In the book Moral Politics, Lakoff (1996) proposes that in reasoning about political issues, many conservatives use a Strict Father (SF) family as their reference point.He claims that the prototypical representative of right-wing views draw on a set of conceptual metaphors in which morality is strength has the highest priority.Examples of other important metaphors in the SF model include being good is being upright, morality is wholeness, and morality is purity.Lakoff claims that many liberals (left-wing), on the other hand, refer to the logic of a Nurturant Parent (NP) family model.Here the metaphor morality is empathy is most important.Other key metaphors in this model include moral action is nurturance, moral action is the nurturance of social ties, and morality is fair distribution.

An analysis of the televised debates between George W. Bush and Al Gore which took place before the US presidential elections in 2000 (Cienki, 2001) showed that Bush and Gore did not use much metaphorical language which reflected the SF and NP conceptual metaphors proposed in Lakoff (1996).However, the study also counted Bush’s and Gore’s use of statements which did not reflect the conceptual metaphors directly with metaphorical expressions, but which reflected the same logic as one model or the other.The entailments were either non-metaphorical statements, or they could be metaphorical expressions, but not ones which directly reflecting SF or NP mappings.It was found that a large amount of SF and NP entailment expressions were used by both candidates, with Bush producing many more entailment expressions than Gore overall, and also using a much more balanced assortment of SF and NP entailments than Gore.One conclusion of the study was that the metaphors in the SF and NP models are schematic, and are also not directly productive in language.(See Clausner and Croft, 1997, on this distinction.)But these findings raise questions about what the proposed metaphorical models represent.Do they really consist of conceptual metaphors that speakers activate in real time when speaking?

Research on gesture has proven useful in studying reasoning processes that are not necessarily revealed verbally (see, for example, Goldin-Meadow et al., 1993).Other research has pointed out how gesture can reveal some aspects of how an individual is thinking and reasoning while speaking (e.g., McNeill & Duncan, 2000).In addition, there has been research showing gesture as another form of behavior which reflects conceptual metaphors (e.g., McNeill, 1992; Cienki, 1998; Müller, 1998).Therefore, the main question for the current study is:Were there any differences in Bush’s and Gore’s gestures accompanying SF versus NP language which would support the hypothesis that they were reasoning differently when using SF versus NP language?Even if they were coached on gesturing techniques for the debates, the question still remains:why would their advisors choose the gesture forms they did for them, and why did Bush and Gore produce them when they did?

The videotape of the second debate was used as data for this study because out of the three debates, it was the only one in which the candidates’ hands were shown consistently, since they were seated at a table.The word counts per speaker for the second debate (7610 for Bush and 6359 for Gore) were judged by a t-test not differ significantly (t [4] = 1.24, p = .284).On the videotape of the second debate, gesture strokes which accompanied SF and NP language (as marked in the Cienki, 2001 study) were coded first for function using an adaptation of Müller’s (1998) system.The coding categories were therefore:concrete reference (iconically depicting a physical object, action, etc.), abstract reference (iconically depicting the source domain of a metaphor, and so these will also be called metaphoric gestures), discourse structuring (especially making emphasis or presenting an idea), and performative (accomplishing a speech act, such as blessing someone or clapping in appreciation).Twenty percent of the video was coded by a second analyst, and although we had a high level of agreement, we did not achieve statistical reliability.The main differences fell into two categories, which will be mentioned below.

Although many SF and NP verbal expressions had no accompanying gestures, most of the ones that did fell into the categories of metaphoric or discourse structuring gestures.A quantitative analysis of the gestures shows that the ratios of Bush’s to Gore’s use of SF and NP language combined (Table 1) essentially corresponds to the ratios of their use of gestures with SF and NP language (Table 2).

Table 1:Language in Debate 2 (metaphors and entailments)

Table 2:Gestures in Debate 2 co-occuring with

Though in this debate Bush used twice as many expressions reflecting the SF and NP models totalled together (Table 1), he and Gore
used almost exactly the same small quantity of metaphors directly reflecting these models (11 for Bush, 9 for Gore), each showing a bias in favor of his expected “preferred” model (Table 3).

Table 3: SF/NP Metaphorical Language in Debate 2

However, Bush used many more metaphoric gestures than Gore, and, interestingly, a high number of them with NP expressions as well as with SF expressions (Table 4).

Table 4:Metaphoric Gestures in Debate 2

If we consider the quantitative results alone, one might conclude that Bush is really middle-of-the-road politically, in that he appears to (or has been advised to appear to) draw on both SF and NP models in his reasoning.

However, the gestures were also examined qualitatively.Specifically, all the gestures coded as metaphoric were viewed to see if any patterns were evident.Here distinct differences were apparent between Bush and Gore.

Of Bush’s 43 metaphoric gestures, 32 of them (74%) were formed with both hands parallel and mirroring each other in form and motion. Thirteen of these 32 were flat-handed “barrier” gestures, with the palms facing the body and the fingertips of each hand pointing at each other or overlapping, as in (1).Curly brackets indicate the words with which the main “stroke” phase of the gesture occurred.2H = two-handed.


BUSH
(1) “The goals ought to be [...] and a {strong} military.”
                                                 2H barrier, fingers overlapping

Of the other two-handed metaphoric gestures, 14 out of the 32 consisted of the two hands mirroring each other.In the majority of these (eight of them) the hands were slightly cupped, as if holding an object, as in example (2).In six of them, the hands were flat with the palms facing, as in (3).

BUSH
(2) “[...] and then {bring} people together to achieve those goals.”
       2H sweep together, palms facing

(3) “[...] and have a {focussed} mission for our military”
      2H flat, palms facing, push up and out

From the audience’s point of view, Bush displays behavior which is repeatedly consistent, firm, and solid.The gestures suggest his conviction in the SF model, even with seemingly NP language.
Gore, by contrast, had a variety of gesture types.Considering the hands used, eight were made with the right hand, four with both hands, and one with the left hand. Of his two-handed gestures, three out of the four were made with the palms up, as in example (4).

GORE
(4) “But the fact that it [the economy] is so strong
    {enables} us to project the power {for good} that America can represent.”
     2H palms up on table, wrist rotation outward, and repeated once

Otherwise, his gestures took many different forms.Some examples are described in (5) and (6).LH indicates left hand, and RH — right hand.

GORE
(5) “[...] and {feel} the unfair force of law simply because of race or ethnicity.”
      LH palm up push out

(6) “[...] it is often because they {see} in us a reflection of their own potential”
            RH points left, then pulls back to right with bounces

This variety in gesture forms could reflect a range of different kinds of imagistic thinking, and possibly be connected to Gore’s more complex discourse structure. From the audience’s perspective, however, there is no consistency in his gestures, and thus they are less likely to convey a unified message.

There were also differences in the kinds of lexical affiliates which corresponded to the speakers’ metaphoric gestures, as shown in (7) and (8).

(7)GORE:
Many verb phrases with gestures depicting the action scene.
“see in us a reflection of their own potential”     (RH points left, pulls back, bounces)
“enables us to project the power for good”    (2H palms up, wrist rotation outward)
“pushing for stronger action”    (RH palm toward center, springs into flat hand)
“shepherds that economic strength”    (RH cupped pushes out)

(8)BUSH:
Many with nouns or adjectives (esp. “strong”).
“strong military”    (2H barrier, fingers overlapping)
“we’ve got laws”    (2H barrier hits table)
“limited government”    (forms 2H barrier)
“full accounting”    (RH barrier hits table)

The differences in their gesture style correspond to differences in their style of argumentation.Whereas Gore often made detailed statements of policy in long sentences, Bush repeated certain principles using short sentences.
There were also differences in the frequency with which they gestured.Bush gestured quite frequently, while Gore sometimes spoke for long perioeds without using any gestures.
The biggest problem in achieving reliability for coding the gestures according to type occurred with gestures which fell between the categories “metaphoric” and “discourse structuring.”These gestures were not very explicit in form, and appeared to function simply to represent an abstract idea as something concrete.They were thus weakly metaphoric, representing ontological metaphors, and they served a slight discourse function of showing emphasis.Bush made such gestures, as in (9), much more frequently than Gore.

BUSH:
(9) “[...] {look, global} warming needs to be taken very seriously, [...]”
       2H barrier, palms toward self, fingers touching

If it is considered a metaphoric gesture, the source domain is not explicitly clear, but the frequency of such gestures in Bush’s case makes it likely that their consistent, rigid, flat form is likely to register with the audience, at least on an unconscious level.
In conclusion, the gestures in this data were found to differ less according to whether they co-occurred with SF or NP language, and more according to each speaker's individual gesture repertoire and style of argumentation.The data suggest that gestures, rather than speech, better reflect the schematic nature of the metaphors in the SF / NP models.This seems to be even more true for the SF model than the NP model.Whereas Gore used more metaphoric gestures with NP verbal expressions, Bush used a large number of metaphoric gestures with both SF and NP verbal expressions.However, Bush had little variation in his gesture repertoire, and overall made similar, often tense, flat gestures regardless of the type of verbal expressions they accompanied.If gestures reflect a speaker’s actual belief in one model or the other, or what they want to project that they believe, then Bush showed more consistent adherence to the SF model than Gore did to the NP model. In the second edition of Moral Politics, Lakoff (2002, p. 396) claims that during the presidential election campaign in 2000,“Bush held on to his conservative base by (1.)Use of body language, voice, and words, all of which told proponents of Strict Father morality from the appropriate states that he was one of them.”The present study shows that there is some empirical evidence which could support such a claim.


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