Last December, I suggested that Gordon Brown’s gaffe when he said that he’d saved the world was probably the result of what Gail Jefferson, one of the founders of conversation analysis, referred to as a ‘sound-formed error’ – because there were four ‘wuh-’ sounds in quick succession just before the word ‘world’ popped out of his mouth – which he quickly corrected to ‘banks’.
Whether or not it really was a ‘sound-formed error’, we shall never know for certain, but there's no doubt that it was a mistake that caused widespread amusement.
There’s also no doubt that you can sometimes use this type of error with deliberately humorous intent , as is nicely illustrated by whoever wrote this TV commercial for Berlitz language courses:
(Gail Jefferson's original paper on the subject is HERE, and many of her other publications can be downloaded from HERE).
I’ve just been going through some video clips in preparation for a presentation I have to give next week and came across an old favourite, in which a 90 year old speaker shows how effectively imagery and the main rhetorical techniques can be combined to get a point across in a mere 75 words.
As audiences are getting younger and fewer still remember former prime minister Harold Macmillan (who later became Lord Stockton), I tend not to use this example much these days, but it’s such a fine specimen of rhetorical techniques in action that it deserves a wider audience.
In lines 1-8, he uses a metaphorical puzzle about a sinking ship that juxtaposes a contrast between two alternatives, [A]‘sinking’ or [B] making a new cross-party effort.
The first part of this contrast ends with a third item (‘go slowly down’) that contrasts with the first two (‘drastically’ and ‘tragically’), and the second part includes a three part list (‘new, determined, united’).
The solution to the puzzle (lines 9-12) then comes in the form of another contrast, this time between [A]‘ decline and fall’ and [B] ‘a new and glorious renaissance’.
Add to this his delivery, with pauses (marked by / in the transcript) coming at an average rate of one pause per 3.75 words, and it's hardly surprising that the commentator refers to it as "another masterly speech".
I used to say that, if I had to illustrate as many of the key points about rhetoric and imagery as possible with reference to a single exampe, this would be it - a view I'm not so sure about having looked in detail at some of Barack Obama's speeches (e.g. see HERE and HERE, or type 'Obama' into blog search box for more posts on his speeches. Or, for more detail on how anyone can use these techniques in any type of speech or presentation, see any of the books listed in the column on the left)).
LORD STOCKTON:
1 Do we just / slowly / majestically / sink /
2 not perhaps drastically
3 or tragically /
4 but go slowly down like a great ship? /
5 Or shall we make / a
6 new /
7 determined /
8 united effort, / putting as far as we can / party aside. /
9 Let us / do the latter,
10 and then / historians of the future /will not describe the end of this century /
11 as the beginning / of the decline and fall of Britain /
12 but as the beginning / of a new / and glorious renaissance.
Our local MP, David Heathcote-Amory, recently achieved public notoriety for his parliamentary expenses claim for £380 worth of horse manure – on which an interesting new angle may be about to emerge.
At a party this weekend, a normally reliable source of inside information about local politics was broadcasting the 'news' that our MP’s manure had not been locally sourced from within the constituency (as I’d rather suspected, given the price), but had been imported from a neighbouring county – Gloucestershire, to be precise and, to be even more precise, from Highgrove, the country seat of the Prince of Wales.
If true, this raises the interesting questions of whether one of Prince Charles’s businesses has been a beneficiary of an MP’s expenses claim, whether he know about it and, if so, whether it will have any constitutional implications?
It’s almost impossible to watch or listen to a media interview without coming to a positive or negative impression of the person who is being interviewed.
This is very clear in the following exchange between Andrew Neil and cabinet minister Yvette Cooper – watch the whole thing first and see what you think before reading on:
The video a splendid example of something I’ve mentioned in a number of previous posts, namely that a major reason why the interview is such an unsatisfactory form of political communication is that it’s so easy for politicians not to answer questions and so difficult for interviewers to extract answers from them (without coming across as unreasonably hostile or biased, on which see HERE).
In this case, the interviewer's difficulties in getting an answer out of the interviewee and her determination not to provide one are even more evident than usual, because of the extraordinary amount time that both of them spend speaking at the same time as each other – which is a such a flagrant breach of the most basic rule of conversation of all, namely ‘one speaker speaks at a time’, that it’s bound to be noticed by any competent speaker of the language (i.e. viewers and listeners).
But what still hasn’t dawned on politicians (and the media advisors who train them how to perform in interviews) is that coming across as evasive or as someone who ‘hogs’ the conversation’ invariably creates a negative impression.
So, if your reaction to Ms Cooper veered towards the negative end of the scale, you shouldn’t be at all surprised. You are not alone – as you’ll see from these samples from the 117 comments posted by some of the 8,000 people who have so far seen the interview on YouTube:
“I watched this today as well, and couldn't believe my eyes. Every time I see her being interviewed she always tries to speak over the interviewer and never answers the question directly. She has this 'I don't care how stupid I look' kind of attitude which doesn't do her or her party any favours. Just answer the question you silly woman!”
“All Labour ministers go to the same school where they learn to ignore the question, talking over the interviewer and acting in a supercilious arrogant manner. No wonder the public hate them.”
“This is Bliar's real legacy. The complete triumph of waffle and spin over unpleasant facts.”
“I'm surprised the leftist BBC allowed Andrew Neil to press Cooper like this. But he did a good job and still got no answer. As other people have said on here, she is just a pre-programmed robot reading from a script embedded in her brain.”
TWO TECHNIQUES FOR WINNING AND HOLDING THE FLOOR
The video also provides some excellent illustrations of what the late Gail Jefferson, one of the founders of conversation analysis, referred to as ‘overlap competition’.
The argument, briefly stated, goes like this. So basic is the ‘one speaker at a time’ rule that we get uneasy when we find ourselves in situations where it is being violated, whether by ourselves or by someone else. As a result, one or other of the speakers will always eventually give way, thereby enabling a return to orderly turn-taking where ‘one speaker speaks at a time’.
Jefferson also noted that there are two techniques available to interrupters, one of which is always far more effective than the other when it comes to winning and holding the floor.
To win, all you have to do is to carry on speaking and ignore anyone else’s attempts to ‘get a word in edgeways’. And it’s no use just trying to get the odd word or two in - e.g. ‘but- but- but' - and expect that the other person will give way, because, so long as you proceed no further than that, they won’t.
For the purposes of what follows, let’s call these truncated attempts to get the floor the ‘staccato’ technique.
But if you’re more persistent and launch unhesitatingly into producing a fully-fledged sentence, the power of the one speaker at a time rule will start to weaken the other person's determination and knock them off course – by making him or her feel just as uneasy and inhibited as you felt when you were breaking the rule.
So long as you carry on speaking as fluently as you can (or dare), you’ll eventually force your competitor to back off and leave you in the clear to say whatever you like.
For the purposes of what follows, let’s call this the ‘continuo’ technique).
I’ve edited this interview into five consecutive sequences, in which you can not only see both speakers using both of these techniques, but also how whichever one persists with the ‘continuo’ technique always wins.
Episode 1: Neil's initial use of staccato fails and he only wins when he uses continuo to assert that he's asking her a question:
Episode 2: Neil’s several initial attempts at staccato are defeated by Cooper’s persistent use of continuo:
But remember too that the only thing you'll win is the space to say whatever it is you want to say and that such victories come at a price - namely that people will not only notice what you're doing but will also use such behaviour as a basis for drawing negative conclusions about you and the kind of person you are.
Sooner or later, politicians may actually wake up to this brutal fact of life and realise how little there is to be gained from talking over their interviewers and ignoring the questions put to them.
And as a footnote, on this evidence from Ms Cooper (AKA Mrs Ed Balls), one does have to wonder who wears the trousers in the Balls household?
RELATED POSTS
· Gordon Brown’s interview technique: the tip of a tedious iceberg
· A prime minister who openly refused to answer an interviewer’s questions
· A Tory leader's three evasive answers to the same question
· A Labour leader with no interest in spin!
