The verbal construction of non-verbal behaviour: British press reports of president Clinton's grand jury testimony video

Abstract

On Monday 21 September 1998, the videotapes of president Clinton's 17 August testimony to the grand jury in the Clinton-Lewlnsky affair were released to the public. In this article we analyse reports of the event in eight British national newspapers with a special interest in how Clinton's non-verbal behaviour (NVB) in the grand jury testimony is presented, evaluated and used to evaluate his overall 'performance' and political persona. Overall, we find somewhat predictable differences with the broadsheet and left-leaning newspapers being more positive in their evaluation of Clinton's NVB than the tabloids and right-leaning newspapers. However, we also observe instances of the genre and ideological cross-over when this pattern is not always clearly upheld. We also discuss the susceptibility of NVB to metapragmatic commentary and manipulation.