[0:00]Hi everyone, welcome to Miss Adams Teaches English Language and Literature A-level. In this video, we're going to be taking a look at The King's Speech by David Seidler. This is taken from the Ed Excel Voices in Speech and Writing anthology, this one here. I'll take you through some of the key contextual factors and we'll have a bit of a discussion about genre, audience and purpose. before looking at the ways that we can describe both Bertie and Lionel's voice. This will of course be backed up with some analysis of the literary and linguistic concepts. So let's get started. Okay, let's start with a little bit on content and context. So this is a moment from The King's Speech, this extract, uh, which shows Lionel and Bertie, uh, meeting for the first time when they're starting to discuss how Lionel might treat him for his, um, stammer. So, the film itself, um, was in 2010 and it did incredibly well. Very much award-winning film, won Oscars, the lovely Colin Firth, uh, won best actor for it. Um, and obviously, it's, it's one of the reasons that it was so, uh, successful and powerful was because of the storyline, because of the link to history, because it is telling the story of, Prince Albert, who then became King George VI, uh, who was around 1895 to 1952. King George was obviously Elizabeth II, our most recent queen's father. Um, and, um, the film is set in a period of time in the 1930s, although that's not, uh, it's not absolutely accurate because Lionel in real life came onto the scene in the 1920s and was actually helping, uh, well, helping him whilst he was Prince Albert as opposed to, uh, King George. Now, the reason, one of the reasons that he needed help and this is what is presented in the film was because of the, uh, quite shocking development that, um, Edward VII, um, King George's brother, uh, did not want to be king and so, uh, he abdicated the throne so that he could, uh, marry an American woman, divorced American woman, uh, Wallace Simpson. Um, and that is the reason that King George became King George, and so the pressure and the stress of that, um, led to him looking for Lionel's help. Oh, sorry, that's the film storyline, like I said, the suggestion was that Lionel was on the scene before then. But because obviously as king, he was going to have to make public speeches and so he had this quite powerful, um, debilitating, uh, stammer. Um, and, um, just a nice interesting little contextual fact, a lot of the film, um, or some of the details of the form actually came from, um, Logue's journals. So, you know, I'm not saying it's all historically accurate, it isn't, but a lot of it is based on, um, what Lionel Logue recorded in his journals from the time. So the genre is quite interesting because what you're actually studying is the written script. It's not a transcript of the film, no, it's the written script. It is there for performance, for filming, for production. It's what the actors were given, that's who the initial audience is, the initial audience is the actors. But obviously it's got a subsequent audience, um, which is very, very wide because you're not dealing with a small budget film here. You're dealing with an Oscar-winning film, so you're going to have people that obviously are interested in, um, the royal family and the history of the royal family. You're going to get people that just see Colin Firth and go, yes, please. If any of you are taught by me in real life, you'll know that my picture, my room, my classroom is full of pictures of Colin Firth. Um, and you'll also get the people that actually are just interested in the films that are dubbed, uh, you know, the, the, the ones to watch particularly for the award ceremonies, et cetera. So that, the audience is huge and continuous. Um, for example, this, you know, was 2010, but in recent years, with The Crown coming out, a lot of people will have watched The Crown and then gone, I'm going to go and have a little look at, um, The King's Speech. So, what's the purpose? It's to entertain, to inform, yes, because it's based on a kind of real historical, you know, period of, of, of history, but ultimately it's to get bombs on seats, isn't it? Okay, so voice and key quotes, obviously, or key areas, pretty much doing the whole thing. Um, you've got two voices to contend with, and they are conflicting. Now, you're not going to get wild amounts of variation, you're going to be talking about the same sorts of things, you're going to be talking about the formality versus the informality, the sense of challenge, uh, being present in the voice and all of the face threatening acts and the ways that they are countered or mirrored. So don't worry if you think to yourself, all the voice stuff I'm saying is the same, that's fine, just demonstrate how it develops, you know, and how you know, use lots of different examples. Okay. Um, right, so obviously, let's start at the beginning, uh, with this great little moment, straight in, elliptical phrasing. Know any jokes? Elliptical phrasing is when you don't use all of the words for the sentence, so rather than, do you know any jokes? No, any jokes. So it is deliberately informal in the way that it is uttered. The content is deliberately informal as well to say to, um, royalty in this moment, do you, like, do you know any jokes? It's, it's, it's jarring, and that is deliberate. We see, um, obviously turn-taking and adjacency pairs here, because it's a one-on-one conversation. Note the way that Bertie, um, responds with a declarative, timing isn't my strong suit. Um, and the content is linked to the notion of jokes. So you could argue that he's making a little joke there himself, um, because obviously we know the joke's all about timing. Um, but you can also argue that he is actually quite firmly shutting down that question. So the power battle commences in this moment. And you can see that this moment has created tension through the stage directions. Now, I know that you'll probably say, um, stage directions, that's not got anything to do with voice, but it indicates how the characters are reacting to the voices of one another. So it's still relevant, and you can see here that this is the beginning of our face-threatening acts, uh, which I will often refer to as FTA, um, in these notes. So silence, they stare at each other. Now, what is interesting is that Lionel does not change tack. Okay, so in fact, what you might argue is that he becomes deliberately more informal because as well as it being elliptical phrasing, just like here, he also includes elision with Cuppa tea? Yeah, copper instead of cup of, that's what, that's what we call elision, okay? It's very informal, it is friendly, but that itself sort of subverts etiquette, certainly, um, of dealing with royalty. Now, Bertie is polite in his response, but again, it is a shutdown, no, thank you. And that politeness is deliberate. It is actually a response to the face threatening act. It's a reminder, or it's almost like, um, an instruction of how Lionel should be speaking. Uh, but the challenge continues. I think I'll have one. Okay, so note we've got this sort of, certainty in the modal verb, I will have one. Slightly hedged with I think, but I even think that that I think is saying I am the master of myself. I do what I want. I'm weighing this up and I'm deciding, yeah, I think I'll have one, even though you won't. So, what we have here, I've popped in the little box and this is what I'd like you to question is about notions of upward and downward divergence, um, because there is no effort on either one of their parts to converge with one another. And you could argue that actually there is some deliberate downward divergence, and in the very polite response, that it's like Bertie is saying, I'm not going to converge with this, I'm going to stay here. Okay, so the voice changes slightly now. So we've moved us out of that formal informal polite and like, well, polite on his part. And now we start to see a little bit of impatience, certainly a little bit of conflict. Topic shift, straight off, aren't you going to start treating me, Dr. Logue? So we've got this formal address here, and there is an implied criticism, yeah? Aren't you going to start treating me, I you're wasting my time?
[9:47:02]Um, but Lionel here deflects with another face threatening act, and it comes through the conjunction and also this conditional, the subordinating connective, only if you're interested in being treated.
[10:02:17]So, that's an interesting way of almost saying, no, to royalty, uh, to the, you know, king, uh, potential about to be king, only if you're interested in me being treated.
[10:17:25]And then we get an imperative, call me Lionel, which is actually, um, a almost a direct criticism again.
[10:25:33]We've got this juxtaposition from Dr. Logue, formal tone, uh, formal term of address, to Lionel, first name basis.
[10:33:39]It is softened slightly with, uh, politeness in that moment there.
[10:39:50]Um, and then simple declarative from Bertie, I prefer doctor, which is echoed beautifully with syntactical parallelism, I prefer Lionel.
[10:50:04]Again, formal, informal, and that informality is then developed further with straight away, we've got ellipsis, or here a contraction, it's probably better to say, what will I call you?
[11:04:13]Um, and then the formality, I mean this actually becomes humorous, uh, with the because of the juxtaposition because of the contrast.
[11:13:17]Uh, we have your royal highness, then sir after that.
[11:17:27]Um, Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, um, and then we've got the juxtaposition, well, how about Bertie, which continues to be a face threatening act.
[11:27:32]Now, I know in the, in the kind of normal day world, you'd be like, why is that a face threatening act?
[11:32:37]But it's because he is talking to Prince Albert.
[11:37:44]Um, it is because he is talking to the future king in this moment that that is a face threatening act.
[11:46:53]Um, and everything that he's saying, you know, again, we've got more elliptical phrasing, a bit formal for here.
[11:53:08]So, um, this little moment, this little adverbial phrase for here, is beginning to set some boundaries about where they are and the sort of expectation and, and setting up that this is a separate kind of space.
[12:10:19]And as I said before, it's not that the voice changes, it's about the way that it develops.
[12:19:28]You know, so we've got these kind of ideas about informality, being impolite, being challenging, but it's, it's just as they develop.
[12:28:38]Now, again, just like before with the staring at each other, the stage directions of flushing, demonstrate how hard that FTA has hit because he's gone red in the face.
[12:38:41]Um, only my family uses that.
[12:41:45]Now, we've got this reference, a very personal reference here, my family.
[12:45:55]She's a reminder that he is also more than royalty, he is a man with a family, and those family members are only the people that use that name.
[12:55:06]You've got that distinction between public and private sphere here, and that's what Lionel is threatening, that distinction that is probably incredibly important.
[13:07:14]Now, just as I said before, we've got the same adverbial being repeated, in here, it's better if we're equals.
[13:14:25]And what that adverbial does, sorry, excuse me, what that adverbial does is that it justifies the lack of deference.
[13:25:31]He's saying this space has to be different, it's better if we're equals.
[13:32:40]And just as we had before with the mirroring, we've got the repetition of this subordinate clause, but it's fronted here.
[13:40:45]It's better if we're equals, if we were equal, I wouldn't be here.
[13:45:58]Note that the contraction, we're, so quite typical of Lionel's voice is expanded into its proper form, if we were equal, I wouldn't be here.
[13:58:00]So again, he's countering that challenge.
[14:00:06]But for the first time, we start to see informality in Bertie's voice where we see some profanity.
[14:06:11]He says, I'd be at home with my wife and no one would give a damn.
[14:11:21]And there we see the impact of this kind of pushing that Lionel is doing to kind of break down some of this etiquette, to break down some of these boundaries.
[14:22:26]Um, and I think it's interesting, I've underlined this bit to link it back up to family.
[14:26:35]We've got another reference to to the personal, you know, the private sphere, and we've got to remember contextually that he has been catapulted out of this.
[14:35:45]I know he was always part of the royal family, but it's different, you know, when you think that you're never going to become king, to suddenly it being thrust upon you.
[14:46:50]We've got a little indefinite pronoun here, no one would give a damn.
[14:50:57]Again, reminding us what would be the case if he just was able to live his private life and not be king.
[15:00:09]Okay, and this is just the last, um, section where, you know, I suppose it comes to a climax really, uh, with this sort of power balance, this power dynamic building between them.
[15:10:13]Um, so this is a stage direction here.
[15:13:20]Bertie starts to light a cigarette from a silver case, and it's this negative imperative, straight off, don't do that, okay?
[15:20:28]And it's the astonished look, again, note stage directions reinforce the impact of this face threatening act.
[15:28:40]Okay, so you can still look at it because it demonstrates what that imperative, what that stern, direct, blunt, um, command has done, backed up with a rhetorical question, I'm sorry.
[15:41:47]Now, this declarative sentence that Lionel responds with, sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you.
[15:48:52]Note the absolute absence of hedging.
[15:53:04]It is as direct as they come, and there's something almost clinical, like he's spelling it out for him, sucking smoke into your lungs will, modal verb of certainty, will kill you.
[16:04:08]So again, we've got this assertion of his power.
[16:10:12]The power dynamic, uh, the battle continues here.
[16:13:18]If you look at this noun phrase that Bertie uses, my physicians say it relaxes the throat.
[16:18:29]So, the reference to my physicians, the reason I've picked out this noun phrase, is a reminder that he has teams of doctors that support him.
[16:29:45]So again, he's, he's sort of reminding Lionel of his sense of his own authority on subjects like this, and of course it is counted straight away with another very blunt, very direct, declarative statement, they're idiots.
[16:45:52]Obviously quite colloquial and insulting. They're idiots, they've all been knighted.
[16:52:57]So we've got this very pleasing juxtaposition that again creates quite a little bit of humor here.
[16:57:05]Um, it's a sort of, whereas the previous statements were, um, mirrors of each other, here we've almost got a little bit of inversion.
[17:05:16]Makes it official then, okay? So final little bit of elliptical phrasing, um, but this, so very quotable, this little, this little metaphor, my castle, my rules.
[17:16:29]Um, so what he's doing here with this metaphor and his possessive pronoun, is he's saying in here, again, that adverb, in his castle, he is the one in power.
[17:29:34]Castle and rules both carry that connotation of absolute power.
[17:35:43]Now, you might be asking yourself, well, why is he doing this? Why is he being disrespectful in this way to the future king?
[17:44:52]And it all stems from the fact that he needs to be able to break down those boundaries in order to help him get over his speech impediment.
[17:53:05]Um, the, the again, the film presents this relationship as turning into an absolutely wonderful friendship, and that apparently is, uh, true to history, that they did have an incredibly special relationship.
[18:05:14]But what it doesn't suggest is that, uh, the real Lionel Logue was this disrespectful and this rude.
[18:14:21]Um, again, note I said that they used their journals, this has been developed by David Sidler, um, for the purpose of entertaining.
[18:23:25]That's it from me. Um, I hope that was helpful.
[18:25:28]I really enjoy this particular extract, so I hope you did too.
[18:28:33]Um, give me a shout if you've got any questions, just pop them in the comments and I will get back to you.
[18:33:36]Other than that, that's it for me. Thanks again. Happy revising.
