Body language revisited: tell-tale signs from royal weddings

Having been greatly frustrated in recent weeks by the fact that it's no longer possible to embed video from the Sky News website, I was pleased to find that they'd posted one of the clips I'd been looking for on YouTube (above).

Regular readers will know that something else that also frustrates me is the way in which so many body language 'experts' overstate their claims and/or make authoritative-sounding assertions on the basis of little or no empirical evidence.

There's more on the subject in my book Lend Me Your Ears (Chapter 11) as well as in the posts listed below. And, if you haven't already seen the Busting the Mehrabian Myth video from Creativity Works, it's well worth watching, especially if you're one of those who still believe that 93% of communication is non-verbal (below).

Tell-tale signs of true feelings?

Whether or not Dr Peter Collett believes this, I do not know. But I do know that he was on a BBC television programme in 1987 claiming that the launch of the Tory general election that year resembled a troop of chimpanzees led by alpha-female Margaret Thatcher.

I also know that he appears on Sky TV body language programmes quite frequently - which is presumably why Sky News roped him in for this four minute slot just before the royal wedding, in which he explains that the best way to answer 'age-old questions' about couples who are about to marry is to watch out for 'tell-tale signs in their body language'.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the validity of his observations, and will be interested to hear any comments or reactions you might have.

And, if you've another few minutes to spare, I'd recommend you to have a look at this too:

Other posts on body language & non-verbal communication:

• Body language on BBC Radio 4's 'Word of Mouth'
• Fact & fiction about body language 1: Folded arms, defensiveness and the Mehrabian myth
• Fact & fiction about body language 2: Does it matter what you wear or where you stand?
• Fact & fiction about body language 3: Do movement & gestures distract?
• Another example where 100% 0f the communication is 'non-verbal'
• How to use video to study body language, verbal & non-verbal communication
• Body language and non-verbal behaviour
• Presidential heights
• Body language, non-verbal communication and the myth about folded arms and defensiveness
• Another body language & non-verbal communication cartoon
• Margaret Thatcher, body language and non-verbal comunication
• Non-verbal communication and height
• Non-verbal communication
• More on body language and non-verbal behavior
• Impersonators as masterful analysts of non-verbal communication
• Mehrabian's moans about the myth
• Linguistic difference and non-verbal behavior: the mysterious case of gestures
• Eye contact, public speaking and the case of President Zuma's dark glasses

JFK's top tip for impressing foreign audiences works well for the Queen in Dublin

"A hUachtarain agus a chairde" ["President and friends"]

Not quite "Ich bin ein Dubliner", perhaps, but the Queen's speech at the state banquet in Dublin Castle last night got off to a very good start by the simple device of following John F Kennedy's top tip for speeches to foreign audiences, namely use a few words in the local language.

The applause might have been slightly delayed (by one second) because there were so few in the audience who actually speak Gaelic. But, once they realised what it was, the ovation was enthusiastic enough to last considerably longer (by three seconds) than the 'normal' burst of eight seconds.

Given that so many of us native English speakers are so hopeless at giving speeches and lectures in any other language but English, it's not too difficult to mug up a few appropriate words from a phrase book as an opener. And, in my experience, it invariably goes down well enough with audiences to have been well worth the effort.

Related posts:

• The Queen's speech: an exception that proves the ruler
• Obama on Kennedy got more applause than 'normal'
• How to stay awake during a repetitive ceremony
• Delayed applause at a key point in Nick Clegg's conference speech
• Delayed applause in Vince Cable's speech (at same point as in Clegg's)
• More lessons from Vince Cable's speech
• Delayed applause for Ed Miliband's claims on the 'centre ground'
• Delayed applause for William Hague's boast about being in government
• Delayed applause, poor speech writing & delivery strike again in Osborne's speech
• Delayed applause for Cameron's government - from the Conservatives!
• BIG SOCIETY: little applause

Televising the Supreme Court: one small step towards a giant leap?

Today's news that live footage from the Supreme Court can be seen on Sky News is a major step forward that's attracted less media attention than it deserves.

I've always been baffled by the fact that, although a crucial feature of our legal system is that court hearings should be open to the public, they're only open to the few who are able to get a seat in the public gallery.

The case for banning television from courts fell apart years ago

The prohibition on recording (whether audio or video) court hearings originates from the much older ban on taking still photographs in courts - which was originally introduced because indoor photography used to require the use of flash powder. In those early days, it was rightly feared that this would be a major distraction to the ongoing proceedings.

But the rules were never updated when photographic technology had developed to the point where fast film made it easy to take quality pictures in low light. Nor were they updated when television and video technology no longer needed elaborate and potentially distracting lighting systems.

So we're still lumbered with the situation of having to rely on journalists' inevitably partial reports of court proceedings, while being prevented from witnessing them ourselves (unless we happen to be able get there and find a seat).

A needless constraint on research

Leaving aside the general question of why the wider public has been needlessly excluded from court hearings for so long, the prohibition on recording court hearings has also seriously hindered the development of research into the workings of courtroom language in Britain. My own work on public speaking was originally a by-product of studies of verbal interaction in courts that were originally done at the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies more than 30 years ago - some of which was published a book I wrote with Paul Drew (Order in Court: the organization of verbal interaction in judicial settings, London: Macmillan Press, 1979).

At that time, the only tape-recordings we could get hold of came from American colleagues, who had no trouble at all in collecting huge amounts of such data and were generous in making them available to some of us in the UK.

As for our own courts, we might have been able to see a few transcripts now and then, but that was the best you could hope for, unless you could find a judge who was also willing to break the rules in the interests of science.

In fact, the main reason I started looking at political speeches in the first place was that it was so easy to collect recordings from radio and television (for more on which, see HERE) and audible signs of approval like clapping and cheering made it possible to identify what actually turned audiences on.

A new beginning?

So we should not only welcome the initiative announced today by Sky News, but hope that televising will not stop short at the Supreme Court and will soon be extended to lower courts as well. Until that happens, the claim that our courts are open to the public may be true in principle, but it remains rather far removed from reality in practice.

P.S.

After posting this, I heard via Twitter from Jamie Wood (@JFDWood), a Sky News executive producer, that this is indeed the first step in a campaign for the restrictions on cameras in our courts to be lifted, for more on which see HERE.