Page 78 - The Economist20171214

78 Books and arts The Economist December 16th 2017
2 ing eyewitness-identification procedures, book’stitle, MsEisen barelymanages to get Private prisons took off because govern-
expanding access to post-conviction DNA inside a private prison. ments could not build prisons quickly
testing and, perhaps most important, Some liberals cast private prisons as a enough to hold all the people they sen-
opening conviction-review boards inside driver of mass incarceration. Their busi- tenced. Nowprivate-prison firmsare diver-
prosecutors’ offices, to investigate post- ness model is built around it and, as Ms sifying with the times by building treat-
conviction claims ofinnocence. Eisen notes, they have lobbied for policies ment centres and electronic-monitoring
If Mr Godsey focuses on how people that have helped them. Some feel that services as America’s justice system ex-
are unjustly jailed, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, a profiting from other people’s incarceration ploresalternativesto imprisonment. Some
former lawyer now at New York Universi- is inherently immoral, or that it violates may find it depressing that these firms are
ty, has written a deeply researched, scru- constitutional protections against involun- simply looking for another way to profit
pulously fair book about private prisons, tary servitude and cruel and unusual from society’s unfortunates. But it also
which house 126,000 people in America, punishment. shows that these companies respond to
or 7% of state inmates and almost 18% of But Ms Eisen convincingly argues that political demand, and that the best way to
federal prisoners. They are opaque in a theyare a symptom, ratherthan a cause, of do away with private prisons is to lock up
way that state prisons are not; despite the America’s over-punitive, carceral state. fewerpeople. 7

Johnson The conversation machine

“Um”, “uh”, “mm-hmm” and interruption are notkillers ofconversation, butits lubricants
ARGARET THATCHER was known that a turn is not quite finished, that the
Mfora voice thatbrooked no disagree- speakeris planningsomethingmore. This
ment. While still in opposition, she had makes sense only in the light of the split-
taken elocution lessons to sound more second timing with which speakers take
forceful. Despite this, she was often inter- turns. Men use these pause-fillers more
rupted in interviews as prime minister, than women, being perhaps more eager
and in 1982, three researchers set out to to hold the floor. (For unknown reasons
understand why. They played clips from they prefer “uh”, and women, “um”.)
one of her interviews to a variety of peo- Those who tend notto use “um” and “uh”
ple. The clipsincluded segmentsthat end- often just replace it with something else,
ed in interruption (while editing out the like “so”, much derided as meaningless at
interruptions themselves). More often the beginningofa statement.
than not, those hearing the interrupted Like “um” and “uh”, humble “mm-
phrases thought that the prime minister hmm” and “uh-huh” are critical too. Lis-
was ending her conversational turn. It tenersuse them to showtheyhave under-
seems her interviewer had come to a stood the speakerand are sympathetic. To
similarconclusion. show their importance, researchers con-
Why? Conversation, it turns out, is a cocted a devilish experiment in which
finely tuned machine, as Nick Enfield, a speakers were asked to tell about a near-
linguist at the University of Sydney, sug- death experience, while listeners were
gests in “How We Talk”. Humans mostly given a distractingtasklike pressing a but-
follow a rule called “no gap, no overlap”, ton every time the speaker used a word
reacting to the end of a conversational many dynamics of the “conversational starting with “T”. As a result, the listener
turn by beginning their own in about 200 machine” are similar from culture to cul- was less able to encourage the speaker
milliseconds—about the time it takes a ture, something that Mr Enfield demon- with “mm-hmm”. This drove the speak-
sprinter to respond to the starting gun. stratesbylookingatboth bigand small lan- ers themselves to distraction. They
This is all the more remarkable given that guages in rich and poorcountries alike. For paused more, used more “um” and “uh”
it takes about 600 milliseconds for some- example, take “no gap, no overlap”. The themselves, and repeated the dramatic
one to workoutwhattheyare going to say cross-cultural differences in this timing are lines of their stories, desperate for affir-
by mentally retrieving the words and or- small, and not always what stereotypes mation that they had been understood.
ganisinghow they are to be expressed. would suggest. Though the Japanese are of- Cicero wrote a set ofrules ofconversa-
People, therefore, must plan to begin ten said to be polite, they have one of the tion, which included taking turns and not
speaking before their conversation shortest gaps before starting conversation- going on too long. He thought he was the
partner has stopped. That requires a fine al replies. In answering “yes” or “no” to a firstto do so, buthisruleshave been redis-
attention to the cues signalling the end of question, the Japanese, on average, even covered in culture after culture. They may
a turn, such as a lengthening of syllables reply before the questioner’s turn is over. be partofhuman beings’ shared social in-
and a drop in pitch. As it happens, using a This is not because the Japanese are stincts, a product of evolution. So, next
downward shift ofpitch is also a frequent rude. Quite the opposite. Answering time you find yourself in conversation
piece of advice given to those who want quickly moves the conversation along. In with a bulldozer or a bore, you might feel
to sound more authoritative—like Thatch- general, two people speaking try to help sorry for them, rather than for yourself.
er. The researchers studying the times she each other. And to a remarkable degree, They are lacking a basic human skill.
was interrupted found precisely that a they succeed. Take some of the words that From a certain pointofview, whatis fasci-
sharp drop in herpitch accuratelypredict- are generally considered conversational nating about conversation is not how
ed an interruption. detritus: “uh”, “um” and “mm-hmm”. hard it is, but how well people subcon-
Contrary to popular assumptions, “Uh” and “um” signal to the other speaker sciously co-operate to make it seem easy.