What you are about to read are the confessions of a first time Birmingham Literature Festival attendee, and what other way is there to start this festival than to see David Crystal demonstrate to us mere mortals what eloquence and public speaking is all about. The 60 minute long lecture was executed successfully with the right amount of comedic value, and an insight on elocution itself.

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

As a literature festival virgin, my expectations as to how the event will turn out were somewhat limited, which is why I depended on the conventional features of a Lit-Fest such as, readings and presentations provided by the author whilst giving the talk, seeing the author’s book being promoted throughout the course of the Literature Festival and of course a discussion or Q&A opportunity after the event itself. The general expectation I had came from Wenche Ommundsen who claimed, “The event is social as well as literary; it creates a community of sorts, a sense of belonging, of participation.”

 

The event itself was hosted in a studio theatre within the Library of Birmingham, and it was executed remarkably to an audience that screamed “variety” from students to middle-aged spectators; it was like a fun bag of Pick ‘N’ Mix. The diversity of the audience differed from Ommundsen’s observation regarding, “festival audiences are predominantly middle-class, middlebrow, middle-aged and female”, so essentially David Crystal’s event defied this ‘cardigan club’ observation. From completing a mini bag-check to entering the studio, it was interesting to see the majority of the viewers using a tablet/iPad to make notes on the talk itself, and I say interesting because technology exasperates me so kudos to them. Despite the fact that there was somewhat of a short delay the slow classical music in the background made up for it, and it was fairly clear that this appealed to the older demographic range.

 

The framing of the event was nowhere near as serious as I would have expected it to be, and I am a bit relieved that it wasn’t because, David Crystal had managed to incorporate the literary aspect with the comical side of what eloquence is all about. From the topics on attention, eloquence, involvement, the “OH” factor and understanding speech we have the ingredients to a brilliant talk.

 

The first words Crystal said was “Pay attention” because he was about to enlighten us with how attention works. It sounds self explanatory, but there are one or two things that may surprise you. What began with a funny yet phatic conversation about the traffic in Birmingham ended with how attention does this remarkable thing where it fades, and the first minute of speaking turns out to be useless because attention peaks after a minute according to Crystal. However, he does go on to say that attention flags every five minutes, and it is never steady, so somewhat similar to my bank account there are many peaks and troughs. From hilarious examples regarding a football match, a wedding speech and a vicar committing adultery we learn that eloquence is not just about fluency, but it is an effective use of language especially when it comes to how important the nature of eloquence is on the topic of attention.

 

Eloquence as a topic was far more engaging especially with the opportunities of audience participation being included, which conformed to Ommundsen’s claim, “Festivals create literature as two-way interaction - at least, through physical proximity with the author, afford audiences the illusion of participation.” Crystal began with measuring the number of syllables spoken in a minute, and this is where things got interesting because the audience were being involved as we measured the speed of speech, which turned out to be roughly 250 syllables (fun fact of the day). Eventually, Crystal demonstrated the difference syllables make when it comes to speed in speech from 150 syllables to highlight how speech therapy may work, to 350 syllables which gave us a glimpse of how the Gilmore Girls may perfect their speedy dialogue.

 

After exploring attention, eloquence and [audience] involvement Crystal had introduced the “Oh My!” factor. For eloquence to be effective, artistic and heightened it required an “Oh My!” factor, which was found in Barack Obama’s 2008 victory speech, which I had the pleasure of listening to again since Crystal had played it on the interactive screen, and then began explaining the rule of three:

 

1. Draws attention of audience

2. Focuses attention of audience

3. Climax of audience

 

The rule of 3 has been in use for a fairly long time from writing techniques to oratory techniques, so when you are listening to a good speech that is seasoned with lists consisting of three items then you know that the moment that speech ends, you would have remembered those three things that were mentioned, because essentially that is why the rule of three exists – to allow people to remember parts of the speech that were more significant than the rest. Obama’s victory speech adheres to the rule of three successfully on more than one occasion for example, “It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause” and his famous “Yes we can” at the end of his sentences when concluding his speech on a history of struggle.

 

The last topic left unexplored was “understanding speech”, and once again Barack Obama’s electrifying “yes we can” 2008 victory speech was used as an example to highlight how Obama’s speech consisted of particular chunks of five for an added effect as he spoke such as, “The road ahead will be long” and “Our climb will be steep”. According to Crystal, this is a classic oratory technique based on eloquence as it keeps the sentence short, and to the point for the brain to process, however it is not the only technique as the use of grammar, rhythm, intonation on top of the numerous chunks of language in a comfortable unit give the speech its eloquence factor. This topic might have been my favourite since interestingly enough I managed to gain somewhat of a small insight on psycho-neurolinguistics from a talk about eloquence of all things (I can now add part-time neurologist to my Tinder profile).

 

Crystal concluded with a quick summary on what the 60-minute event was about in 5 letters:

 

Attention

Eloquence

Involved

Oh My!

Understanding

 

The acronym was Crystal’s way of allowing the audience to remember what the talk regarding eloquence involved, so whenever I get asked how the David Crystal event went, I automatically reply with the vowels of the alphabet. The audience’s questions at the end were not exactly something I would have expected, for example a middle-aged woman asked Crystal to compare the differences between Obama and Trumps oratory skills to which Crystal replied with something along the lines of Trump breaking the artistry of eloquence, whilst essentially making a career out of ineloquence.

 

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Who is David Crystal?

David Crystal is a renowned linguist who probably moonlights as a comedian, because his 60-minute talk definitely highlighted his comical side whilst he expressed how eloquence works. Aside from being a linguist he is also a writer, editor, broadcaster and an honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, but you can find out a bit more about him here. Crystal had delved into the topic of spoken eloquence to highlight his new book Gift of the Gab, which explores how eloquence has evolved, the way it works and how we mere mortals can harness its incredible power. From chapters consisting of pace, pitch, prosody and humour Crystal pretty much admits that he has had a love affair with eloquence itself. Also, the relevance on the topic at the time of the event was interesting, because Crystal had taken the opportunity to use Obama’s moving victory speech of 2008 when demonstrating exemplar oratory skills, and I say that this was interesting because the presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was going on at time, so Crystal definitely illustrated a contrast on what good oratory skills are with references to Obama’s speech, and what the epitome of ineloquence is when comparing those to Trumps.

 

Festivals, Facts and Funding

Before attending David Crystal’s event “Gift of the Gab”, I had never been to a literature festival before, so you could say I was a bit of a Lit-Fest virgin, but it took me by surprise to learn that these festivals have actually been around for over 50 years now. What started in the 1960s as “Adelaide Writers’ Week” has now become a part of our cultural landscape with the explosion of festivals we currently experience.

 

Despite the fact that they are generally a “public manifestation of an art form”, they tend to be invisible a majority of the time, which is why Ommundsen claims in his article ‘Literary Festivals & Cultural Consumption’ that it is the reason why festivals are praised by the media, and other funding bodies since the promotion that takes place prior to the events serves as a marketing function, as they provide “proof of the public and cultural value of literature, thus justifying the expenditure of taxpayers money for its support”. At this point you’re probably thinking that these festivals are raking in the money, and you’re right because they probably are, but there is always a plot twist and in this case it is the elephant in the room that nobody had addressed until recently, which is author fees. Not only are authors lacking a decent income from these events, but they are also not being paid at all on certain occasions. Phillip Pullman brought light to this issue in less than 140 characters when he tweeted his resignation as patron of the Oxford Literary Festival earlier this year due to, the Oxford Literary Festival’s attitude to paying speakers (which they don’t).

 

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What started off as a resignation began a domino effect of writers coming out with similar issues regarding funding that had plagued them for years, for example Nick Cohen did not hold back when he wrote an article right after Pullman’s tweet titled, “Why English writers accept being treated like dirt”. Cohen explains in his article that he has somewhat of an idea as to why it has taken so long to address the elephant in the room with the ideology that “Writers are very isolated. There’s no such thing as a writer’s union”, and he is right because there is no such thing as a union to protect writers from certain festivals that thrive off capitalism, but up until now thanks to Pullman’s, well, pull, there are now hundreds of UK authors who support the cause (I guess that’s 1-nil for us little people).

 

This issue has been debatable for months and months on end now as critics agree with Ommundsen with the fact that literary festivals serve the purpose of being “social as well as literary” since “it creates a community of sorts, a sense of belonging, of participation”, hence the reason why particular critics urge authors to remember that they are all working towards the same goal, which is to encourage more readers as well as writers to unite.

 

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Not only did this event open my eyes on eloquence itself, but it also gave me an insight on the issue of funding that has not been widely spoken about in the past. I cannot stress how attending one David Crystal event on The Gift of the Gab probably made me a bit more of an eloquent speaker (or at least tried to) in addition to, allowing myself to be more aware of the issues authors and fellow writers out there face in the brutal festival business. Personally, I think having a writers union would be a fantastic opportunity, because we writers do need to unite and fend off capitalism once and for all, which I think we are very capable of doing with a touch of eloquence.