Discursive performances

conference keynote speech, announcements, utterances, manifesto launches, Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs), and Leaders’ Debates.

• (4.1.2) Responses to events/performance in crisis moments.

• (4.1.3) Ideological/policy performances.

• (4.1.4) Performance to the media e.g. interviews, articles.

4.1.1 Discursive performances

Discursive performance highlights the role of language and rhetoric and its deployment to political effect. A body of literature describes discourse analysis per se e.g. the practical aspects of language including syntax (sentence structure), semantics (meaning), phonology (sounds/tones) (see Stubbs (1983), Coulthard (1985), Schiffrin (1994), Nelson (2002)). Critical discourse analysis (CDA) emphasises the relationship between language and society and emphasises the context in which language is grounded. Authors such as Fairclough (1995, 2001), Wodak and Meyer (2001), Chilton (2004), Lueewen (2008) have used CDA to analyse political discourse. For our purposes, some aspects of discourse analysis and CDA are referred to; the method used for analysing discursive performances draws upon contributions from the following authors, from Aristotle (2004), and in the contemporary context, Bolinger (1980), van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) Atkinson (1984),

Gaffney (1991, 2001, 2007), Chilton (2004), Gladwell (2005) and van Dijk (2008) as elaborating discourse, political communication and performative techniques.

The analysis of a discursive performance is considered as a physical performance.

We analyse a discursive performance by focusing upon three strands. First, the significance of the opening statement is referred to in relation to Gladwell’s (2005) assertion that audiences cast snap judgements upon actors very quickly. Gladwell’s research as in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is primarily about behavioural psychology. His assertion that audiences judge actors immediately can be used in our study of political leadership performance as this thesis identifies the immediacy of reactions to persona. Taking into account Gladwell’s assertion, the first utterances that a leader makes and the language/issues that exist discursively can affect the relationship between a leader and the audience. We should also stress that physical comportment throughout the delivery of the opening statement of a speech (body language and gestures) can also affect the relationship between leader and follower. The second strand in analysing a discursive performance includes selecting discursive moments from the speech which demonstrate the relationship between performance and persona. The following list cites discursive techniques that can be deployed by a speaker to political effect. The techniques listed are performative in that their use can enhance the status and authority of a leader and can affect political outcomes and may contribute towards a leader’s discursive persona. The following list draws upon the work of Max Atkinson (1984) as well as a range of other authors cited. Atkinson’s study of observable human politics is essentially about the interaction between political speakers and the audience and the use of particular verbal and non-verbal techniques used to gain a favourable audience response. His notion of ‘claptrap’: particular devices used to catch audience applause focuses upon political speakers at large-scale party rallies. Although Atkinson focuses on political oratory within the context of rallies, his insights into language, discourse and political

behaviour are helpful methodologically and can be used in analysing discursive performance relevant to British political leadership, most notably, leadership acceptance speech, party conference keynote speech, announcements, utterances, manifesto launches, PMQs and Leaders’ Debates. Our analysis of discursive performances includes reference to the following communicative techniques:

• The speakers depiction of the world, depiction of the self and others (see Gaffney 2001, 2007).

• The use of Aristotelian pathos which refers to the ability of the speaker to use emotion to political effect e.g. metaphorical language.

• The speakers relationship to discourse and audience, Chilton (2004) refers to three strategies by which utterers manage their interests e.g. coercion, legitimisation and delegitimisation, and representation and misrepresentation.

• Use of personal pronouns.

• Use of alliteration to create emphasis upon a particular aspect of the speech e.g. use of a particular sound in the first syllables similar to rhyme may be used to create emphasis (see Atkinson, 1984, p. 81); (alliteration and repetition may be used together but can exist separately).

• List of threes e.g. repetition of the same word three times or three contrasting words. “One of the main attractions of three-part lists is that they have an air of unity or completeness about them. Lists comprising only two items tend to appear inadequate or incomplete” (ibid, p. 57).

• Use of rhetorical questions to pose a puzzle and engage the audience (ibid, p. 75).

• The use of opposites/contrastive pairs may be used to resolve the rhetorical questions. Moreover,

“praiseworthy evaluations of ‘our side’ involve speakers in comparing ‘us’ favourably with ‘them’. If ‘we’ are virtuous, resolute

and full of good intentions, then presumably ‘they’ must be wicked, weak and full of bad intentions. However, insults aimed at ‘them’ do not have to be left implicit, but can and often do comprise the main burden of a politician’s message. When made openly, criticisms and attacks directed at opponents also have a similar capacity for attracting a favourable response, and as such constitute another important type of applaudable message” (Atkinson, 1984, p. 39).

• Use of intonational shifts (changes in pitch and tone). “In packaging applaudable messages, orators are thus able to use intonational shifts to communicate to the audience whether they are proposing to carry on or come to a close” (ibid, p. 63). Physical gestures can also aid intonational shifts (see Atkinson, 1984, p. 64).

• van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) refer to the situational model which is “an integrated structure of episodic information, collecting previous episodic information about some situation as well as instantiated general information from semantic memory” (p. 344). Thus, what the political speaker sees or thinks about is a construction e.g. the situational model; “it is the representation of that fragment of the world that the text is speaking about” (p.

338). The authors go on to state that a communicative context model

“representing speech acts and their underlying intentions, as well as other information about speaker, hearer, and the context” (p. 338) forms the link between the situational model and the text representation. For our purposes, reference to the situation contextualises political discourse, and reference to situation/context can be deployed to affect political status, authority and outcomes.

• van Dijk in Discourse and Context (2008) states that contextualisation is not a pure mental phenomenon and that a “crucial component of a theory of situation-discourse relations should be a cognitive theory about how members represent communicative situations as context models” (van Dijk, 2008, p.

120). To illustrate the interaction between social situation and discourse, van

Dijk cites the example of Tony Blair’s Iraq speeches in the House of Commons and states that Blair’s utterances were informed by the context model which he more or less consciously represented and ongoingly monitored e.g. setting: time, date, place: House of Commons; position in the House: Despatch box; his personal identity as Tony Blair; his personal attributes as being democratic and tolerant; his communicative identity as the main speaker and as recipient; his political identity as prime minister, head of government, leader of the Labour party; his national identity as British; the current political action(s) e.g. defending policies, seeking legitimacy for sending troops to Iraq; the relevant social and political opinions (see van Dijk, 2008, p. 122 for a full description of Tony Blair’s context model). In terms of analysing a discursive performance, van Dijk’s elaboration of the context model is helpful to us methodologically as he refers to the interaction between the speaker, the situation and the discourse and the deployment of context and the self to affect political outcomes. Our analysis therefore makes reference to van Dijk’s situational model as relating to political persona.

Similarly, Chilton (2004) refers to the cognitive approach to political discourse in that discourse is defined by a ‘frame’ within which the speaker’s cognitive experiences are expressed.

The points made above illustrate a range of physical and discursive, rhetorical and communicative techniques that suit analytical purpose; discursive performances may or may not include the above, depending upon the interaction between the discourse and situation, performance and reception. The analyses of discursive performance therefore make reference to communicative techniques as part of discursive performance in order to demonstrate the relationship between performance and persona.

The third strand in analysing a discursive performance is analysis of the relationship between political actors and the audience – audiences vary according to situation and context and exist as, for example, an immediate studio audience, viewing public, opponents, media, and colleagues. The analysis of the relationship between speaker and audience identifies:

• References to the audience, e.g. ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’. “Directing praise to ‘us’

and “assertions which convey positive or boastful evaluations of our hopes, our activities or our achievements stand a very good chance of being endorsed by audiences with a burst of applause” (Atkinson, 1984, p. 37).

• Invented dialogue e.g. use of rhetorical questions.

• Proximity to the audience – whether in a studio hall or televised invented proximity created through gestures and body language (see Gaffney, 1991).

• Proximity to and size of the audience are conditions which affect imagined relationships between leaders and audiences (see Gaffney, 1991, 2001).

• Scanning the audience encourages imagined dialogue between speaker and audience “it also has the considerable advantage of revealing signs of boredom, puzzlement or disbelief, to which speakers can instantly respond with a suitable joke, explanation or elaboration” (Atkinson, 1984, p. 12).

As the analysis of discursive performance focuses on performance and language, each of the three strands makes reference to Bolinger (1980) who notes the relationship between performance and language/the physical and the discursive:

“eye contact, head movements, gestures with arms and hands, posture, facial expression, distance from another speaker, noises such as clearing the throat, loudness and softness, high pitch and low pitch, the real or pretended quaver that

accompanies emotion – all communicate singly, together, and in concert with language” (1980, p. 11).

The method for analysing performance in events/crisis moments is set out in the following section.