamed?
- Should I have noticed?
- Does the noticing mean I'm a prejudiced bastard because he spoke with an upper-class English accent.
- But I do confess to being surprised.
- I do feel ashamed by my reaction.
- I should not have noticed.
- I was wrong to be surprised by his upper-class English accent...
I hope that no one will notice and/or come up with better answers than mine in a generation's time (I am 70 years old) - especially when I'm related by marriage to someone as charming as Ade, who moved his family to Australia hoping to escape a life marred by color-prejudice in the UK.
Comments, as ever, welcome!
Blogging begins again
After a few weeks off with depression, a second opinion is demonstrating that it can be 'cured'.
Now finances are looking as healthy as they ever were, I'd like to thank loyal readers for continuing to visit.
Only trouble is that my Mac computer is misbehaving - on which, more anon...
And comments, as ever, are welcome.
Now finances are looking as healthy as they ever were, I'd like to thank loyal readers for continuing to visit.
Only trouble is that my Mac computer is misbehaving - on which, more anon...
And comments, as ever, are welcome.
Cartooning revisited?
Time to start blogging again - with thanks to loyal readers who have continued visiting since I became ill with depression.
A recent second opinion says it won't be long until I'm a lot better...
NHS still employes social workers (and at least one doctor) without a clue
Having had quite a lot more conversations with the social worker discussed in the previous post, I can report that he is worse than ever. Worse still, he pretends to be medically qualified when he clearly isn't.
And he's now got one of his GPs on board and she's behaving just as badly.
So he's not the only incompetent twit draining the NHS budget. And, if they carry on like this, I may have to ape their unprofessional behaviour by naming them...
And he's now got one of his GPs on board and she's behaving just as badly.
So he's not the only incompetent twit draining the NHS budget. And, if they carry on like this, I may have to ape their unprofessional behaviour by naming them...
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...
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 ...?
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.'"
"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):
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.’
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.
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....
Thanks to Nelson Mandela for making an uninspiring speech on release from prison
Having been wondering for weeks how to mark the 1,000th post on this blog, the death of Nelson Mandela has solved my dilemma.
The speech he made on release from prison initially stunned me by what an unimpressive example of how to inspire an audience it was. - until I realised that, had he done otherwise, it would have triggered the start of a civil war in South Africa.
His genius was, among other things, to have understood exactly what had to be done to accommodate his (and FW de Klerks') dreams of getting rid of apartheid by holding things together long enough to allow time for the successful and peaceful reconstruction of the country.
So, for my 1,000th post, here's what I wrote on the 20th anniversary of his release from prison:
None of the news reports on the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison that I've seen have replayed any excerpts from the speech he made at City Hall in Cape Town.
This doesn't really surprise me, as it was far from being the barnstorming piece of oratory that many (including me) were expecting at the time.
Speaking into a microphone held by someone standing next to him, a bespectacled Mr Mandela clutched closely to the clip board holding his script - from which he read extremely carefully (see video below).
Given what might have happened had he done otherwise, it reminded me of the Queen's Speech as an example of the relatively rare occasions when there are very good reasons for not conveying any passion about what you are saying.
Something I posted a while back on The Queen's Speech: an exception that proves the ruler included the following thoughts about Mandela release-day speech.
Why such a 'low key' speech?
A much more surprising case was Nelson Mandela’s first speech after being released from prison in 1990. Here was a highly effective communicator, whose words at his trial 27 years earlier are to be found in most books of great speeches, and who had had the best part of three decades to prepare an inspiring and memorable text.
But it was not to be. As if modeling his performance on the Queen’s Speech, he buried his head in the script and spoke in a flat measured tone that came across as completely lacking in the kind of passion everyone was expecting from someone who had suffered so much and was held in such high regard by his audience.
Having waited for years for this historic event, anticipating something on a par with Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, I remember being disappointed and surprised by what I saw and heard from the balcony of City Hall in Cape Town. It was only later that it dawned on me that this was another case where rousing rhetoric would have been completely counter-productive.
The political situation in South Africa was poised on a knife-edge and his release from prison had only happened at all because the apartheid regime was crumbling. It was a moment when anything more inspiring from Mandela might have come across as a call to arms and could easily have prompted an immediate uprising or civil war.
But the political understanding with the minority white government was that the African National Congress would keep the lid on things for long enough to enable a settlement to be negotiated.* As when the Queen opens parliament, Mr Mandela knew exactly what he was doing, how to do it and that he could not have done otherwise.
(* On which it's interesting to note that, at the end of this clip, the reporter actually comments on Mr Mandela's concern for keeping things orderly among the crowd).
SCRIPT OF EXCERPT IN THE VIDEO:
The sight of freedom looming on the horizon should encourage us to redouble our efforts.
It is only through disciplined mass action that our victory can be assured. We call on our white compatriots to join us in the shaping of a new South Africa. The freedom movement is a political home for you too. We call on the international community to continue the campaign to isolate the apartheid regime. To lift sanctions now would be to run the risk of aborting the process towards the complete eradication of apartheid.
Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' roll in a united democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.
In conclusion I wish to quote my own words during my trial in 1964. They are as true today as they were then. I wrote:
'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'
It is only through disciplined mass action that our victory can be assured. We call on our white compatriots to join us in the shaping of a new South Africa. The freedom movement is a political home for you too. We call on the international community to continue the campaign to isolate the apartheid regime. To lift sanctions now would be to run the risk of aborting the process towards the complete eradication of apartheid.
Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' roll in a united democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.
In conclusion I wish to quote my own words during my trial in 1964. They are as true today as they were then. I wrote:
'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'
The battle for audience attention (3): Why audiences fall asleep
This is the third of a three part series of posts, prompted by last week's news that proceedings of the Court of Appeal were being televised for the first time.Earlier parts were (1) The battle for audience attention and (2) Why stay awake in conversation.
Why audiences fall
asleep
Speeches and
presentations are much longer than turns in a conversation
Compared with the
talk we’re used to listening to in conversations, the most unusual thing about
a speech or presentation is its sheer length. In essence, all forms of public
speaking involve the production of exceptionally long turns at talk, in which
one person is given the floor for far longer than anyone ever gets to speak
during a conversation. Rather than having to pay attention to short
conversational turns lasting an average of seven or eight seconds, members of
an audience are faced with the daunting prospect of having to listen to one
person speaking continuously for 10, 20 or 30 minutes – and often for even
longer than that.
Audiences know
they won’t have to speak for a while
This may seem a grim
enough prospect in itself, but it’s only part of the attentiveness problem we
face when sitting in an audience. What makes life really difficult is that our
only job is to listen. We can therefore relax in the knowledge that we’re not
going to have to speak for however long the speech or presentation lasts. The absence of any
immediate threat of having to say something at a moment’s notice amounts to a
massive reduction in the incentives to pay attention that work so efficiently
in everyday conversation. This
goes a long way towards explaining why we are so much more likely to fall
asleep when in an audience than when participating in a conversation.
If audiences get
confused, they stop listening
Another extremely
important and taken-for-granted feature of conversation that also changes
dramatically in speeches and presentations is the relative ease with which we’re
able to deal with any difficulties we may have in understanding what someone
just said. If, at some point in a conversation, we’re unclear about something,
we can use our next turn to ask for clarification, and get an immediate
solution to the problem. But, when sitting in an audience, most of us are much
more inhibited. For one thing, it involves interrupting, and therefore runs the
risk of offending the speaker. Not only that, but a request for clarification
can all too easily sound like a public complaint about the speaker’s
incompetence at explaining things clearly enough.
Our reluctance to
intervene may also be fuelled by a fear of exposing our own ignorance in public
– because, for all we know, everyone else in the audience may be finding it
perfectly easy to follow the argument. So the safest and commonest option is
not to ask for clarification. Instead, we start reflecting on what the speaker
has been saying in a bid to disentangle what it was all about for ourselves.
The trouble is that trying to make some kind of retrospective sense of what we’ve
just heard takes priority over concentrating on whatever comes next. And if we
miss some or all of that, we become even more muddled and confused, sometimes
to a point where we simply give up on making any further effort to understand,
listen or stay awake.
Presentations and speeches are
not always designed so that audiences can follow them
Our reluctance to ask
for clarification from a speaker is only one deviation from routine
conversational practice that poses problems of understanding for audiences.
Another is the way the subject matter is selected and managed. In conversation,
there are no restrictions on the topics we can talk about, and everyone
involved can play an active
part in influencing the direction it takes. As a result, the subjects covered
in conversations are constantly changing, and can suddenly take off in
completely unexpected and unplanned directions.
Compared with the
more or less infinite range of topics we can talk about in conversation, the
subject matter of speeches and presentations is much narrower and more
restricted. As members of an audience, we may not even be particularly
interested in the topic to begin with. Worse still, and unlike in conversation
where we can do something
about our lack of interest by changing the subject, we have no control over how
the subject of a presentation or speech will be developed. It’s the speaker who
has sole responsibility both for selecting the material and organising it into
an orderly sequence.
Nor do we have much
idea about exactly what’s going to be included, or how the subject matter is
going to be divided up – until or unless the speaker gives us advance notice of
what’s to come, and the order in which the points will be covered. In other
words, having a sense of sequence and structure plays a crucially important
part in helping us to make sense of what we’re hearing. All too often, speakers
either fail to do this or, having done it, make no further reference to how any
particular item under discussion fits in with the overall structure announced
at the start. And if we’re confused about where things have got to in relation
to where they were supposed to be going, our ability to understand and keep on
paying attention will go into a progressive decline.
The problems of
understanding faced by audiences and the difficulty of doing something about
them are therefore very different from the way they arise and are dealt with in
conversation. This means that the speaker’s main challenge is to make sure that
the subject matter is presented in a way that the audience can follow. If our
problem as members of an audience is trying to pay attention to a continuous
stream of talk many hundreds of times longer than anything we ever have to
listen to in a conversation, the parallel problem for speakers
is producing such an abnormally long turn.
To make matters
worse, they are deprived of a very efficient means of checking on understanding
that we use continuously during conversations. This is the way in which we
routinely inspect other speakers’ responses to gauge whether or not our
previous turn was understood in the way we intended. If it was, we can safely
carry on; if it wasn’t, we
can elaborate, revise or otherwise expand on the point we were trying to get
across.
Ideally, of course, a
speech or presentation should be designed so that anyone in the audience will
be able to follow it. This is why the selection and structuring of the subjects
to be covered is (or should be) at the heart of the preparation process, and
why it is an important enough topic to have the whole of Chapter 9 in Lend Me Your Ears devoted to it.
The battle against
boredom
The greatly reduced
pressure on audiences to listen means that winning and holding their attention
can never be taken for granted. It poses a far greater challenge than many
speakers realise, and is a battle that has to be fought relentlessly for the
entire duration of a speech or presentation....
(Continued in Lend Me Your Ears pp. 30-371)
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