Churchill's perfect timing of his 'iron curtain' gesture

Watching Churchill's 'iron' curtain clip again yesterday got me thinking about posting a note on the timing of his gesture - at which point, there suddenly appeared a Twitter link to a book by a body language expert that included 'iconic' gestures as one of three types of gesture:

'Different types of gesture

'Iconic-gestures whose form displays a close relationship to the meaning of the accompanying speech

'Metaphoric-gestures that are essentially pictorial but the content depicted here is an abstract idea rather than a concrete object or event

'The Beat-movements that look as though they are beating out musical time' (full post HERE)

Although I always advise that three-parted typologies, whether from Marx, Freud or countless other theorists, need to be treated with caution (because the theorist probably stopped looking for more after the third one made the story seem complete enough to get it published), I don't have a problem with the idea that 'iconic gestures' are a distinct and frequently used type of gesture that do indeed relate to words that are coming out of a speaker's mouth.

I'm less certain, however, about the above distinction between 'iconic' and 'metaphoric' gestures - as it's not clear to me whether Churchill's downward hand movement relates to the words 'has descended' or the metaphor of an 'iron curtain' falling across Europe. Nor do I think there's any way of determining which of these it is, any more than I think it matters very much.

THE TIMING OF ICONIC GESTURES

A far as I'm concerned, the most interesting thing about it is that it's a splendid illustration of perfect timing of an iconic gesture.

The first time I ever heard the term used was in a lecture by Emanuel Schegloff, one of the founders of conversation analysis, back in 1979, in which he observed that iconic gestures anticipate a word that's coming up any second now - i.e. they get under way just before the speaker actually says the word to which the gesture relates (E.A. Schegloff, 'On some gestures' relation to talk', in Atkinson & Heritage, Eds. Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 266-298 - Amazon link at bottom right of page).

This can be clearly seen in the Churchill clip, where his hand begins to move just as he starts to say "an iron curtain" and has fully descended by the time he gets to the word "descended'.

If you watch the video again, an interesting question to ask yourself is what it would have looked like had he started the gesture after saying the word "descended". Or think of an angler telling you that the fish he'd just caught was "huge" and then moving his hands apart to show just how huge it was.

In both cases, your answer is likely to be something like 'odd', 'mistimed', 'later than it should have been' or even 'vaguely amusing'

This is because one of the intriguing things about the way we use these iconic gestures is that timing them 'correctly' (i.e. start before saying the word) is something we learn in early childhood.

SOMETHING TO LOOK OUT FOR IF YOU HAVE YOUNG CHILDREN

Sometimes, very young children will describe something before doing a gesture that relates to it - e.g. "It was really round", followed by drawing a circle in the air with their hands - the timing of which, is likely to be regarded by adults as 'cute' - but, as they grow older, they discover how to get the timing right.

No one ever tells them they'd been doing it 'wrong' or coaches them to get it 'right' - just as I have never found it necessary to coach adult speakers how to use iconic gestures (or would ever dream of doing so).

The 'iron curtain' descended from Russia via Goebbels to Churchill

In an interesting post on 'What PowerPoint can't show you' yesterday, Martin Shovel poses the excellent question of whether it would have improved the famous metaphor used by Winston Churchill in his speech at Fulton, Missouri in 1946, in which he said “.. an iron curtain has descended across the continent”:

‘Time pressure would have forced him to abandon his strikingly original idea in favour of something more literal, mundane and attainable, like a brick wall, or a barbed-wire fence.’

Although 'iron curtain' was a perfect metaphor for summing up the Cold War division of Europe, this ‘strikingly original idea’ wasn't Churchill's. Goebbels and other Nazi propagandists had used it before him, as too had others in England and Russia before that.

The most succinct summary of the metaphor's history that I’ve come across is on About.com:

‘Churchill had previously used the term in two telegrams to Truman. However, the term, which dates back to the nineteenth century, was probably first used in regard to Russia by Vassily Rozanov in 1918 when he wrote "an iron curtain is descending on Russian history". It was also used by Ethel Snowden in 1920 in a book called 'Through Bolshevik Russia' and during WW2 by Joseph Goebbels and German politician Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, both in propaganda.’

None of which is to belittle the power of the metaphor or Churchill’s success in making it part of the language of the Cold War – which is why I still use the video clip below when teaching about the importance of imagery.

BUT WHAT MAKES A SPEECH MEMORABLE?
This is a question I blogged about back in March and is something that will no doubt continue to fascinate me until I shuffle off this mortal coil. The 'iron curtain' speech arguably fits with where I've got to so far from looking at some of the speeches that people mentioned most frequently as 'memorable' :

'The best I’ve been able to come up with is that, in each case, the speaker managed to hit the jackpot by saying something that struck just the right chord with just the right audience in just the right place at just the right moment in history – which means that it’s more or less impossible to predict ‘memorability’ with any certainty in advance of any particular speech...'

You can see the list of 'memorable' speeches and comments on the discussion HERE. And, if you feel like continuing the discussion, please feel free to do so.

Just who does Lord Adonis think he is?

Only a few hours after posting my latest grumbles about the House of Lords, I was flabbergasted to be greeted by the appearance on the BBC website the following staggering piece of presumptuousness from our unelected Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis - to which all I can say is:

How dare such a person have the cheek to demand the right to speak the chamber of the elected House of Commons?

For me, the presence of Adonis in the House of Lords at all, let alone his recent elevation to the cabinet, sums up everything that's wrong with our second chamber.

After all, here is someone whose political career has included avoiding elections (see HERE) and changing sides (he was a LibDem advisor to Paddy Ashdown before defecting to Labour) when it suited him - and who is presumably only in the cabinet now because Gordon Brown had run out elected MPs considered 'reliable' enough for such high office.

I've never posted a whole web page from another site before, but it will at least save you from looking it up and, perhaps also explain why, on this occasion, long words fail me:

Peers 'should appear in Commons'

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has said he wants to be able to answer MPs' questions in the House of Commons.

Current rules say peers who serve as ministers can face direct inquiries only in the House of Lords.

But Lord Adonis told BBC One's Politics Show he and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson would be "delighted" to face MPs in the Commons chamber.

He has written to the Speaker to suggest this, but said the Commons was not the "fastest-moving" institution.

The promotion of peers to cabinet rank means some of the leading figures in government cannot face questions from their own and opposition MPs in the Commons itself.

Scrutiny concerns

More junior ministers deputise for their bosses at the despatch box.

So, for instance, Lord Mandelson and his Conservative shadow, Ken Clarke, never sit opposite each other in Parliament.

Critics say this reduces the effective scrutiny of government.

Lord Adonis said that, as he had to appear before Commons select committees, there was some direct questioning of him by MPs.

But he said he and Lord Mandelson "would be delighted to answer questions" in the main Commons chamber.

Lord Adonis said he had written to Speaker John Bercow, but added: "I don't think the Commons, when it comes to reforming itself, is the fastest-moving of institutions."

The peer, who was an adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, reiterated that he would not serve under David Cameron if the Conservatives won the next general election.
He said he had "no interest" in such an arrangement.

Noble noses in the trough

All the main political parties seem quite happy to have their nominees sitting and working in the House of Lords as if they represented someone and/or as if there's a rational basis for any of them to have a seat there at all. So it's a subject that I don't regard as a 'no-go area' for a 'non-aligned' blog.

Anyone interested can read a selection of my 'non-aligned' posts on the subject below. And anyone really interested is recommended to inspect the expenses claims of our 'nobility' for the year ended 31 March 2008 HERE.

I first got wind of the fact that there might be something dubious about Hose of Lords expenses claims a few years ago, when I heard of a special branch protection officer with reservations about the behaviour of a peer he was protecting - whose day would start by being driven to the House of Lords, signing in to claim his daily tax-free allowance and then being driven off again to do whatever else he'd got planned for the day.

Only one example, perhaps, but many more questions spring to mind from looking at the expenses list referred to above, and you may be as surprised as I was at how much is being claimed by so many for so few days of effort.

Some peers, like Lord Rees Mogg, appear to be claiming allowances for office expenses associated with doing paid work for someone else - e.g. how much of the £8,923 claimed for his 'office' in the year 2007-80 was actually subsidising him to write articles for The Times and Mail on Sunday?

As I've said before, I don't have the staff, resources or inclination to research the matter as closely as the Daily Telegraph investigated the expenses of our elected representatives.

But I do wish someone would do more of it, if only to remind people that the new improved House of Lords is as far removed from anything approximating democracy as it ever was - and perhaps even get the debate about it going again.

Other posts on the House of Lords include:

• The good news from the House of Lords
• House of Lords expenses
• House of Lords expenses: Lord Rees Mogg on gravy trains
• Bishops’ attendance rates and allowances in the House of Lords
• Why it suited Brown and Blair to take House of Lords reforms no further

Contrasting reactions to Cameron's 'poverty moment'

I’ve just caught up with BBC’s Question Time that was broadcast on the day of David Cameron’s leader’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.

Given what I’d said last week about the high spot being the sequence on poverty in which he 'surfed' applause (HERE and HERE), I wasn’t at all surprised to see two of QT guests singling it out for comment.

But I was surprised and intrigued by the very different audience reactions to their attacks on that particular part of the speech.

Asked whether David Cameron is ready to become prime minister, Ian Hislop only got a slight titter of laughter for his reason for saying “yes”:

It may well have been his failure to get a bigger laugh that prompted him to carry on at greater length. But his overt attempt get a reaction by pouring scorn on Cameron’s ‘poverty moment’ got another rather lukewarm response - and his final sentence was greeted by a deathly and quite lengthy silence before Dimbleby called for the next speaker:

By contrast, Labour cabinet minister Yvette Cooper’s characterisation of the same sequence as ‘synthetic indignation’ and her quote of Cameron’s line in the speech about ‘being straight’ with people got a fulsome round of applause:

For members of the Tory communications team, this positive response to Ms Cooper must have been as discouraging as the lack of response to Mr Hislop had been encouraging.

But there was one evaluation of the speech as a whole from a member of the audience that must have been music to their ears - and worth at least one bottle of champagne (to be drunk, of course, out of sight of any roving TV cameras):