Peter Bull, PhD, FBPsS (Fellow of the British Psychological Society), is Honorary Professor in Psychology at the Universities of York and Salford, UK, and Visiting Professor in Political Communication at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His principal interest is the detailed microanalysis of interpersonal communication: in particular, political discourse and nonverbal communication.

Maurice Waddle, PhD, lectures in psychology at the University of York, UK. His research focuses on the interpersonal communication of politicians, including their interactions with audiences, interviewers, and parliamentary opponents. He is particularly interested in the phenomenon of personalisation (i.e., playing the man, not the ball) in politics.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Part I. Concepts and Methods

Chapter 1. Microanalysis
Influences on microanalysis

Central features of microanalysis

Chapter 2. Theoretical Approaches

The social skills model

Face and facework

Overall conclusions

Chapter 3. Techniques of Analysis

Transcription

Speaker-audience interaction

Question-response sequences

Conclusions

Part II. Empirical studies of political discourse

Chapter 4. Claps and Claptraps: How Political Speakers and Audiences Interact

Claptraps: Techniques for inviting applause

Factors that affect speaker-audience interaction

A model of speaker-audience interaction in political speeches

Conclusions

Chapter 5. Being Slippery? Equivocation in Political Interviews

How much do politicians equivocate?

In what ways do politicians equivocate?

Equivocation profiles of leading politicians

Why do politicians equivocate?

Face and facework in political interviews

Equivocation and deception

Equivocation and the use of implicit discourse

Equivocation and culture

Conclusions

Chapter 6. The Westminster Punch and Judy Show? Leaders' Exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions

A background to PMQs

Overview of PMQs adversarialism

Distinctive features of PMQs discourse

The punch of PMQs?

Conclusions

Chapter 7. Political Journalism

Adversarialism

Discussion and conclusions

Part III

Chapter 8. Summary and Conclusions

References

Index