ABSTRACT
The study reported in this chapter was concerned with the way in which politicians make use of hand gestures in public speeches (Bull, 1986). It was based on a video-recording of a political rally in St George’s Hall, Bradford, West Yorkshire, during the 1983 General Election campaign. One main influence on this study was the extensive research literature on body movement and speech. The second main influence was Atkinson’s theory of rhetoric (e.g. Atkinson, 1983, 1984a, 1984b). Each of these approaches is discussed below.
