Argumentation across Communities of Practice: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives 2017025560, 2017045122, 9789027211279, 9789027265173

Table of contents :
Argumentation across Communities of Practice
Editorial page
Title page
LCC data
Table of contents
Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices
Structure of the volume
References
Chapter 1. Uncontroversial arguments
From pragmatics to interaction
Dialogue and dialectic
Finocchiaro’s scale
Virtual and real objections
Uncontroversial argument
Conclusion
References
Chapter 2. Connection premises: Their character, criticism, and defence
1. Introduction
2. The character of connection propositions
3. Justifying argumentation schemes
4. Conclusion
References
Chapter 3. Argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content: Two examples in same-sex marriage discourse
1. Introduction
2. Rhetorical content as perlocutionary content
3. The speech-act of arguing
4. Argumentative and non-argumetative rhetorical content
5. Examples
6. Conclusions
References
Chapter 4. Questioning the questionable: Arguments and counter-arguments in political accountability interviews
Introduction
Types of media interviews
Political interviews as accountability interviews
Interview question design and underlying argumentation
Question-response argumentation
Analytical approach to argumentation in a political accountability interview
The argumentative interplay of questions and answers in Stephen Sackur’s interview with Dmitri Peskov
Argumentation through key words: Annexation of Crimea vs. Crimea joining the Russian Federation
Concluding remarks
References
Chapter 5. Reason and passion in political rhetoric: The case of Louise Michel’s (1830–1905) revolutionary discourse
0. Introduction
1. Freedom
2. Louise Michel: Biography
3. Louise Michel: Arguments
4. Evaluation of Michel’s Arguments
5. Conclusion
References
Chapter 6. Interpersonal style(s) in diplomatic argumentation online: A study of argument schemes and evaluation in press releases of UNSC permanent members
1. Introduction
2. The corpus of press releases
3. Analytical tools
4. Frequency data for schemes and authorial attitude
5. Discussion
6. Conclusion
References
Ministries of Foreign Affairs Websites
Chapter 7. The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context: A case-study
1. Introduction
2. The case study
3. Conclusions
References
Transcription conventions
Chapter 8. Context and genre in judicial argumentation: A case-study
1. Introduction
2. Argumentation and the judicial context
3. A case study
4. Conclusion
References
Chapter 9. Caught between profitability and responsibility: Arguing legitimacy in the pharmaceutical industry
1. Introduction
2. Background: The emergence of CSR discourse and the pharmaceutical industry
3. The drug access debate: Reconstructing the critical discussion
4. Negotiating legitimacy in the discourse of pharmaceutical corporations
5. Conclusions
References
Chapter 10. Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type
1. Introduction
2. Argumentative activity types in pragma-dialectics and MPTD as an argumentative activity type
3. Conclusion
Acknowledgements
References
Chapter 11. The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization: The role of argumentation in family interactions
1. Introduction
2. Taken for granted information in ordinary verbal interactions
3. Argumentation and implicit in family mealtime conversations
4. Methodology
5. Analytical approach
6. Results
7. Discussion and conclusion
References
Appendix 1. Length of recordings, family members, average age of participants
Appendix 2. Transcription conventions
Chapter 12. Visual arguments in activists’ campaigns: A pragmadialectical perspective
1. Introduction
2. Review of the literature
3. Material and method
4. Analysis
5. Discussion and conclusion
References
Chapter 13. Attacks on the cartoonist’s strategic manoeuvring: An argumentative analysis of criticism on political cartoons
1. Introduction
2. The structure of the argumentation underlying the political cartoon
3. Criticism aimed at the visual metaphor
4. Criticism aimed at the standpoint
5. Criticism aimed at the sub-standpoint
6. Conclusion
References
Name index
Subject index

Citation preview

Argumentation in Context

10

Argumentation across Communities of Practice edited by

Cornelia Ilie and Giuliana Garzone

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Argumentation across Communities of Practice

Argumentation in Context (AIC) issn 1877-6884 This book series highlights the variety of argumentative practices that have become established in modern society by focusing on the study of context-dependent characteristics of argumentative discourse that vary according to the demands of the more or less institutionalized communicative activity type in which the discourse takes place. Examples of such activity types are parliamentary debates and political interviews, medical consultations and health brochures, legal annotations and judicial sentences, editorials and advertorials in newspapers, and scholarly reviews and essays. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/aic

Editors Frans van Eemeren

ILIAS & Leiden University & University of Amsterdam

Bart Garssen

ILIAS & University of Amsterdam

Editorial Board Mark Aakhus

Eddo Rigotti

Marianne Doury

Sara Rubinelli

Rutgers University CNRS Paris

University of Lugano

Eveline Feteris

ILIAS, Swiss Paraplegic Research & University of Lucerne

G. Thomas Goodnight

Meiji University

Cornelia Ilie

Bocconi University

Sally Jackson

Northwestern University

Manfred Kienpointner

Budapest University of Technology and Economic

ILIAS & University of Amsterdam University of Southern California Zayed University, Abu Dhabi University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Innsbrueck

Takeshi Suzuki

Giovanni Tuzet David Zarefsky

Gábor Zemplén

Volume 10 Argumentation across Communities of Practice. Multi-disciplinary perspectives Edited by Cornelia Ilie and Giuliana Garzone

Argumentation across Communities of Practice Multi-disciplinary perspectives Edited by

Cornelia Ilie Malmö University

Giuliana Garzone State University of Milan

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

doi 10.1075/aic.10 Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress: lccn 2017025560 (print) / 2017045122 (e-book) isbn 978 90 272 1127 9 (Hb) isbn 978 90 272 6517 3 (e-book)

© 2017 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com

Table of contents

Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices Cornelia Ilie

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Section I.  Theoretical perspectives on argumentation – revisited chapter 1 Uncontroversial arguments Michel Dufour

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chapter 2 Connection premises: Their character, criticism, and defence Jan Albert van Laar

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chapter 3 Argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content: Two examples in same-sex marriage discourse Lilian Bermejo-Luque

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Section II.  Argumentation practices in political discourse environments chapter 4 Questioning the questionable: Arguments and counter-arguments in political accountability interviews Cornelia Ilie chapter 5 Reason and passion in political rhetoric: The case of Louise Michel’s (1830–1905) revolutionary discourse Manfred Kienpointner chapter 6 Interpersonal style(s) in diplomatic argumentation online: A study of argument schemes and evaluation in press releases of UNSC permanent members Elizabeth Swain

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Argumentation across Communities of Practice

Section III.  Argumentation practices in legal discourse environments chapter 7 The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context: A case-study Giuliana Garzone chapter 8 Context and genre in judicial argumentation: A case-study Francesca Santulli

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Section IV.  Argumentation practices in debates on societal and family issues chapter 9 Caught between profitability and responsibility: Arguing legitimacy in the pharmaceutical industry Paola Catenaccio chapter 10 Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type Yeliz Demir chapter 11 The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization: The role of argumentation in family interactions Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

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Section V.  Argumentation practices in multi-modal discourse environments chapter 12 Visual arguments in activists’ campaigns: A pragmadialectical perspective Chiara Degano chapter 13 Attacks on the cartoonist’s strategic manoeuvring: An argumentative analysis of criticism on political cartoons H. José Plug

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Name index

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Subject index

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Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices Cornelia Ilie

Malmö University

Argumentation is intrinsic to human communication, verbal and visual, oral and written, monologic and dialogic, private and public. People engage in argumentation through a discourse-shaped process in a wide variety of interactions and in a diversity of contexts by exchanging views, discussing opinions, explaining and criticising position-takings, defending and attacking standpoints, debating the pros and cons of issues. As a social practice, argumentation is a discursively conducted reasoning and/or co-reasoning activity that is carried out by language users in various communities of practice, in the private and the public sphere, in different participant roles, and for various purposes. While a large body of research has historically been devoted to argumentation theory and analysis from different disciplinary perspectives, less attention has been paid to the context-based micro- and macro-level discourse-driven interactions that are framing and shaping argumentation as a dialogue-driven and context-specific communication process. At the same time, research findings indicate that persuasive argumentation is the result of cumulative insights emerging out of dialogue. In their rhetorical approach to argumentation, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) do acknowledge its dialogic nature when they focus on the role and importance of the target audience by distinguishing between the notions of a particular audience and a universal audience. According to their definition, argumentation consists in “the discursive techniques allowing us to induce or to increase the mind’s adherence to the theses presented for its assent.” (1969, p. 4). The issue of argumentation has traditionally been approached from two directions. The pragmatic approach has appraised the argumentation as a field mostly concerned with the persuasion of others (e.g. an opposing party or a judge) in order to succeed in legal battles (e.g. negotiation or court trial). It includes training in legal writing, legal advocacy and negotiation. This approach aims at developing extremely valuable soft skills that can be directly applied to everyday legal practice. The theoretical approach to argumentation is usually concerned with the study of the nature and structure of arguments, development of models and frameworks doi 10.1075/aic.10.01ile © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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of argumentation and assessment of ways to strengthen or attack arguments. The possibilities of engaging Artificial Intelligence techniques in the evaluation and development of arguments have been explored quite recently as well. On examining the practice of persuasion dialogue, Barth and Krabbe (1982) discuss various dialogic moves and situations involved in persuasive argumentation. They point out that persuasion dialogues generally exhibit both cooperative and competitive aspects. In his studies, Walton (1996, 2007) has developed the idea that arguments and argumentation can be better understood by using the model of the dialogue. Focusing on the relation between argumentation and dialogue, Walton and Krabbe (1995) distinguish several dialogue types according to the goals of the dialogue and of its participants: persuasion or critical discussion dialogues, negotiation dialogues, inquiry dialogues, deliberation dialogues, information-seeking dialogues, eristic dialogues, and various mixtures of these. However, in his 1997 article, Blair argued, justifiably, that the dialogue model has its limitations in the sense that not all dialogue types can be considered instances of argumentation and that the rhetorical dimensions of certain types of argument need to be explored more closely. Emerging from the perspective of dialogic communication in natural languages, the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation developed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, 2004) proposes an analytical framework for reconstructing rational dialogue development, in terms of four principles: dialectification, functionalisation, socialization and externalisation. Their pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation combines a dialectical with a pragmatic perspective inspired by speech act theory, Grice’s logic of conversation and discourse analysis. On this approach, argumentation is regarded as a verbal and social activity, which in principle is directed to other people and is aimed at increasing (or decreasing) the acceptability of a controversial standpoint for the listener or reader. As a step further, the pragma-dialectical theory has been developed to account for context-dependent activity types (Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005), by identifying and evaluating institutionally motivated argumentative patterns, argument schemes and argumentation structures. This makes it possible to analyse strategic manoeuvring and to trace its characteristics in terms of the specific institutional context in which it occurs. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s theory of language games, Toulmin (1958) introduced the notion of “argument fields”, which designates discourses within which arguments and factual claims are grounded. He contended that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called “field-dependent,” while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called “field-invariant.” The former encompass components of the argument such as its type of data and backing as well as the evaluative criteria of pertaining to it, whereas



Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices

the latter include similarities of procedure and form. According to Toulmin, since arguments cannot all be evaluated by the same set of standards and norms, the argumentation theorist is called upon to assess the nature, boundaries, and inner structure of argument fields. His view is that the primary difference between fields of argument derives from the form of argument in different contexts. Over time, several argumentation theorists have attempted to account for Toulmin’s field dependence. Klumpp (1981) identified fields with types of situational communication which are delimited by the commonality of argument characteristics (pp. 46, 48). Kneupper (1981) considers fields to be “knowledge structures and contexts for reasoning” (p. 81), while Willard (1982) defines fields as sociological entities and psychological perspectives that are brought to life by the practices of people (p. 46). In line with McKerrow (1980) who claims that fields derive their stability from language (p. 402), Gronbeck (1981) believes that argument fields are “collections of communicative rules which specify what may be disputed by whom, when, how, where, and to what end” (p. 15), while Wenzel (1982) defines fields as “the propositional content of a disciplined, rational enterprise with an epistemic purpose”. Instead of argument fields, McKerrow (1980) uses the term “argument communities”, emphasizing that shared values, common personal bonds, and argument evaluation are mutually reinforcing. Along similar lines, Goodnight (1982) prefers to use the notion of “spheres” of argument, and according to him all argument arises from uncertainty. By sphere he understands “the grounds upon which arguments are built and the authorities to which arguers appeal.” (1982, p. 216). For him argument means interaction based on dissensus, and consequently the grounds of arguments lie in doubts and uncertainties. Goodnight distinguishes three spheres of argument: “the personal”, “the technical” and “the public”. According to him, the personal sphere arises in relatively private conversations and is relevant to the arguers themselves, the technical sphere covers discourses controlled by specific norms and expectations of expert communities, including arguments whose pertinence extends to a specialized community, and the public sphere involves disagreements with consequences that transcend the private and technical spheres, encompassing arguments that are meaningful for people in general. His concern is that the public sphere needs to be revitalized since it is being gradually eroded by the personal and technical groundings of argument. For Willard (1981), the term “field” acquires special connotations, becoming interchangeable with community, audience, or readership. Also, contrary to Toulmin’s claims, he does not consider that professional associations (e.g. psychologists, sociologists, philosophers) are exemplars of rational enterprises because they are not organized around a shared problem focus. On Willard’s view, the conceptual framework of field theory assumes that social activities are recurrent comparison processes in which individuals check their thinking against the views of others. While

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he concedes that argument fields share procedural beliefs, practices and traditions, he regards their boundaries as fuzzy and imprecise. A significant parallel is drawn by Willard across three field-specific categories: relational fields (e.g. relationships among spouses, colleagues and friends) whose differences may derive from having adapted to specific circumstances; encounter fields (e.g. particular kinds of interactions) may exhibit similar or comparable interactional structures but the substance of the claims may differ since every encounter is unique in some respects; issue fields (e.g. schools of thought, movements) may show overlaps between speaker roles and structural features, but not necessarily with regard to linguistic features since linguistic conventions tend to cross field boundaries. He specifies that fields exist in and through communication practices, which explains why a diversity of interfield connections get established between and across the three field categories. He notes, for example, that argumentation over abortion involves medicine, politics, the law, ethics, and so on. While Willard’s field classification remains open for debate, his notion of interfield connections can be helpful irrespective of the criteria used for field categories. Probing deeper into the theory of argument fields, Zarefsky (1992) identified three recurrent issues: the purpose of the concept of argument fields, the nature of argument fields, and the development of argument fields. Regarding the nature of fields, he discusses various approaches where fields are distinguished by argument form, subject matter, situational factors, the arguer’s purpose, and the audience. On Rowland’s (1992) view, there are four characteristics that help to distinguish argument fields: formality, precision of measurement, modes of dispute resolution and ultimate goal. He applies this idea to argument in the law and argument in newspaper criticism and subsequently gives priority to one of the alternatives proposed by Zarefsky, i.e. that fields should be determined by the arguers’ shared purpose. In one of his later studies, Rowland (2008) concludes that the conflicting approaches to argument fields were in fact not inconsistent, but reflected different aspects of field practices. He also provides a brief and helpful inventory of the existing accounts of the nature of fields (2008, pp. 240–242): 1. Ontological: Fields are subject matter domains (and co-vary with ontological differences). (Klumpp, 1981, p. 50). 2. Anthropological: Fields are communities of arguers or audiences (and co-vary with human differences). (McKerrow 1980; Willard, 1981, p. 24) 3. Linguistic: Fields are domains of discourse (and co-vary with linguistic or conceptual differences). (i) Epistemological: e.g., Kneupper’s (1981, p. 81) “knowledge structures” and Wenzel’s (1982, p. 204) “the propositional context of a disciplined rational enterprise with an epistemological purpose.” (ii) Logical: (Godden 2003).



Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices

4. Sociological / Psychological: Fields are (a) sociological or (b) psychological categories (and co-vary with human or social or psychological differences). (i) Disciplinary: (Kneupper 1981; Klumpp 1981); (ii) Symbolic Structures: e.g., Gronbeck’s (1981, p. 15) “collections of communicative rules”; (iii) Purely Psychological: Willard (1981). 5. Pragmatic: Fields are practices (which co-vary according to their pragmatic utility in problem-solving). (Rowland 1981, 1982; Wenzel, 1982; Hanson, 1989). The view taken in the contributions to the present volume supports Rowland’s (2008) claim that these different approaches are complementary rather than in competition with each other. In order to better understand the specificities, as well as the commonalities, of particular argument fields, it is useful to compare two or more argument fields in terms of a set of context-relevant variables: institutional procedures, interaction goals, norms of behaviour, participant roles, (expected and unexpected) audience perception and response. One of the challenges facing the study of dialogue-shaped argumentation processes is to find appropriate analytical tools that capture the complex and multi-level argumentation strategies used in a wide range of discourses and discourse environments (academic, political, organisational, legal, journalism, advertising, etc.). This task is made even more challenging in contemporary society, where there is increasing reliance on digital communication, and the new social media. Therefore it becomes increasingly necessary, as was pointed out by Toulmin, Rieke and Janik (1984/1978), to take into account the fact that arguments used in practical argumentation are shaped by the particular fields in which they occur and that “the essential locus of reasoning is a public, interpersonal, or social one” (1984, p. 10). They argued that practical argumentation, i.e. argumentation as real-life practical reasoning, displays sets of specific features associated with different fields of argumentation, such as law, science, fine arts, business management and ethics. This explains why the study of various forms of practical argumentation has attracted the attention of several categories of specialists: philosophers, logicians, legal scholars, scientists, linguists, speech communication theorists, to name but a few. The acknowledgment of the relevance of ‘field-dependency’ to argumentative discourse relies primarily on the consideration of the social context within which a particular discourse is embedded. According to Toulmin, Rieke and Janik, the validity of field-specific arguments depends on the degrees of formality, degrees of precision, modes of resolution and goals of argumentation, as well as on the views of the audience normally addressed in the field. They pointed out that “[l]aw court proceedings, medical consultation, professional scientific meetings, and the like are deliberately structured and conducted – in their role as ’forums of argumentation’,”

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(1984, p. 259), which not only define argument fields in varying degrees, but are also useful in identifying which field an argument belongs to. Argumentation traditionally refers to the process through which people seek to reach conclusions through reason, and argumentative discourse is generally considered to be one of the most subtle and most elaborate ways of using language to act and to react in ever-changing environments (Pierault-Le Bonniec & Valette, 1991). This is increasingly true in our world of information technology, digital media, the web, and easy image production, where everyday interaction displays instances of argumentation discourse in different forms (concealed and/or open, verbal and/or visual, monologic and/or dialogic, sophisticated and/or aggressive), and in different contexts (public and/or private, large-scale and/or small-scale, face-to face and/or virtual, synchronous and/or asynchronous). Only through a continuous process of critical reflection, creative thinking and collective value-sharing can we develop innovative ways of grasping the meaning and framing the significance of ongoing socio-political and cultural changes, so as to forge and push forward an inclusive, engaging and pluralistic democratic agenda setting. We are constantly faced, individually or collectively, with the necessity of decision-making and problem-solving, and our ability to make reasoned and ethical decisions relies heavily on our ability to think critically and argue accordingly. Critical thinking offers tools enabling us to better understand the nature and relative quality of the argumentative messages under consideration. Making reasoned decisions and reaching effective solutions are the result of an interplay of professional requirements, cultural variables, habits of thought, temporal context, and specific audiences, to mention but a few. While Toulmin’s theoretical framework of argument fields (discussed above) has served as a relevant point of reference for the interconnectedness of the contributions to this volume, operating a too rigid categorization and sub-categorisation of argument fields (and sub-fields) in terms of individually defining characteristics would be counter-productive for several reasons. First, there are many arguments, argumentation issues and argumentation practices that operate across fields. Second, there is no generally acknowledged set of forms for arguments in a particular field, and previous research has shown that several types of reasoning may be used in one and the same discipline. In this respect, Rowland (1992) argues convincingly that “scientists use inductive reasoning to collect data, analogical reasoning in order to develop theories, and deductive reasoning to derive consequences from a given theory.” (1992, p. 471). It is therefore essential to understand that for several argument fields it is important to take into consideration all of the following characteristics: subject area, goal, disciplinary membership, argument form, audience, world view and evaluation criteria.



Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices

A major goal of this volume is to bring about a cross-fertilisation of a wide range of (rhetorical, linguistic, philosophical, cognitive, sociological) approaches to address, problematize and answer core questions like the following: In what ways can cross-disciplinary studies of argumentation provide new insights into and deeper understanding of relevant communication goals in postmodern times? What has been the impact of the semantic and pragmatic turn on the study of argumentation in real-life and in virtual contexts? To what extent are current and emerging argumentation strategies shaping and getting shaped by means of the interactive, multimodal and hypertextual options offered by digital communication technology and the new social media? What types of relationships are being established between arguers and counter-arguers, on the one hand, and between arguers/counter-arguers and the audience(s) in a world marked by a proliferation of mediated public and professional discourses, on the other hand? What is the role of situation-based ethical claims in argumentation practice? How can we assess the validity and applicability of particular context-dependent arguments? The growing emphasis on the analysis of argumentation processes in linguistic, rhetorical, communication, sociological and psychological studies has converged with new dramatic societal and political developments that require the use of updated analytical tools and innovative methods applicable to planning, problem-solving, decision-making, and conflict-resolution. Turning away from normative interpretations, strict polarisations, reasoning stereotypes, and value-neutral solutions, the latest research into the ‘argumentative turn’ has been aimed at in-depth understanding and renewed problematisation of empirical and theoretical enquiries into the context-based functions of arguments, by flashing out the multifaceted manifestations of diversity and interconnectedness in patterns of thinking, feeling and acting at local and global level, across space, time and cultures. The authors featured in the present volume belong to this innovative research orientation, calling into question ready-made answers and solutions and seeking to capture the typically heterogeneous, interconnected, often contradictory, and increasingly globalised character of the issues and problems we are confronted with in a variety of fields in today’s world. The unifying principle of this book consists in identifying, problematizing and investigating topical societal issues in a variety of socio-cultural and political contexts by means of a large range of approaches to argumentation practices. Featuring cross-disciplinary investigations, the chapters in this book provide a comprehensive view of theoretical perspectives and empirical studies with a focus on argumentation in real-life discourse environments, including the constantly growing social media discourses. The authors explore and analyse, from several argumentation-theoretical perspectives, newly emerging and currently debated societal issues

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and ongoing changes that we are confronted with in connection with the impact of social engagement, public opinion formation, judiciary system, education, scholarly debates, international politics. The overall purpose is to offer wide-ranging, stateof-the-art insights into current scholarship on argumentation-based discourses, context-sensitive argumentation and counter-argumentation practices, and multi-level variations across modes and strategies of argumentation. The authors’ focus is primarily on the dialogic and contextualized nature of argumentation and its relationship to discourse, deliberation, and rhetoric, envisaged in cross-disciplinary approaches. The following are some of the recurrent research questions in this book’s chapters: –– What are the functions or aims of argumentation in discursive interaction? Do argumentation processes aim to produce knowledge, persuasion, and/or something else? –– In what ways are argumentative strategies related to particular context-based activities pertaining to the communities of practice under consideration? –– How and to what extent are argumentation practices shaped by socio-cultural, institutional and interpersonal factors? In what ways and to what extent do argumentation practices contribute to shaping socio-cultural, institutional and interpersonal relationships?

Structure of the volume This book brings together linguists, argumentation scholars, philosophers and experts in persuasive communication in order to problematise and discuss the nature and dynamics of field-specific argumentation, how specific communities of practice shape or change the argumentative practices of users, what skills and expertise become critical and consequential, how certain discourse contexts stimulate or prevent critical reflection and debate, and what are the wider implications at interpersonal, institutional and societal levels. In order to highlight these complexities, the contributions to this volume use and develop a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of diverse facets of argumentation in context. Each of the chapters comprised in this volume examines how people actually argue to persuade in currently representative discourse environments: political and diplomatic discourse (political interviews, political speeches), legal discourse (police interviews and court judgements), business discourse (corporate reports), social media discourse (blogs), TV debates, research article discourse, family interaction discourse, and multi-modal discourse (cartoons, posters, advertisements).



Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices

The chapters which make up this volume have been grouped into five main sections according to their main topics and specific investigation issues. The chapters in Section One are devoted to the re-consideration of theoretical perspectives on argumentation. In Section Two the focus is on argumentation practices in political discourse environments. Section Three consists of investigations into argumentation practices in legal discourse environments. Section Four is devoted to argumentation practices in debates on societal and family issues. Finally, the chapters in Section Five are concerned with argumentation practices in multi-modal discourse environments. Section I.  Theoretical perspectives on argumentation – revisited The introductory Section I consists of three opening chapters which share the purpose of revisiting particular theoretical perspectives on argumentation. In the first chapter Dufour starts by challenging scholarly views according to which there is a relation of equivalence between dialogue and dialectics, since for him it is important to maintain a distinction between the two. He argues against contemporary theories of argumentation which claim that, in practice, any argument takes place in a dialectical and/or dialogical context and presupposes a controversy, i.e. is based on a preliminary disagreement. To support his position, Dufour provides reasons reinforcing the idea that dialectical theories must admit that this original disagreement is not always real but sometimes only virtual. On his view, controversy, whether explicit or not, is not a necessary condition for an argument and he illustrates this with the case of non face-to-face argumentation as it occurs in some forms of media argumentation, and the case of didactic or explanatory argumentation, where argumentation can be dialogical without being dialectical. Dufour is thereby opening up a path for the exploration of other forms of argument and the development of a broader methodological frame for the study of arguments beyond expert controversies and across unforeseen communities. In the second chapter of Section I, Van Laar proposes a reconsideration of the adequacy of the connection between an argument’s premises and its conclusion. In the first place, he makes a case for the position that reasonable dialogue allows for the possibility of defending one’s argumentative connection in a fully particularist manner, without appealing to a general warrant, or to an argumentation scheme. According to him, even when confronted with an opponent who is inquisitive and critical when it comes to the argument’s particular connection between its premises and its conclusion, the proponent can reasonably defend the argument’s connection premise without appealing to insights that generalize about the connection premise, let alone general logical insights. In the second place, the author examines those

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situations where the proponent supports his or her connection premise by means of a general argumentation scheme, and thereby by an appeal to a general logical insight. His findings show that there are at least five reasonable ways to justify the acceptability of that argumentation scheme, so that the proponent need not restrict him/herself, as has been suggested in the recent literature, to a teleological defence, although that should be among his or her options. To conclude, he indicates that the kind of argumentative defence that is appropriate for an argumentative connection is highly dependent upon contextual features, and specifically upon the choices of the dialogue participants. Following a conception of the rhetorical dimension of communication as a matter of its ability to induce beliefs and attitudes, Bermejo-Luque’s paper proposes an analysis of the rhetorical content of a piece of communication in terms of the perlocutionary effects that it can be expected to produce in its addressees. She makes a distinction between argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content, which is illustrated by considering some excerpts of discourse about samesex marriage. Her main point is that not every invitation to inference results from a speech-act of arguing, since at times, non-argumentative communication may have argumentative rhetorical content. Illustrating with examples from online argumentation discourse on same-sex marriage discourse, she shows that this happens when the expected rhetorical effect of a performance is to prompt a belief or judgment that may work as a reason for a conclusion that has not been really conveyed in so many words, and yet abounds in its overall rhetorical content. Section II.  Argumentation practices in political discourse environments In the opening chapter of Section II, Ilie provides an in-depth scrutiny of the strategic uses and argumentative functions of the question-answer interplay and keyword (re)evaluations in a political accountability interview conducted as part of the BBC HARDtalk programmes with a high profile political personality. She shows how this hybrid interviewer-mediated dialogue genre combines inquiry dialogue and persuasion dialogue, during which interviewer and interviewee compete to assume control over meaning negotiation about the (re)interpretation of central keywords and (re)contextualisation of controversial issues under discussion. A pragma-rhetorical approach has been used to examine, on the one hand, the focus, scope and challenging force of various (conventional and unconventional) types of questions used by the interviewer, and, on the other hand, the extent to which the interviewee’s answers and responses display contesting, evasive or counteracting reactions. Since the interviewer and the interviewee do not share many common assumptions about the issues under discussion, they can be seen to tailor their



Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices

(implicit or explicit) argumentative standpoints for different audiences, namely audiences that share their respective assumptions and evaluations of events. The findings indicate that the strategies of argumentation and counter-argumentation that underlie the question-answer interplay in this interview are not simply about advancing or rejecting a standpoint or about the (re)definition of issue-specific keywords, but rather about arguing for or against the (in)appropriateness of their use in context-specific communication practices. Based on a case study, Kienpointner examines Louise Michel’s revolutionary rhetoric to find how successful she was in combining reason (logos), character (ethos) and passion (pathos) in her political argumentation. His interest in this topic was motivated by the special way in which this speaker adapts to or modifies existing preconditions and conventions within the genres of deliberation and adjudication. The author provides a critical analysis and evaluation of some of the most important arguments to be found in Michel’s political speeches and articles with particular reference to their underlying argument schemes. Apart from the Aristotelian concepts of logos, ethos and pathos (including argument schemes and their corresponding sets of critical questions), Critical Discourse Analysis and Pragma-dialectics (especially the concept of “strategic maneuvering”) are used to carry out the analysis. The findings show that Michel’s argumentation at least partially managed to maneuver strategically in such a way that it could be called a successful balance between the efficiency and the rationality of political discourse. Exploring website press releases, Swain’s chapter contributes to an emerging multidisciplinary body of research on aspects of argumentation in several diplomatic contexts. Based on fifty press releases taken from the foreign ministry websites of five prominent countries, the study seeks to ascertain whether internationally shared conventions of the kind regulating subjectivity in traditional argumentation settings still operate in the contemporary global, online context. Using argument schemes and appraisal categories of attitude and graduation as markers of interpersonal style, the author sets out to establish how much the press statements of UNSC permanent members tend to observe shared stylistic conventions in their management of subjectivity in the global online context, and how much they appear to be forging more independent styles of argumentation. The findings reveal considerable variation in terms of preferences among UNSC members based on a small set of argument schemes, and also of variation in terms of the frequency and type of evaluative language they use. According to the author, this variation suggests that, rather than shape a global, homogeneous style of online diplomatic argumentation, the emergence of global audiences and the enhanced visibility on the web have led foreign ministries to adapt their argumentation styles in ways that reflect different identities, foreign policy priorities and specific goals, and conceptualisations of targeted audience(s).

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Section III.  Argumentation practices in legal discourse environments Garzone’s chapter analyses the police interview as an activity type shaped by argumentative discourse. Its starting point is a case study involving an Italian suspect arrested in England, in which – on account of the foreign interviewee’s poor command of English – an interpreter is also involved. Her analysis shows that when the police interview qualifies as an “interrogation”, and therefore has the purpose of gathering conclusive evidence or “securing a confession”, the argumentative component is prevalent. Attention is also given to the role played by the interpreter in the interviewing process, and the impact of interpreter mediation on the effectiveness of argumentation as put forth by each of the parties. The theoretical approach used for the reconstruction, analysis and evaluation of the argumentative process in the police interview is essentially based on pragma-dialectics. Her findings indicate that, unless the interviewee does not originally admit the charges laid against him/ her, the police interview is an inherently argumentative piece of discourse starting from a difference of opinion between the interviewer, whose aim is to prove the charges against the person accused by means of the questioning process, and the suspect who rejects them either totally or – as in the case examined here – partially. Based on a case study, the aim of Santulli’s chapter is to show that the judicial context belongs to an argument field in which crucial argumentative strategies are developed and exploited. To do that, she examines how generic norms extend to the argumentative aspects of Italian judicial documents, and in particular judgements, which are considered to be highly argumentative texts, with a special dialogic organization. She starts from the assumption that the judicial context plays a fundamental role in argumentation as a privileged area for the application of theoretical models, both in a diachronic and a synchronic perspective. The focus is on genres as essential components of this context, and in particular on judgements in the Italian judicial tradition, where generic norms strongly influence text organization, wording and argumentation choices. In the investigated case study the judgment displays a canonical macro-structure, while the line of argumentation develops in steps corresponding – within this scheme – to the claims put forth by the plaintiff and the (counter)arguments of the defendant. Santulli’s findings show that in this judgement, which is representative for Italian judgements, there are no new arguments, but the judge examines and evaluates previous arguments, in a sort of second-level argumentation, thus producing a meta-argumentative text.



Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices 13

Section IV.  Argumentation practices in debates on societal and family issues Catenaccio’s chapter provides an account of the argumentation strategies deployed by pharmaceutical companies and drugs access campaigners in the course of the AIDS/HIV medicine access dispute at the turn of the twenty-first century, pitting them against the debate around the corporate responsibility of companies which was the subject of an emerging discursive formation at the time. Her focus is on the confrontational and very public nature of the discussion exacerbating the conflict, which forced the parties to openly argue their positions in a way that was unprecedented in the CSR debate, and whose focus was on the renegotiation of the business-society relationship in view of their mutual integration. For the argumentation analysis a pragma-dialectical approach has been used to reconstruct and assess not only the arguments brought forward by the discussants, but also their underlying premises and assumptions, and the effectiveness of the rhetorical choices made by them especially in respect of audience adaptation. In her chapter, Demir proposes an investigation of multi-participant TV debates (MPTD) from the perspective of the pragma-rhetorical approach to argumentation, which involves distinguishing in this activity type the empirical counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion: the initial situation, procedural and material starting points, argumentative means, and possible outcome. Her findings, illustrated with examples from a multi-participant TV debate program broadcast in Turkey, indicate that an MPTD is a moderately-conventionalized activity type preconditioned by both implicit and explicit norms governing the conduct of argumentation. The author points out that MPTD conventions identified in this study can be instrumental in understanding the dynamics of other moderated public debates and may serve as a point of reference for comparisons with similar or slightly different activity types adopting the genre of deliberation aimed at opinion-formation. Moreover, the exemplified MPTD argumentation forms are indicative of how different points of view are represented and expressed at various societal levels, e.g. there are not only strictly polarized and clashing viewpoints in society about a certain issue, but also intermediate and more moderate positions on one and the same issue. The chapter co-authored by Bova, Arcidiacono and Clément shows how the transmission of parental norms and values, which are often taken for granted within family mealtime conversations, can lead parents and children to engage in argumentative discussions. While focusing specifically on conversations where norms, values, or beliefs are implicitly embedded in the communicated information, they systematically reconstruct the inferential configuration of arguments by integrating van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s pragma-dialectical ideal model of critical

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discussion with Rigotti and Greco Morasso’s Argumentum Model of Topics. The results, based on a corpus of thirty video-recorded separate meals of ten middle to upper-middle-class Swiss and Italian families, indicate that implicits in argumentation are particularly effective in transmitting what is taken for granted in any given cultural community. According to the authors, this effectiveness derives from the fact that presuppositions, i.e. background information not explicitly indicated as relevant, appear as unquestionable. The authors also point out that children, who are largely dependent on adults for their well-being as well as for their knowledge acquisition, are not in a position to call into question these presuppositions. This explains why, in the absence of the background necessary for understanding an argument, children have to figure out (initially vaguely) a certain context that enables them to make sense of the ongoing dialogue. The results of this investigation can contribute to the wider research into argumentative practices and debates on societal and family issues within the framework of dialogue-driven and context-specific activities pertaining to family as a community of practice. Section V.  Argumentation practices in multi-modal discourse environments Degano’s chapter contributes to the ongoing debate on the possibility and realizations of visual arguments, focusing on advertisements produced by NGOs as part of their campaigns ‒ image-based messages that are inherently argumentative and, thanks to the Web, expand well beyond the time and space constraints of the campaigns themselves. By combining categories from Kress and van Leeuwen’s ‘grammar’ of visual design with the tenets of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, the author shows that in the case of complete arguments (e.g. Beijing Olympics and the Child-soldiers road sign image) the standpoint is conveyed by the incongruent relation between the carrier and its symbolic attributes, i.e. it emerges from the picture as a whole, while the supporting argument is represented by a breakdown of the whole picture into its compositional parts. In other cases, the visual argument is comparable to an enthymeme, in which the missing part can be either the supporting argument, or the standpoint. The results of the analysis support the view that (1) visual arguments are not only possible, but are actually exploited in activists’ campaigns to try and win supporters to their causes, since images have a stronger and more immediate impact than words; (2) the advances accomplished in research on the organizational principles (i.e. grammar) of visual design may help to shed light on the internal structure of visual arguments, and (3) visual arguments rest on forms of reasoning similar to those underpinning verbal argumentation, thus also sharing in its reasonableness.



Cross-disciplinary perspectives on context-specific argumentation practices 15

The aim of Plug’s chapter is to examine how differences in criticism on the acceptability of political cartoons that scrutinize politicians’ behaviour and actions may influence the way in which these criticisms should be evaluated. The focus of her investigation is on political cartoons in which the cartoonist makes use of a visual metaphor to scrutinize the behaviour of a politician. She starts from the assumption that political cartoons may be regarded as an argumentative activity type in which strategic manoeuvring takes place. By making use of insights from van Eemeren’s extended pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, the author shows that an analytic overview of the reconstructed argumentation underlying the cartoon can be instrumental when determining at which element the attack is directed. The argumentation analysis of a number of political cartoons that had been criticized for being unacceptable makes it possible to distinguish three different types of attack on the cartoonist’s strategic manoeuvring. Firstly, an attack that may be directed at the choice or the application of the visual metaphor. Secondly, an attack that may be directed at the reconstructed standpoint in which the behaviour of the politician is scrutinized. And thirdly, an attack that may be directed at the reconstructed argument in which the behaviour of a politician is characterized negatively. According to the author, this differentiation as to the types of attacks may prove relevant for the evaluation of complaints about political cartoons. While taking stock of the field dependency approaches to the study of argumentation, several of this book’s contributors have integrated two or more complementary and mutually reinforcing theoretical methodologies in their analysis: argumentation theory and discourse analysis; systemic functional grammar and pragma-dialectical theory; genre analysis, conversation analysis and pragma-­ dialectical theory; pragma-rhetorical approach and strategic maneuvering (in pragma-dialectical framework); rhetoric, pragma-dialectical theory and metaphor theory; corpus linguistics and argumentation theory; visual argument framework and pragma-dialectical theory; argumentation theory and appraisal theory; visual argumentation and discourse analysis. As the contributions in this volume indicate, the analysis of argumentation in context-specific discourses presupposes and requires multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches, the consequence of which is that argumentation scholars need to conduct their investigations at the interface of two or several disciplines, so as capture the overlaps, differences and/or complementarity of field-specific discourse genres, interaction practices, participant roles and identities, interlocutor backgrounds, situational positioning, multiple audiences.

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References Barth, E. M., & Krabbe, Erik C. (1982). From Axiom to Dialogue: A Philosophical Study of Logics and Argumentation. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter.  doi: 10.1515/9783110839807 Blair, J. A. (1997). The limits of the dialogue model of argument (May 15, 1997). OSSA Conference Archive. Paper 10. Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies: A Pragma-dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van & Houtlosser, P. (2005). Theoretical construction and argumentative reality: An analytic model of critical discussion and conventionalised types of argumentative activity. In D. Hitchcock (Ed.), The Uses of a Argument: Proceedings of a Conference at McMaster University (pp. 75–84). Hamilton, ON: OSSA. Godden, D. M. (2003). On Toulmin’s fields and Wittgenstein’s later views on logic. In F. H. van Eemeren, J. A. Blair, C. A. Willard & A. F. Snoeck-Henkemans (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 369–375). Amsterdam: SicSat. Goodnight, G. T. (1982). The personal, technical and public spheres of argument: A speculative inquiry into the art of public deliberation. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18(4), 214–227. Gronbeck, B. E. (1981). Socio-cultural notions of argument fields: A primer. In G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.), Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (1–20). Annandale, VA.: Speech Communication Association. Hanson, J. (1989). Argument fields, logical types, and shared purposes. In B. E. Gronbeck (Ed.) Spheres of Argument: Proceedings of the Sixth SCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation (pp. 275–285). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. Klumpp, J. F. (1981). A Dramatistic Approach to Fields. In G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.) Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings for the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 44–55). Annandale, VA.: Speech Communication Association. Kneupper, C. W. (1981). Argument fields: some social constructivist observations. In G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.) Dimensions of argument: Proceedings for the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 80–87). Annandale, VA.: Speech Communication Association. McKerrow, R. E. (1980). Argument communities: a quest for distinctions. In J. Rhodes and S. Newell (Eds.), Proceedings of the [First] Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 214– 227). Falls Church, VA.: Speech and Communication Association and American Forensic Association. Perelman, C. & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The TA Treatise on Argumentation (trans. J. Wilkinson & P. Weaver). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Pieraut-Le Bonniec, G., & Valette, M. (1991). The development of argumentative Discourse. In G. Pieraut-Le Bonniec and M. Dolitsky (Eds.) Language bases … discourse bases: Some Aspects of Contemporary French Language Psycholinguistics Research (pp. 245–67). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/pbns.17.19pie Rowland, R. C. 1981. Argument fields. In: G. Ziegelmueller and J. Rhodes (Eds.), Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings for the second summer conference on argumentation (pp. 56–79), Annandale, VA.: Speech Communication Association.



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Rowland, R. C. 1982. The influence of purpose on fields of argument. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18, 228–245. Rowland, R. C. (1992). Argument Fields. In W. L. Benoit, D. Hample and P. J. Benoit (Eds.) Readings in Argumentation (pp. 469–504). Berlin & New York: Foris Publications. doi: 10.1515/9783110885651.469 Rowland, R. C. (2008). Purpose, argument fields, and theoretical justification. Argumentation 22, 235–250.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-007-9062-y Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Toulmin, S., Rieke, R., & Janik A. (1984/1978). An Introduction to Reasoning (2nd ed.). New York, Macmillan. Walton, D. N. (1996). Argument Structure: A Pragmatic Theory. University of Toronto Press. Walton, D. N. (2007). Dialog theory for critical argumentation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins (Controversies 5).  doi: 10.1075/cvs.5 Walton, D. N., & Krabbe, E. C. W. (1995). Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Wenzel, J. W. (1982). On fields of argument as propositional systems. Journal o the f American Forensic Association, 18, 204–213. Willard, C. A. (1981). Argument fields: A Cartesian meditation. In George Ziegelmueller and Jack Rhodes (Eds.) Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second S.C.A./A.F.A. Summer Conference on Argumentation. Annandale: Speech Communication Association. Willard, C. A. (1982). Argument fields. In J. R. Cox and C. A. Willard (Eds.) Advances in argumentation theory and research (pp. 24–77). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Zarefsky, D. (1992). Persistent questions in the theory of argument fields. In W. L. Benoit, D. Hample & P. J. Benoit (Eds.) Readings in Argumentation (pp. 417–436). Berlin & New York: Foris Pub lications.  doi: 10.1515/9783110885651.417

Section I

Theoretical perspectives on argumentation – revisited

Chapter 1

Uncontroversial arguments Michel Dufour

Département «Institut de la Communication et des Médias» Sorbonne Nouvelle

Most contemporary argumentation theories stress the pragmatic and interactive aspects of argument. Some even claim that any argument takes place in a dialectical and/or dialogical context, based on a preliminary disagreement. Hence all arguments could be said to be controversial. I propose a revision of this view, based on a distinction between dialogical and dialectical, two terms often considered as synonymous. I suggest they do not entail each other and an agonistic connotation is associated only to dialectic. A second suggestion is that, unless you make it a postulate, an argument does not always presume a preliminary disagreement between individual arguers or communities. There are arguments which are not controversial. I admit that it is possible to imagine a virtual opponent to any standpoint but, in practice, sometimes nobody opposes our arguments. This may happen when someone puts forward strongly field or disciplinary dependent arguments in front of people who are beginners or outsiders with no opinion about the standpoint at stake. This may look like borderline cases, but this kind of situation is quite frequent in the media. Hence, in practice there are uncontroversial arguments and argumentation theories should take into account that the reach of argument goes beyond expert controversies and across unforeseen communities.

From pragmatics to interaction Although most contemporary theories pay attention to the pragmatic aspects of argument, not all of them claim that dialectic considerations are essential to a fair understanding and evaluation of an argument. There is a long way from pragmatics to dialectic. A middle term is interaction, itself open to a variety of interpretations. In its broadest sense, it is not limited to human activity. There are interactions between things, for instance gravitational interaction, between human beings and their environment, for instance between humans and climate, and, of course, between human beings. Interaction is a factual term: there is or not an interaction, namely a doi 10.1075/aic.10.02duf © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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mutual 1 action between agents. It can be verbal or not. 2 I will focus only on verbal interactions involving at least two human agents. By definition, a pragmatic discourse analysis includes contextual features, beyond the mere semantic content of what is said. Not all pragmatic analyses that focus on human relations study a direct interaction, because not all human relations are interactive. In the most classical scheme of rhetoric, a speaker is addressing an audience. Is there an interaction when the audience keeps silent? A speaker who feels a feedback coming from a silent audience will certainly give an affirmative answer. The silence of an audience is commonly assumed to give evidence of an interaction since you usually do not speak when you listen to a speaker. An audience who speaks, but not to the main speaker, is seldom an audience and if your description of a feedback loop between speaker and audience begins by the audience, the speaker’s utterance can be interpreted as a reaction to the prior silence of the audience. Speakers usually wait for it before speaking. This preliminary tuning necessary to a speech is an interaction quite different from a reply from the audience. A speaker can feel a feedback coming from her audience but, at the same time, complain about a lack of reaction through questions, comments or even a silence whose meaning would differ from the preliminary one. 3 So, in a broad sense, a verbal oral exchange can be said interactive even if only one participant talks, but preliminary conditions, like presence, silence, attention, are necessary. In a narrower sense, to be said interactive a verbal process requires at least one manifest verbal reaction, even if it is not symmetrical or balanced when compared to the first speech act. Now, the agents become interlocutors. Usually, a controversy or a dispute is an interaction of this last kind, with at least one turn of speech or one written answer or comment that opposes the point of view previously set forth. In a controversy, the reaction that identifies a second party is typically directly addressed to the proponent but against her thesis. If it is addressed to a third party who knows the position of the first one, the whole process will count as a controversy only for the second and the third party, and only if the third one grasps that the position of the second goes against the view of the first one. Controversy takes us close to dialectic. First, let us keep in mind that dialectic offers the same kind of ambiguity as interaction with its broad and narrow sense. 1. I take for granted that “mutual” means that A acts on B and B acts on A: this does not entail that A’s action on B is the same, or of the same kind, as B’s action on A. 2. I use a “is or is not” dichotomy for the sake of clarity of my main point. I am ready to discuss the possibility of mixed cases. 3. Sometimes you can hesitate about the meaning of the silence you face: but silence can be equivocal if and only if there are different kinds of silence.



Chapter 1.  Uncontroversial arguments 23

Even leaving aside the way it is used by F. Engels (2012) in his Dialectics of Nature and limiting ourselves to human verbal exchanges, dialectic is often taken in a broad sense that makes it roughly synonymous with interaction, taken in the broad sense. But sometimes it is taken in a narrower sense which comes close to dispute or controversy. Note that in these two cases it does not presuppose the preliminary uncertainty that is essential to Aristotle’s concept of dialectical argument. 4 Let us recall that, for Aristotle, it is the uncertainty resulting from the opposing views of the members of a community which makes dialectical a statement or an argument. The classical speech act theories of Austin (1962) and Searle (1970) provide an illustration of the ambiguity of interaction and dialectic. Both in its Austinian and Searlian variants, speech act theory is a theory of action. Yet, you can wonder whether these speech acts are interactions and are dialectical? My impression is that they are in the broad senses of both terms but not in the narrow ones because this theory requires much from the speaker but nothing, or so, from the addressee, beyond the necessary preliminary requirements that make the utterance an action on this addressee. Classical speech act theory is neither interactive nor dialectical in the narrow senses since no verbal manifest reaction to the speaker’s act is required or expected from the addressee. This is why pragma-dialectics, for instance, which is partly based on speech-act theory, had to enhance speech act theory with extra rules and requirements like the cooperative stages of “confrontation” and “opening”. This ensures the possibility to reconstruct an argumentative exchange as an interactive and dialectical process in the narrow sense of these words and to make it fit into the frame of dialogical logic, the second main source of pragma-dialectics (Van Eemeren & al, 1996, p. 274).

Dialogue and dialectic When interaction and dialectic apply to verbal exchange, they meet another close friend, dialogue. Its proximity with dialectic brings us back to their common Greek roots: dialogos, dialegesthai, dialekticos. Ancient Greek texts may give the impression that these terms were not equivocal; yet textual exegesis reveals an early equivocation, confirmed by the difficulty to translate the Greek word logos. Nowadays, dialogue is still ambiguous. Like dialectic and interaction, it can be applied to a human verbal exchange, to an interaction between a human and a non-human being,

4. See his preliminary “dialectical” treatises, Topics and On Sophistical Refutation about the status of dialectical arguments.

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for instance the dialogue of Man and Nature, or even to an interaction between non-human beings. 5 Again, I will focus on human dialogue. Even in the limited field of argumentation studies some authors easily shift from dialectic to dialogue (and conversely) making them quasi synonymous. But according to standard dictionaries and also, I think, to common use, their meanings do not coincide 6 and sometimes are even at odds. Two conditions are commonly held as necessary to have a dialogue: there must be a turn of speech (someone participates to a dialogue only if she verbally intervenes) and the contributions of the participants must be relevant to the current orientation of the exchange. 7 Dialogue is also commonly taken as a peaceful and cooperative activity while dialectic, especially after its Hegelian version, involves opposition and even conflict. This difference has evaluative consequences. Dialogue is commonly associated with ethically positive attitudes, like cooperation, care and peace. An ombudsman, for instance, strives to make enemies sit at the same table to initiate a dialogue that would be a first step to peace. On the contrary, dialectic is agonistic: this connotation is not only a by-product of German idealism but is sometimes already present in ancient Greek thought. Diogenes Laertius 8 explains that the members of the Megarian school of philosophy founded by Euclid of Megara, a disciple of Socrates, were first called “the Megarians”, then “the Eristics” and later “the Dialecticians” because of their use of questions, their love of arguments and their interest in paradoxes. A close association and a possible confusion between dialogue, dialectic and even eristic is not recent. Yet, Plato’s Socrates made an important distinction between a dialogue and a dialectical (eristic) conversation. 9 A dialogue does not always presupposes a controversy and the will to win against an interlocutor as it is the case in some contemporary dialectical argumentation theories like Walton’s New Dialectic (1998). 10 I believe that an exchange of arguments can be dialogical without being dialectical in this narrow, agonistic sense.

5. In electronics and computer science, to speak of dialogues between machines is quite common. 6. A first practical reason of this difference is that dialectic sounds more specialized than dialogue which is more common. 7. We sometimes dialogue “just for the pleasure to chat” or to be together. Is this a goal and how does it organize the conversation? I leave open these questions that are not essential to my point. 8. See the article about Euclid in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book II. 9. See, for instance, Plato’s Euthydemus. 10. His information-seeking dialogue is an exception.



Chapter 1.  Uncontroversial arguments 25

A comparison between verbal exchanges and games could help strengthen this point. Many multi-players games are interactive in the broad sense of playing together. Some are also interactive in the narrow one if the move of a player is a reaction determined by the previous moves of the other players. Finally, a game can be interactive in this narrow sense and agonistic when the goal is to win against the opponent(s). In this case, in spite of alternating moves and a shared meta-goal (to play) beyond the specific goal of each player (to win), this background of conflict can be a motive to resist the temptation to say that these games are dialogical. Later on, I will give a few more examples to show that an argumentative exchange can be interactive and dialogical without being dialectical in the agonistic sense of this term. Thus, my answer to the question “Are arguments always dialectical?” will depend on the scope given to this ambiguous predicate. This is also why I will replace dialectical by controversial to mean an agonistic use of argument. On that topic, we know that in English, argument has an ambiguity which seems to be unique, at least among western European languages. An English argument can be the process and/or the product of giving reasons to support a claim, but it can also be a dispute, a quarrel. The habit to link argument and dispute could then be a good reason for native English speakers to refuse the very concept of uncontroversial argument. Yet, in other languages and communities of practice, the meaning of argument that Walton considers ordinary is not ordinary at all and the logical or structural definition of argument that he finds artificial in English is not that artificial. He is right when he says that the classical logical approach to argument does not take into account pragmatic components, but his call to “everyday conversations” to reduce the use of argument to controversial arguments addresses a limited audience: The word ‘argument’ as it is used en everyday conversations, includes the idea of a quarrel, a kind of angry or adversarial verbal exchange based on a conflict between two parties (perceived or real). Logicians have traditionally suppressed this meaning and have defined ‘argument’ in terms of reasoning, a kind of orderly sequence of steps of inferences from premises to a conclusion. But the logician’s definition of ‘argument’ is artificial, and certainly at odds with the ordinary, more robust, and inclusive conversational meaning of the term.  (Walton, 1998, p. 178)

In this passage, it seems that you cannot separate the conversational and the agonistic views of argument. If you drop the conversational aspect of an argument you certainly take the risk to alter it, but this does not entail that the “abstract” (i.e. non-conversational and sometimes non-pragmatic) view of argument is “artificial”. When a theoretical concept borrows a common name (i.e used in “everyday life”), it does not have the obligation to account for every shade of meaning that it has in the

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“ordinary” practice of a limited community, unless it has been explicitly chosen to do so. In Physics, for instance, the concept of mass comes from its common use, but it does not fit with it since a mass can be negative. In the same way, in Mathematical Geometry planes are not flat. Furthermore, the fact that a concept appears artificial or not is not scientifically relevant since “artificial” concepts (i.e. concepts based on new or renewed definitions) may be more fruitful than familiar ones, even to account for actual practice. Even if we accept popular support to decide whether a definition is better than another, Walton’s position is still in trouble. Even if they appear too abstract, epistemic or logical accounts of argument (Lumer, 2005a, 2005b) would gain a majority of popular support among Western European countries, because they roughly account for the most central feature of argument in their own languages, namely to give reasons for a standpoint. The argument that it is natural to introduce controversy in the definition of argument because it is part of its meaning in the language of a limited community is likely to be not very convincing, even for empirically minded argumentation scholars. Controversy, anger or adversarial behaviors are quite common in argumentative discourses, but is it a sufficient reason to limit the scope of argument to agonistic exchanges? Walton’s call to the adversarial connotation of argument in English could be seen as an example of what the French linguists Anscombre and Ducrot (1983) call “argumentation (embedded) in language” (argumentation dans la langue). Better reasons than a limited ad populum are expected to support the naturalness of the controversial view of argument.

Finocchiaro’s scale Finocchiaro (2006; 2013 Chapters 4&5) ranks some contemporary argumentation theories according to the importance of dialectic in their definitions of argument. The main reason of his classification was his puzzlement in the face of pragma-dialecticians’ claim that argumentation is or should at least be conceived as essentially dialectical. First of all, let us notice that neither he nor the authors he quotes to support his view seem to make a clear distinction between dialectical and dialogical. This is why I emphasize the occurrences of these terms in the following quotations borrowed from Finocchiaro’s paper: In a dialogical approach, every argument is regarded as a means to overcome some form of doubt or criticism. Sometimes this doubt or criticism is left implicit by both parties so that it must be inferred from the arguments that are advanced.  (Snoeck-Henkemans, 1992, p. 179)

Finocchiaro also quotes Van Rees (2001, p. 233) who wrote against Johnson’s idea that an argument is constituted by an illative core and a dialectical tier:



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If the notion of argument is indeed to be rooted in the dialectical practice of argumentation, the two should coincide. In a truly dialectical account, argument per se would be defined as an attempt to meet the critical reactions of an antagonist, that is to take away anticipated objections and doubt.

What is meant here by dialectical? According to pragma-dialecticians, what makes an argument dialectical (or dialogical) is that it tries to overcome or take away anticipated criticisms or doubts that can be left implicit by both parties. Thus, the dialectical (=dialogical) practice of argumentation is necessarily controversial (=agonistic) since an argument is put forward against real or virtual objections or doubts that it tries to overcome. Finocchiaro stresses that some contemporary argumentation theories are not dialectical, and some others partly or fully dialectical. He orders them on a four steps scale according to the importance their definitions of argument give to dialectic, taken in the agonistic sense. The first type of definition is purely illative: an argument is an attempt to support a conclusion with reasons. According to this view, this illative condition is necessary and sufficient to define an argument. Although Finocchiaro does not mention it, most epistemic theories or argument are illative. They incorporate no dialectical requirement, but do not preclude a dialectical use of argument. In the second type of definition, an argument is an attempt to justify a claim by supporting it with reasons or defending it from objections. Each condition is sufficient but not necessary to have an argument. So, an argument is dialectical only when it is controversial. Finocchirao endorses this conception that he describes as moderately dialectical. According to the third type of definition, an argument is an attempt to justify a claim by supporting it with reasons and defending it from objections. Both tiers – illative and dialectical – are necessary, but not sufficient, to have an argument. This definition is strongly dialectical. Johnson (2000) would be the best known example of this conception. (See further my comments on Johnson’s two requirements). Finally, the fourth type is the hyper dialectical definition of argument. Now the dialectical tier has become necessary and sufficient, whereas the illative one is neither necessary not sufficient. Pragma-dialectics is certainly the most famous contemporary example of this approach. The first two definitions, the illative and the moderate, do not preclude the possibility of the use of arguments in a context of controversy. However, in the first definition this possibility is left implicit whereas the second explicitly states that an argument is dialectical when it has to meet objections. It is only in the third and fourth definitions that a dialectical requirement is necessary.

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Virtual and real objections Finocchiaro’s classification has the merit to try to make the landscape of contemporary argumentation theories more clear, but his paper does not say how to test their competing definitions. Since I contend that there are uncontroversial arguments, my view comes close to his first definition. But I also admit that a fair description, understanding and evaluation of an argument usually requires taking into account social, pragmatic and interactive considerations. So, my position would shift toward more dialectical definitions, but I prefer to avoid the word dialectic as long as the question of the existence of a necessarily agonistic connotation is not clearly set out. In my opinion, a crucial distinction should also be made between virtual and real objections. Accordingly, the ontological status of the objections or doubts required by the dialectical conceptions of argument should be clarified. Is it sufficient that they be potential? In what sense of potential? Walton reminded us that the ordinary English concept of argument “includes the idea of a quarrel, a kind of angry or adversarial verbal exchange based on a conflict between two parties (perceived or real).” So, quarrel and conflict could be unreal since only perceived. A first step is to disambiguate this idea of “unreal but perceived”. When objections and criticisms are explicit a fair interactive approach of argument can hardly drop them since they are part of the interaction and sometimes of the dialogue. This is also true when the argument bears on a topic that is notoriously controversial, for instance God’s existence. In such a case, even if no opponent is present, the standpoint is actually controversial and objections or doubts are not only potential, they have been made. The situation is quite different when objections or doubts are only potential. To clarify this point, let’s have a look at two paradigmatic representatives of Finocchiaro’s third and fourth definitions. First, Johnson’s important thesis (2000, p. 156): In the typical interchange, there is a difference in point of view that has crystallized around an issue and one of the participants. The arguer is attempting to persuade the Other of the truth of the thesis being advocated.

Notice that this situation is only typical. Here, the difference of point of view is an empirical claim that is not as systematic as in pragma-dialectics. Next, the controversy is actual: it has already crystallized. So Johnson focuses on the many cases where the controversy is already identified and recorded, then it is not only perceived. Johnson goes on (2000, p. 160): I have shown that the practice of argumentation presupposes a background of controversy. The first tier (the illative core) is meant to initiate the process of converting Others, winning them over to the arguer’s position. But they will not easily be won over, nor should they be, if they are rational. The participants know that there will



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likely be objections to the arguer’s premises. Indeed, the arguer must know this, so it is typical 11 that the arguer will attempt to anticipate and defuse such objections within the course of the argument. If the arguer does not deal with the objections and criticisms, then to that degree, the argument is not going to satisfy the dictates of rationality; more precisely, to that very degree the argument falls short of what is required in terms of structure – never mind the content; that is, the adequacy of the response to those objections.

Johnson’s pragmatic approach introduces the Others, with a capital O, because he thinks that the process of arguing “includes the response by the Other” and that “it will typically 12 take the form of introducing objections to or criticisms of the argument” (p. 157). We know that Johnson presupposes that something identified as a first claim, objection or argument has already been introduced, has crystallized. Yet, an illative piece of discourse can be identified as an argument without knowing the arguer or the Other. This is a reason to doubt that the dialectical tier is necessary, even if the product that you have identified, for instance on the basis of indicative words, is not the whole story. If you believe that there are no actual Others, or that they are just virtual, when, actually, there are Others, you make a mistake and fail to identify the whole argumentation process. But, on the other hand, you can always imagine an Other, a virtual Super-Other who, like a cousin of Descartes’ devil, would doubt or deny any proposition you like. So, any argument produced can be perceived as part of a controversy or a dialogue with a virtual Super-Other, but this a priori systematic irrefutable claim does not seem to have any significant practical consequences. Johnson’s starting point is more modest. He describes a situation that he finds “typical” with a preliminary actual background of controversy. But is something “typical” normal enough to be theoretically normative? The problem comes from non-typical situations. As we shall see further, it happens that an audience does not have the competence to level a counter-argument or has no clear position about the standpoint of an arguer or can’t reply for practical reasons. All this does not run counter to Johnson’s dictates of rationality and I agree with his careful “there will likely be objections”. I also agree that a clever arguer would do better to anticipate the objections and criticisms she can foresee, even if no actual Other has already been identified. This is no manifest dialectic but it reminds the kind of dialogue that Socrates said he had with his soul. Is this internal dialogue virtual or actual? Is it a literal or metaphorical dialogue? I am not certain about the answer to these questions. When I read over a paper to check the spelling is it me or an Other who is at work? I do not know. 11. My emphasis. 12. My emphasis.

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Johnson writes a categorical (but slightly paradoxical) statement about the necessity of a dialectical tier: “an argument without a dialectical tier is not an argument” (p. 172). But we know that he is more prudent about the necessity of dialectic in actual practice: the situations he describes are just typical and objections likely. Then I ask: an argument is an argument when it has what kind of dialectical tier? Actual (with real participants) or virtual, as in Socrates internal dialogue with possible opponents (including himself) helping him to put forward better arguments? To claim that an argument is an argument only if its dialectical tier is fed by actual opponents is a very strong demand. On the contrary, to claim that an argument is an argument only if it faces virtual counter-arguments supported by potential opponents is a very weak necessary condition that can be accommodated by any situation. At the end of chapter four of their book Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies, Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992) write: Argumentative discourse can, in principle, always be dialectically analyzed, even if it concerns a discursive text that, at first sight, appears to be a monologue. The monologue is then, at least partially reconstructed as a critical discussion: the argumentative parts are identified as belonging to the argumentation stage and other parts as belonging to the confrontation, the opening or the concluding stage. Usually, this construction is not so much of a problem as it may seem.

First, notice that the monologue does not become a dialogue but is only analyzed as a dialectical discussion. I shall not address the ease of the reconstruction, but I agree that a statement (although, here, the point is made about a discourse) can “always be dialectically analyzed”. We have already seen that you can always imagine an objection or a doubt coming from Super-Other. The possibility of a dialectical analysis of any monologue can also be seen as an illustration of what Finocchiaro calls “the symmetry of the dialectical and illative tiers”. The basic idea is that a monologue (especially a monological reasoning) can be described dialectically and, conversely, that an argumentative dialogue (at least a set of reasons pro and con) can be reduced to a single monological reasoning. If Finocchiaro is right, Van Eemeren and Grootendoorst are also right, but a proponent of the illative approach to argument is right, too, when he claims that a controversy can be reconstructed as a monologue. Notice also that, by definition, reconstructions are made after the identification of objections: actual ones in the case of an actual controversy, virtual ones in the case of an arguer anticipating possible objections. Furthermore, if it is “not so much a problem” to convert an argumentative monologue into a dispute 13 as it is claimed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst and a dispute into an argumentative 13. I avoid the word dialogue to preserve the distinction I made between dialogue and dialectic.



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monologue as suggested by Finocchiaro, his four definitions may not be as exclusive as they appear: the supporting and defensive views of argument are pragmatically different but as far as the reconstruction of an argument is concerned they can be reduced to each other. Johnson makes a similar point about the necessity of dialectic to identify an argument. Apparently against Finocchiaro’s reading, he acknowledges that the dialectical tier is not necessary: “In practice, many arguments consist of the first tier only – the illative core” (Johnson, 2000, p. 166). They are arguments, yet he adds that a purely illative argument “is, as it were, unfinished, incomplete” (p. 166). What is a complete argument? Is it a modified version of a first argument that keeps track, in its premises or in the modality of the inference, of the criticisms already faced or anticipated? Dialectical approaches to argument, especially when they are normative like pragma-dialectics or Johnson’s model maximizing rationality, stress that the improvement of an argument is the result of a virtual or actual collaborative process. But, as granted by Johnson, in practice “incomplete” arguments, i.e only illative ones, are put forward and actually identified as arguments. Some people may then find themselves involved in a critical process of interpretation and evaluation, and this may lead to an improved argument, not to say a complete argument. So, in practice, complete arguments could be less common than incomplete ones.

Uncontroversial argument If a standpoint or an argument can always be interpreted as the answer to a question, an objection or a doubt, the claim that any argument is dialectical is true but weak. A bolder claim is that any argument is the answer to an actual question, objection or doubt. Let us call it the realist dialectical view. If it claims to be a scientific approach of argument and not a fancy speculation, realist dialecticians have a burden of proof on their shoulders. Of course, it may happen that an actual challenge to a standpoint existed but is now unknown because it has been forgotten or lost. Nevertheless, realist dialecticians have to provide minimal historical information about the actual controversy. Who was involved? Where? When? Why? And so forth. Since an attitude of opposition is always possible, the challenge for the thesis of the existence of uncontroversial arguments is to show that, in practice, some arguments are used in a non-agonistic context. Granting that some topics are notoriously controversial, say, God’s existence or societal topics like abortion, any argument about them can be actually considered controversial even if no opponent is actually in front of the arguer. Yet, an argument will be said uncontroversial on the basis of interactional conditions.

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From doubt to ignorance We have seen that Johnson thinks that argument is rooted in controversy. We also know that Walton is attached to the adversarial view of argument associated with the ordinary English meaning of the term, a position already present in a definition he gave almost thirty years ago (1990, p. 411): “Argument is a social and verbal means of trying to resolve, or at least to contend with, a conflict or difference that has arisen or exists between two (or more) parties. An argument necessarily involves a claim that is advanced by at least one of the parties.” Commenting on their definition of argumentation opening A Systematic Theory of Argumentation, Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004, p. 2) write that “The speaker or writer defends this [her] standpoint by means of the argumentation, to a listener or reader who doubts its acceptability or has a different standpoint.” The key words doubt and different standpoint are supposed to support the idea of a dialectical process. In other places of their writings, the dialectic is more explicitly agonistic. The neutral word difference is commonly used, but you can also find and the more agonistic conflict of opinion in (2004, p. 45). So, in Walton and in Van Eemeren and Grootendorst we find both conflict and difference. Wouldn’t difference suffice since a conflict of opinion is one manifestation of a difference of opinion? Is there an influence of the semantic proximity in English between argument and quarrel on their view? I will leave aside this empirical question that is certainly too complex to find an answer here. Among the epistemic attitudes considered in the previous definitions, doubt is less clearly bound to controversy than conflict. But doubt has many faces. It can be sincere or not. When it is sincere, the doubter is uncertain about the truth of the proposition he doubts. Sometimes, doubt is just a challenge to check that evidence can be found to support the dubious point of view. This is the case of Descartes “methodological” doubt. It can be seen as agonistic, but probably less than a denial which presumes a preliminary assertion, virtual or real. When it is sincere, doubt comes close to ignorance and can even be seen as a mark of ignorance: you doubt because you have no clear-cut opinion about the proposition at stake. One morning, Jane says that Paul is likely to be at home. You answer: “Maybe”. She argues: “Well, his car is in the garage”. You have already seen it and answer: “Yes, I know”. But you have been told that, one evening, he got so drunk that he spent the night at his workplace and a colleague had to drive his car home. So you keep on doubting about the fact that he is at home. You have no opinion about it. Is there a difference of opinion between Jane and you? Yes, if you grant that no opinion is an opinion, but this is debatable. Both of you think that Paul is probably at home. Is there any conflict, controversy or adversarial attitude between you? I doubt it. If you think that this short argumentative dialogue is not adversarial, you should admit that Jane’s argument is uncontroversial.



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Although they sometimes meet, ignorance and doubt are different attitudes. In some cases, ignorance is just a lack of information that could help to make a decision about a standpoint. You know that Paul came back home yesterday evening but you ignore whether he arrived after or before 8 pm. Jane, too, says she does not know but argues that he likely arrived before 8 pm because you told her that he usually does. You answer: “Yes, but we don’t know”. Both of you ignore whether Paul arrived after 8 pm and the best that both of you can do to support this view is to state that he usually does. Is there a difference of opinion between Jane and you? This is an uneasy question. Even if you think that you have different opinions, Jane’s argument can hardly be seen as controversial. More generally, the next situation is quite common in didactic or cross-disciplinary contexts: a person uses technical reasons to support a strongly field or disciplinary dependent standpoint in front of an inexpert audience. Imagine it is composed of outsiders unable to decide by themselves about the truth, or acceptability, of the standpoint or that it is an audience of beginners or students who have limited knowledge of the area. A speaker usually foresees three possible critical attitudes from her audience: a denial, a doubt or the expression of a lack of understanding. But sometimes none is expressed and some members of the audience just utter a vague “yes”. Perhaps they (wrongly) think that they have understood the standpoint and its reasons, or judge that it is true because an expert who seems to have good reasons says so. Such a context can be seen as interactive and even dialogical, but in this case the actual use of argument is not dialectical in the agonistic sense.

Explanation Explanation is a broad concept and some of its uses cannot be mistaken for an argument. But when it can be interpreted as an answer to a why-question it can be considered as an argument since why-questions ask for a justification and justification – successful or not – is essential to argument, at least for those who think that it necessarily has an illative component. When no pragmatic consideration is taken into account it may be difficult for people who make a sharp distinction between argument and explanation to decide whether the answer to a why-question is an argument or an explanation. Why is the weather going to change? Because the sky is more and more cloudy. When no further contextual information is given, they hesitate. People who closely link argument and controversy, for instance supporters of a dialectical view of argument or English native speakers, have a pragmatic criterion at hand to distinguish argument and explanation and then solve such a dilemma. Its principle is quite simple: if the participants in the exchange disagree about the standpoint it is an explanation, if they agree it is an explanation. Now, if you admit

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that an arguer who asserts an illative structure like “p because q” usually agrees with her own utterance, it is the manifest attitudes of the addressees that will make the difference. The utterance is an argument for an addressee who disagrees with p (and then with the speaker) and an explanation for an addressee who agrees. The label to apply to the verbal interaction is determined neither by the formal structure of the utterance nor by the only consideration of the attitude of the speaker but by the doxastic attitude of the listener. So, this pragmatic epistemic approach of argument clearly limits the scope of argument and leaves undetermined the status of an illative utterance as long as the opinion of its audience stays unknown. Walton thinks that a purely illative view of argument is artificial, but the consequences of a strong dialectical view of argument lead to distinctions which are theoretically clear but, in practice, uneasy to apply when no audience or interlocutor is clearly determined. What can be said of a Johnsonian expert who cares about the dialectical tier of her still incomplete argument and, accordingly, anticipate objections that her audience cannot raise because it is not expert enough or already agrees because the speaker is supposed to be an expert? This incomplete argument is a (virtual) argument for the arguer but an (actual) explanation for this audience. This kind of situation is not unusual. A similar situation occurs in political meetings, when a politician addressees his political opponents “over the head” of the already convinced members of her own party, gathered at her feet. When she justifies her standpoints is she explaining or arguing? According to the pragmatic criterion it is an explanation for the actual audience (even if it already knows the whole story) and an argument against missing opponents. On the contrary, if the arguer addressees an actual audience of opponents, her speech is an argument for them but can be seen as an explanation for the missing members of her party. The pragma-dialectical approach can lead to the same kind of strange situation since the normative reconstruction of an argumentative discourse requires a preliminary “confrontation stage” which may stay potential or have actually occurred after the beginning of the exchange of justified standpoints. This confrontation stage is crucial for pragma-dialectics since it makes “clear that there is a standpoint that is not accepted … thereby establishing a … difference of opinion” (2004, p. 60) which can be “real or presumed”. Thus, if the difference of opinion is only presumed we may have the same kind of phenomenon: a speaker can rightly take her own speech as an argument if she presumes that her interlocutor has a different opinion, or she can take it as an explanation if she presumes an agreement about her standpoint. When the actual opinion of the interlocutor differs from the presumptions of the speaker about it, they should have different views about the type of their exchange. On a larger scale, when a speaker faces an audience where several different communities of opinion are present she argues with the communities who disagree and, at the same time, explains to one who agrees. This is possible from a theoretical



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point of view, but you can stay skeptical about the practical benefit of this distinction between argument and explanation. It could rather be a sign of the limits of models trying to reduce complex interactions using arguments to the paradigmatic case of a dispute between opposing parties. If you drop the principle that an argument presupposes an opposition, this nominal border between explanation and argument is blurred, but the actual epistemic and doxastic positions and relations between agents remain unchanged. To drop the controversy oriented approach does not necessarily amount to a move backward towards an abstract, non-interactive, concept of argument. A critical pragmatic analysis of argument has to take into account the opinions and, if possible, the anticipations of the participants. So, even if it is true that arguments are mostly used in controversies, a theory which claims that an adversarial attitude is a necessary condition to say that an exchange of motivated standpoints is an argument has two major related practical drawbacks. First, it amounts only to a theory of controversy and, second, it cannot account for the case of an arguer addressing an interlocutor having no opinion or no clear opinion about the standpoint at stake or to an audience where different points of view are present. Unless it takes refuge behind the comfortable principle that a virtual difference of opinion is sufficient to say that a premiss-conclusion reasoning is an argument, it makes the status of argument highly dependent on the manifest doxastic attitudes of interlocutors. Accordingly, it prevents the possibility to recognize that an argument has been put forward before the record of a manifest opposition, even if the speaker has offered reasons to support her standpoint.

Media The empirical challenge leveled against agonistic theories of argument is especially strong when speakers use mass media to address a large and often wildly anonymous audience. This challenge has many faces. First, the extension and the doxastic attitude of the audience imagined or expected by a speaker or a writer may drastically differ from the reality. The extension of the audience can range from no audience at all to an indefinite audience much broader than expected. This kind of mistake can be made by the speaker or writer, but also by any member of her audience. It can also be made by a third party, typically an analyst who is not directly concerned by this discourse. A similar mistake can be made about what the members of the audience think of the standpoint expressed. This kind of mistake is possible but probably less common when no media is used, because it is, then, easier to confront the various opinions.

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Furthermore, a mass media audience is not stable over time: some members may disappear and newcomers may arrive, stealthily or not. What is the audience of Plato’s dialogues? In such a case, it seems complicated, not to say strange, to stretch a model based on dyadic interactions to accommodate a situation where the audience is unstable and (partly) unknown. This kind of objection has been made by Blair (1998) and Govier (1999, 2006). But we know that some dialecticians accept the idea that the speaker addresses a virtual audience: this is the core of Krabbe’s reply (1998) based on the idea of hypothetical opponents who can reply, raise objections and ask questions. But this principle is also at the root of weird situations like a trial in absence of the defendant or a game of chess against oneself: deliberately or not, questions, answers and objections may be influenced by the opinions of the proponent who plays the role of the hypothetical opponent. This simulation is likely to reveal not only the moves that the proponent expects from opponents, but also her own beliefs, preferences and presuppositions. Besides the problem of an anonymous and virtually unlimited audience, another difficulty for dialectical theories of argumentation comes from the practical conditions of feedback. Internet and other electronic networks offer the possibility of quasi instantaneous verbal interactions, so that agreement or disagreement can be instantly expressed. But we should not forget that most traditional media do not offer this possibility or are weakly and slowly interactive. This is the case of books and, more generally, of writing. When no reply or comment is possible and the topic is not notoriously controversial, the traditional model of face to face controversy is in trouble. The challenge raised by material difficulty to answer, affects not only controversy oriented theories but any interactive approach of argument. Walton admits that this problem that he calls the RTD (respondent-to-dialogue) problem is a genuine challenge for the dialogical approach he fosters (2007, pp. 138–142). This is the reason why he turns to the old rhetorical notion of prolepsis (the anticipation of the attitude of the interlocutor) to try to save the dialectical/dialogical approach in the context of mass-media. But, again, prolepsis is just an internal virtual dialectic. The issue raised by the use of mass media is a real challenge to dialectical theories of argument.

Conclusion Against a fairly common tendency to identify dialectical and dialogical when they are applied to a verbal exchange, a first step was to consider that they are neither synonymous nor equivalent. Since dialectic is notoriously equivocal and may support the previous confusion, its scope has been here reduced to an agonistic interaction. This helps to make clear that an exchange of arguments can be a pragmatic interactive process, sometimes a dialogue, without being dialectical.



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Even if you can always imagine a virtual opponent to a standpoint, in practice, there are uncontroversial arguments. Unless you postulate it, an interactive exchange of arguments is not always addressed to an opponent or a skeptic and is not always something that you win or lose. Uncontroversial arguments are common in the fringes of disciplinary fields when you address people who have no clear-cut opinion about the conclusions supported by arguers. Didactic arguments, too, are usually uncontroversial. The media, too, often conveys arguments who finally meet people or communities who are actually neither opponents nor skeptics.

References Anscombre, J. C & Ducrot, O. (1983). L’Argumentation dans la Langue. Liège: Mardaga. Austin, J. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Blair, A. (1998). The Limits of the Dialogue Model of Argument. Argumentation, 12, 325–339. doi: 10.1023/A:1007768503175 Diogenes Laertius (1925). Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Harvard: Harvard University Press Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies. A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst, R., & Snoeck-Henkemans, A. F. (Eds) (1996). Pragma-dialectics and Critical Discussion, in Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory. Mahwah (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum associates. Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Engels, F. (2012). Dialectics of Nature. London: Wellred Books. Finocchiaro, M. (2006). Reflections on the Hyper Dialectical Definition of Argument. Considering Pragma-Dialectics. In P. Houtlosser, & A. van Rees (Eds), Considering Pragma-Dialectics (pp. 51–62). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Finocchiaro, M. (2013). Meta-Argumentation: An Approach to Logic and Argumentation Theory. London: College Publications. Govier, T. (1999). When They Can’t Talk Back: The Non-Interactive Audience and the Theory of Argument. The Philosophy of Argument 183–201. Newport News (Va): Vale Press. Govier, T. (2006). My Interlocutor. In P. Houtlosser, & A. van Rees (Eds.), Considering PragmaDialectics (pp. 87–96). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Johnson, R. H. (2000). Manifest Rationality: A Pragmatic Theory of Argument. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Krabbe, E. C. (1998). Comment on J. Anthony Blair’s Paper: “The Limits of the Dialogue Model of Argument”. In H. V. Hansen, C. W. Tindale, & A. V. Colman (Eds.), Argumentation and Rhetoric (CD-ROM), ISBN 0-9683461-0-3 (Proceedings from the Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation, May 15–17, 1997, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON).  doi: 10.1023/A:1007760218196 Lumer, C. (2005a). Introduction: The Epistemological Approach to Argumentation. A Map. Informal Logic, 25(3), 189–212. Lumer, C. (2005b). The Epistemological Theory of Argument. How and Why? Informal Logic, 25(3), 213–243.

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van Rees, M. A. (2001). Review of Johnson’s Manifest Rationality, Argumentation, 15, 231–237. doi: 10.1023/A:1011111203624 Searle, J. (1970). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Snoeck Henkemans, A. F., (1992). Analysing Complex Argumentation. Amsterdam: Sic Sat. Walton, D. N. (1990). What is Reasoning? What Is an Argument? The Journal of Philosophy, 87(8), 399–419.  doi: 10.2307/2026735 Walton, D. N. (1998). The New Dialectic. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Walton, D. N. (2007). Media Argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511619311

Chapter 2

Connection premises Their character, criticism, and defence Jan Albert van Laar

University of Groningen

By presenting an argument, a proponent commits himself or herself to the adequacy of the connection between the argument’s premises and its conclusion. What is this connection, and when is it adequate? I deal with these questions by using insights and techniques from dialectical approaches to argumentation. First, I show that by advancing an argument, the proponent commits himself or herself to its connection proposition, which dose not generalize upon the conclusion and premises. When a challenge turns this connection proposition into a connection premise, there may be a particularist defence available, so that the proponent need not commit himself or herself to any generalization of it. Second, I pay attention to situations where the proponent does choose to support the connection premise by means of a general argumentation scheme, showing there to be a variety of ways to justify that scheme.

1. Introduction By presenting an argument, a proponent commits himself or herself to the adequacy of the connection between the argument’s premises and its conclusion. What is this connection, and when is it adequate? In this paper, I adopt a dialectical approach (Barth & Krabbe, 1982; van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004), and elaborate on a normative theory according to which the participants themselves are in control of what to regard as connection adequacy (cf. Hamblin, 1970). I shall deal with critical argumentative exchanges in which the adequacy of an argumentative connection becomes an issue, and examine some of the reasonable choices individual participants can make when it comes to the criticism and defence of an argumentative connection. From the stance adopted in this paper, the dependency of the adequacy of argumentative connections upon specific fields, spheres or domains is to be evaluated positively in so far as it is underwritten by (explicit or implicit) choices made by the dialogue participants.

doi 10.1075/aic.10.03van © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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Let’s start with an example that refers to Republican senator Portman, who changed his mind and came to affirm the right to marry between homosexuals Leon writes. Asked about Portman’s change of heart, House Speaker John Boehner, explained on ABC’s This Week, “I believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.” Asked if his position might change, Boehner explained and elaborated: “Listen, I believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. … It’s what I grew up with. It’s what I believe. It’s what my church teaches me. And I can’t imagine that position would ever change.” (Leon, 2013)

Boehner apparently adopts the view that “Marriage should always be a union of a man and a woman,” and he can be seen as motivating his position by way of the following reason: “Because it’s what I grew up with, it’s what I believe, and it’s what my church teaches me.” As I will clarify in Section 2, by explaining how he came to adopt his point of view, Boehner also argues in its support as he appeals to reasons he expects his audience to accept. According to my reconstruction, Boehner’s statements (indirectly) express the following argument: “You ought to accept that marriage should be the union of one man and one woman, because that’s what you grew up with, what you believe, and what your church teaches you.” The first issue to be discussed in this paper is: To what kind of connection between the reason(s) and the thesis does the proponent commit himself? By advancing his argument, Boehner at least commits himself to the set of reasons being prima facie sufficient for his addressees to adopt his thesis, and thereby to, what I will label, the argument’s connection proposition, or – if the proponent has expressed the proposition or has argued in its favour – the connection premise: “You ought to accept that marriage should be the union of one man and one woman, if you accept that that’s what you grew up with, what you believe, and what your church teaches you.” One might take a particularist stance and hold that the proponent’s commitment does not need go beyond such a particular, situated connection proposition (cf. Verheij, 2006, pp. 352–354; cf. Bermejo-Luque, 2004, p. 174). After all, if the proponent did not advance some more general connection in support of this particular connection, the attribution to the proponent of such a more far-reaching commitment easily leads to a straw man fallacy. On the other hand, one might take a generalist stance and claim that some more general connection must underlie any particular connection proposition. After all, the proponent’s argument is susceptible to a refutation by parallel argument – “your reasoning R must be flawed, because R resembles reasoning R′, which is evidently flawed” –, which suggests that the argument’s particular connection must be underwritten by some acceptable general connection that covers the connection proposition as a special case (cf. Hitchcock, 2007; cf. Govier, 2011, p. 265; cf. van Eemeren &



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Grootendorst, 1992, p. 96). We shall see that such a generalization amounts to either a warrant or an argumentation scheme. Leon seems to attribute to Boehner such a more general connection, by providing the following refutation by parallel argument: Boehner’s repeated assertions that he feels this way because he feels this way is not an argument any more than is: ‘I feel blacks and whites should not marry; it’s how I feel. I don’t like them blacks.’ (Leon, 2013) 1

By advancing his critique, Leon conveys that the general warrant or argumentation scheme that underlies Boehner’s argument is flawed. In this paper, I shall contend that whether or not the proponent is committed to more than the connection proposition is the outcome of a choice by the proponent. For the reason that some reasonable dialogue sequences do not lead to a proponent’s commitment to a general warrant or argumentation scheme, even though the opponent has been critically exploring the connection adequacy of the proponent’s argument, my position is particularist one. In Section 2, I shall explain that the connection proposition of an argument is stronger than its so-called associated conditional, and show that the connection premise can be defended (successfully or not) both by advancing a general warrant or argumentation scheme (that covers the connection proposition as a special case), but also by means of a particularist defence. The second issue to be discussed in this paper deals specifically with situations where the proponent has chosen to support the connection proposition by appealing to the suitability of an argumentation scheme that covers that connection proposition as a special case, yet where the opponent challenges the suitability of this very argumentation scheme. How can the proponent defend himself or herself against such scheme criticism? This paper is partly motivated by a recent paper by Walton and Sartori (2013), who argue that argumentation schemes should be justified teleologically. In Section 2, I show that argumentation schemes stand in need of justification in only very definite circumstances. In Section 3, I show that in these very definite circumstances, the proponent should be provided with more options than only applying a teleological argumentation scheme. Along the way, we discuss some dialogical devices that enable and ‘empower’ participants to resolve their logical issues on what they themselves conceive to be the merits of both sides. 1. Leon’s criticism can also be read as an accusation to the effect that Boehner has committed a fallacy of non-argumentation by advancing emotion and no argumentation at all (see: Krabbe & Van Laar, 2015). In this paper, however, I interpret his criticism as a charge of irrelevant argumentation, where it is alleged that an argumentation has been offered, albeit one that fails to really support the thesis, due to being based on an inappropriate argumentation scheme. See van Eemeren & Grootendorst (2004, p. 171) for how the two fallacies relate.

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2. The character of connection propositions Does a proponent, when s/he advances an argument, rely on the acceptability of a general warrant, or of an argumentation scheme, either of a deductive or of a defeasible nature? 2 Yes, sometimes the proponent relies on the acceptability of some such more general insight, yet sometimes s/he does not. I shall point out that by advancing an argument, the proponent at least commits himself to a special conditional proposition, labelled the “connection proposition,” which is fully particular in the sense that it does not generalize on the expressions that occur in the argument’s premises and conclusion. Only in some situations does this commitment to the connection proposition lead to a commitment to a more general connection, such that it covers the particular connection proposition as a special case. Before arguing this to be the case, I characterize a connection premise by showing it to be different from what has become known as an argument’s associated conditional (Hitchcock, 2007). 2.1

Connection propositions

Let’s use a new example: Proponent: Before the end of this year, the euro crisis will be over. Opponent: Why? I am not so sure. How are you going to convince me? Proponent: Stock markets are rising. It has been emphasized by some scholars (Walton, 1990; Blair, 2012, pp. 149–151) that argumentation and reasoning are not the same thing. Without going in detail about how they relate, I conceive of an argument as a piece of reasoning that is publicly expressed – rather than one that is entertained privately – for the purpose of convincing an opponent on reasonable grounds – rather than for some other purpose such as generating new data, or explaining some accepted fact (cf. Krabbe & Van Laar, 2007). Further, I want to emphasize that argumentation is the reflective employment of reasoning. In a critical exchange, we require, among other things, that the opponent actively examines the proponent’s argumentation. Of course, hear I focus on the connection proposition S/he should not withdraw possible doubts regarding the adequacy of the connection between an argument’s premises and its conclusion before s/he has considered whether these premises provide sufficient support for this conclusion. It does not suffice for the opponent to “move,” or “be transferred,” mechanically as 2. I use to term “argumentation scheme” to refer to both deductive patterns of reasoning and defeasible (or presumptive) ones.



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it were, from premises to conclusion. Instead, s/he should decide, deliberately and after having reflected on the connection’s adequacy, to accept the conclusion on the basis of these premisesm, or not. In order to count as argumentation, the proponent’s reasoning must aim at persuasion on the basis of such reflection. Extant models for persuasion dialogue can be revised so as to make this reflective aspect more visible. According to my proposal, in a persuasion dialogue the proponent should try to get the opponent to concede, tacitly or explicitly, a special kind of proposition that expresses that a commitment to the argument’s premises should lead to a further commitment to the argument’s conclusion. It is this second-order proposition that I identify as the argument’s connection proposition. I will lay out my proposal by starting from Walton & Krabbe’s model for Permissive Persuasion Dialogue (1995), and revising it accordingly. Permissive Persuasion Dialogue includes the following rule, which could be called the “Modus Ponens Rule,” which implements the idea that if the opponent subscribes to the argument’s connection as well as to the argument’s premises, s/he commits herself to the argument’s conclusion: Modus Ponens Rule: For each elementary argument [one step reasoning] {P1,….,Pn}soC of the listener if P1,…,Pn and (P1 ∧ … ∧ Pn) → C are concessions of the speaker, then the conclusion is also a concession of the speaker. (Walton & Krabbe, 1995, p. 152)

The proposition “(P1 ∧ … ∧ Pn) → C” constitutes what Hitchcock labels the argument’s associated conditional, i.e., a material conditional having the conjunction of the argument’s premises as its antecedent, and its conclusion as its consequent: “If the stock markets are rising, here and now, then the Euro crisis will be over, before the end of this year.” 3 The associated conditional is equivalent to a statement of the form “¬(( P1 ∧ … ∧ Pn) ∧ ¬C).” Hitchcock, therefore, also refers to it as the argument’s “negajunction” in order to avoid reading too much into the conditional phrase (Hitchcock, p. 2007). 4 Consequently, in Permissive Persuasion Dialogue the material conditional has a special status, for in addition to being part of the language with which the participants express their positions, it also functions as part of a mechanism that generates additional commitments on the participants’ part. How can we amend this rule so as to bring the reflective, deliberative aspect of argumentative reasoning to the fore, in line with the above consideration? 3. Van Eemeren & Grootendorst have labelled the associated conditional the argument’s “logical minimum” (1992, p. 64). 4. Hitchcock proceeds by arguing that the argument’s negajunction needs support from some generalization of the associated conditional. However, as we will see, not all dialogues require the proponent to thus support the argumentative connection.

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A solution is to have a separate linguistic device with which the opponent may commit himself or herself to an argumentative connection, and this special commitment, then, is required for a proponent to be able to put pressure on the opponent to accept his or her conclusion, given the opponent’s acceptance of the argument’s premises. Suppose, the proponent has advanced the argument “P1 and P2, therefore C.” Then we can associate with this argument the connection proposition “(P1 ∧ P2) ⇒ C”, which can be read as: “A commitment, by the opponent, to propositions P1 and P2 should lead to a commitment, by the opponent, to proposition C.” Thus, by having advanced his stock market argument, the proponent has incurred a special commitment to the second-order proposition that if the opponent would be committed to the stock markets rising, s/he should be considered to be committed to the euro crisis ending, before the end of this year. As understood here, each argument has exactly one connection proposition, referring to the argument’s conclusion in its consequent, and to the conjunction of all the other premises of the argument in its antecedent. 5 A connection proposition is stronger than a material conditional, such as “(P1 ∧ P2) → C,” due to its modal nature and its metadialogical flavour. Instead of the Modus Ponens Rule from PPD, we can then devise a “Connection Rule” which has a similar function (albeit formulated in somewhat different terms): Connection Rule: If the opponent is at stage i committed to “φ1,…., φn” and to “(φ1 ∧ …. ∧ φn) ⇒ ψ,” then when asked at stage i + 1 to concede “ψ,” the opponent at i+2 must comply with this request (or retract commitment to at least one proposition from {φ1,…., φn, (φ1 ∧ …. ∧ φn) ⇒ ψ}).

With this rule, the proponent can exert pressure on the opponent to accept a conclusion based on a number of premises if s/he has been willing to acknowledge that indeed these premises suffice. 6 Without a commitment by the opponent to the argument’s connection proposition, the proponent lacks the means for such pressuring. Thus, within the context of an argumentative exchange, the underlying message of the proponent in our sample dialogue is that: “If you (the opponent) are committed to the argument’s premise – that the stock markets are rising – you should also be prepared to commit yourself to the argument’s conclusion – that the euro crisis ends this year.” This message is an implicature of advancing this argument, and not expressed by the statements that make up the argument itself, and so Hitchcock has a point when he states that this proposition is not a premise (cf. Hitchcock, 5. If the proponent phrases the argument’s connection proposition P explicitly, then it is not required to assume the existence of a new connection proposition such that its antecedent also contains P. 6. Thus, in Carroll’s well-known dialogue, the proponent Achilles need not answer all connection criticisms by the opposing tortoise (Carroll, 1895).



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2007). But then, the connection proposition can be expected to become explicit if the opponent is unwilling to accept the connection, and says something like: “Why would my commitment to your premises bring me a commitment to your conclusion?” or more succinctly, “So what?” If the proponent accepts the invitation in this connection criticism (Krabbe, 1992), and supports the connection proposition, this proposition does become part of the proponent’s case, and we are justified in labelling it a connection premise (cf. Van Laar & Krabbe, 2013). What, then, is the difference between the associated conditional in the context of a dialogue model that contains the Modus Ponens Rule, and the connection proposition in a dialogue model that has the Connection Rule? Whereas the argumentation scheme modus ponens is hardwired in the first, this is no longer the case in the second. Modus ponens returns to its status of just one of the various argumentation schemes that can be used by the participants, or for that matter, challenged, or rejected as inappropriate, if the participants think that their dialogue requires a deviant logic, or no general logical theory at all. Instead of modus ponens, a special variant of this argument form becomes hardwired in dialogue, so that if an opponent has committed himself or herself to the argument’s premises as well as to the argument’s connection proposition, s/he incurs the prima facie obligation to commit himself or herself to the argument’s conclusion. What, one could persist, is the difference between a commitment to “P → C” and a commitment to “P ⇒ C”? Within argumentative contexts, a commitment to the one normally goes together with a commitment to the other. However, as we’ve seen, there is a difference, for by the Connection Rule, a commitment to “P ⇒ C” and to “P” incurs a commitment to “C,” whereas a commitment to “P → C” and to “P” does not (i.e., not without an additional commitment to “P ⇒ C,” or to “(P → C) ⇒ C,” or to “(P ∧ (P → C)) ⇒ C”). Are there plausible situations where the opponent considers himself or herself committed to “P → C” and “P”, and not to “C,” so that s/he does not need to consider himself or herself committed to “P ⇒ C” (or to “(P → C) ⇒ C,” or to “(P ∧ (P → C)) ⇒ C”)? Yes, in a number of situations. (a) The opponent may not accept or recognize, as of this moment, modus ponens as an appropriate argument form. 7 (b) S/he finds her/himself in a paradoxical predicament of having also a convincing argument at his or her disposal for the denial of “C.” (c) S/he reckons with the possibility that the argument contains some ambiguity, and only seems to be an instance of modus ponens, and that a more detailed analysis might reveal the reasoning to be unsound after all. (d) S/he may not consider “P” to be a sufficient reason for “C,” but the material condition to be merely true on account of the antecedent being false, or on account of the consequent being true (without, at this stage, recognizing that in the first case his or her set of commitments is inconsistent or that in the second case the critical attitude towards 7. As for example Willer (2010) does.

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the proponents thesis should be retracted). Thus, even if a commitment “P → C” normally brings a commitment to “P ⇒ C”, there is reason to distinguish them, and the latter can best be seen as a device with which the proponent should be allowed to pressure the opponent to accept a conclusion based on accepted premises. When taking a look again at the sample argument from the Introduction, we find that we need to reinterpret Boehner’s argument, if we take our dialogical perspective seriously. As it stands, Boehner’s statement constitutes an explanation of why he sticks to his position, rather than an argument with which to convince possible critics. However, the text can be plausibly interpreted as a genuine argument, albeit as one that is formulated indirectly: Boehner’s explanation of how he came to adopt his position can be seen as expressing an appeal to his audience’s commitments regarding tradition, intuition, and religion and the alleged argumentative consequence from these. As we have seen, the argument can be phrased as follows: “You ought to accept that marriage should be the union of one man and one woman, because that’s what you grew up with, what you believe, and what your church teaches you,” and the resulting connection premise reads: “You ought to accept that marriage should be the union of one man and one woman, if you accept that that’s what you grew up with, what you believe, and what your church teaches you.” Thus the presentation of an argument brings a commitment on the proponent’s part to a connection proposition which goes beyond a material conditional. Yet, the proponent does not need to get committed to a general argumentative connection, as will be shown now. 2.2

Connection premises

How can the opponent challenge this connection proposition, turning it into a connection premise, and how may the proponent answer this challenge? We shall find that the proponent may develop a generalist strategy, but s/he may also stick to a particularist one. It is possible to convince the opponent of the acceptability of the connection premise without any appeal to general logical norms for distinguishing valid and invalid, or cogent and non-cogent reasoning. Given the Connection Rule, and the opponent’s commitment to the argument’s premises and connection proposition, the proponent might succeed with his or her argument, regardless of whether there is a logic that vouches for the truth of the connection proposition. If the opponent is committed to the stock markets rising, here and now, and happens to accept that this is sufficient ground for him or her to accept that the Euro-crisis ends this year, then the proponent’s argument should succeed in the dialectical sense that the opponent would have an overtly untenable set of dialogue attitudes if s/he perseveres in his or her critique of the proponent’s thesis. The proponent might say something



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to the effect of: “You said so yourself!” (cf. Barth & Krabbe 1982, p. 51). The quality of this argument, via-a-vis this particular opponent in this particular setting, should also be recognized by a third party who considers the argumentative connection to be flawed, for example due to the lack of a clear correlation between rising stock markets and real economic growth. It is only when the opponent does not concede the argument’s connection proposition that the proponent is encouraged to advance more general considerations, such that the connection proposition forms a special instance of it. But even in such situations, the proponent may support the connection premise by other, particularist means. Thus, what are the proponent’s further options when being confronted with a connection criticism, “Why(P ⇒ C)?”? First, the proponent may attempt to convince the opponent to accept this proposition without any appeal to a generalization of the particular connection. Instead, s/he may elaborate on the details of the causal connection between the events presented in the premise(s) and in the conclusion. For example, the proponent may argue: “If, here and now, stock markets are rising, then these companies will be able to make some serious additional investments, and if they do so, the current unemployment will dissolve, and people start to spend more, so that this crisis can be expected to dissolve before the end of this year.” One may object that the particular connections within this new argument must in the end rely on general connections between stock prices, investments, employment, spending and growth. But just as the initial connection proposition could be supported by means of a particular argument, so this new particular argument might be supportable by a new particular argument. There is no a priori reason to assume that the proponent will at some point be out of particulars with which to show the opponent the correctness of the argumentative connection. The proponent may also argue in a completely different, but equally “particular way”: “Well, that’s what your mother said to me this morning, and you happen to be committed to the Euro crisis ending this year if the stock markets are rising, if your mother says so this very morning.” Let’s label such defences particularist defences of the connection proposition. Second, the proponent may attempt to convince the opponent to accept the connection premise by means of an appeal to some moderately abstract generalization of the connection premise, stopping short of generalizing to such a high degree that the result may count as (a conditional that expresses) an argumentation scheme. In other words, the proponent may appeal to a warrant, that is, a rule (or: inference license) on an intermediate level of generality, by means of a proposition that expresses the rule (or license) (cf. Freeman, 2005; Hitchcock, 2007). Thus, the proponent may appeal to a rule or inference license that constitutes a specification of the Connection Rule:

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If the opponent at stage i is committed to an instance of “At time t, country c’s stock market is rising,” then when asked at stage i + 1 to concede an instance of “At time t + n (n appropriately chosen) the country c’s economy is growing,” the opponent at i + 2 must comply with this request. 8

The proponent may appeal to such an inference license by saying something to the effect: “Generally, if stock markets are rising, an economy starts to get growing soon.” 9 Let’s label this the warrant defence. Third, the proponent may attempt to convince the opponent to accept the connection premise by means of an appeal to a high level generalization of the particular connection, in other words, to an argumentation scheme (cf. Walton, Reed & Macagno, 2008). Like a warrant, an argumentation scheme must not be seen as a premise, but as a special kind of dialogue rule. In the case at hand, it is plausible that the proponent appeals to the argumentation scheme From Cause to Effect. In such a case, again, the rule specifies the Connection Rule, yet at a higher level of abstraction than in the case of the warrant defence: If the opponent at stage i is committed to an instance of “X will cause Y” and of “X is true”, then when asked at stage i + 1 to concede an instance of “Y will become true” the opponent at i + 2 must comply with this request.

In our example, the proponent could say: “Well, if a cause is present then its effect will become present.” Note that this can be used directly in response to a challenge of the connection proposition, but more plausibly so in support of the opponent’s challenge of the just mentioned warrant, so that the proponent elaborates his case in more general terms. I label this the argumentation scheme defence. To conclude, an argumentative connection can be supported by means of showing it to be an instance of an acceptable warrant or argumentation scheme. But even if the opponent is highly inquisitive when it comes to the argumentative connections of the proponent’s arguments, such a situation need not arise, for the proponent may opt for a particularist defence, and in some situations s/he may not even need to defend the connection proposition at all. In Figure 1, these options are visualized in a profile of dialogue. In the next section, I will elaborate on

8. At this level of generality, the rule can be considered as a Toulminian warrant. The way I have phrased this warrant is an explicitly dialectical version of the way I expect Freeman would phrase it (2005). 9. In Toulmin’s terminology, such a warrant can be backed if the opponent would challenge it. Then it is not the rule itself which is included as a premise in the proponent’s case, but rather the statement that expresses the rule.



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P: Standpoint C

O: Why C? P: Because P

O: Why(P⇒C)?

P:[argumentation scheme defence]

P: [warrant defence]

O: WhyP?

P: [particularist defence]

P:You said so yourself!

Figure 1.  Possible dialogues in which the opponent examines the connection of the proponent’s argument

the argumentation scheme defence. 10 How can the discussants critically examine whether the argumentation scheme appealed to in support of the argument’s connection proposition is really acceptable?

3. Justifying argumentation schemes As we have seen, the proponent may claim that his connection premise is acceptable on account of the acceptability of an argumentations scheme. In such a situation, the opponent can challenge the acceptability of that very scheme. 11 Returning to the gay marriage case, we can imagine that Boehner would take responsibility for an argumentation scheme that we could label From Genuine Belief, by making the following statement: “If someone genuinely believes that P should be the case, then P should be the case.” In the crisis case, the proponent might support his connection premise by appealing to the argumentation scheme From Cause to Effect (see Section 2). But the opponent cannot thus challenge the connection premise in every situation, or at least not freely. 10. Freeman (2005) offers interesting considerations for elaborating on the warrant’s defence. 11. I do not deal with the other plausible critical option, where the opponent does not challenge the acceptability of the argumentation scheme, but rather the way the argumentation scheme has been applied to the case at hand, which has resulted in this particular connection premise (cf. Van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992).

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If an argumentation scheme has been adopted as a fixed concession in the opening stage of the dialogue (cf. Krabbe, 2001, p. 152), then during this dialogue it is illegitimate to challenge the proposition that expresses the scheme. If the scheme counts within the current context as a presumptive concession, then the proposition that expresses the scheme is challengeable by the opponent at the price of incurring (among other things) the obligation to explain, if so requested by the proponent, what motivates him or her to withdraw his or her commitment to that proposition (van Laar & Krabbe, 2013; cf. Krabbe, 2001, p. 151). In that case, the opponent must provide the proponent with information that might be useful for him or her to decide whether, and if so how to proceed with the dialogue in the circumstances changed by the opponent’s withdrawal of the presumptive commitment. 12 In the gay marriage case, the opponent might explain that s/he is reluctant to rely on her own beliefs and intuitions, thereby steering the proponent to support his or her argumentation scheme From Genuine Belief, for instance by defusing this particular reason for doubt. In the crisis case, the opponent might explain that the crisis has made him or her sceptical about the very idea of economic causation, thereby steering the proponent to support the argumentation scheme, for example by removing this particular doubt. I shall deal with two types of responses to scheme criticism: dismissive responses, and argumentative responses. Each of these types of response can be reasonable depending on situational characteristics. 3.1

The dismissive response

The proponent can dismiss the scheme criticism as illegitimate, or inappropriate, for the reason that the opponent happens to be committed, in one way or other, to the scheme that s/he is challenging, or for the reason that s/he should be thus committed: “We all appeal to our deeply felt beliefs in moral issues such as gay marriage.” The proponent may allege that this scheme is, or should be, a fixed concession, or else as a presumptive concession such that no plausible explanation for withdrawing that commitment is available for the opponent. As a special case, the proponent may advance that the opponent should not be allowed to ask him or her to justify the scheme, for its admissibility functions as an axiomatic ingredient of their dialogue, possibly even as a prerequisite for having a conversation, or for having a conversation of this particular type: “If you’re not willing to accept this scheme, there’s no point in having this argument with you!” We can imagine that Boehner would dismiss Leon’s criticism by saying something such as: “If I cannot appeal to our deeply felt beliefs, then I don’t know how we could have a 12. To keep things simple, I do not include Krabbe’s notion of free concessions (2001) in my discussion.



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serious conversation on this kind of issue.” In other words, the proponent presents – correctly or not – the argumentation scheme as a fixed or presumptive concession or as something that should be adopted as such. Another special, and more suspect, case of the dismissive response occurs when the proponent advances that the participants need to start from some argumentation schemes, and if the opponent is not willing to live by this one, they lack sufficient common ground, so that the opponent must choose between accepting the scheme at issue and leaving the dialogue. 3.2

The argumentative response

The proponent can offer an argument in an attempt to convince the opponent to withdraw his or her critical attitude towards the argumentation scheme at hand. Among his or her options are the following five. First, the proponent can argue for the acceptability of an argumentation scheme by applying the argumentation scheme From Consequences, 13 or some related teleological scheme. Employing such a scheme could result in: “You should accept this scheme X (e.g.: From Genuine Belief), because if you accept X you are capable of obtaining reliable knowledge, which is desirable.” Of course, that acceptance of the scheme brings reliable knowledge, might be supported further, for instance by means of an inductive argument. Thus, the proponent in the gay marriage case might support his or her appeal to From Genuine Belief by saying: “Our deeply felt beliefs have often served us well when finding our way in moral issues.” Walton and Sartori defend in a recent paper that all argumentation schemes should be justified teleologically (2013), that is, by means of such a special application of an argumentation scheme that appeals to the idea that some action or policy (such as the action of putting a particular argumentation scheme to use) serves a useful purpose. However, the argumentative response allows also of other plausible options, four of which follow now. Second, the proponent can offer a semantic defence, in the sense of appealing to the meaning of the expressions that make up the argumentation scheme. For example, when defending the argumentation scheme From Expert Opinion, 14 s/he may explain that being an expert implies, by definition, that the expert’s saying something in normal circumstances within the domain of expertise is to count in favour of what is said. In other words: it is semantically anomalous to underwrite 13. Walton, Reed and Macagno specify this argumentation scheme as: “Premise: If A is brought about, good consequences will plausibly occur. Conclusion: Therefore, A should be brought about” (2005, p. 332). 14. “Major Premise: Source E is an expert in subject domain S containing proposition A. Minor Premise: E asserts that A is true (false). Conclusion: A is true (false)” (Walton, Reed & Macagno, 2005, p. 310).

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a statement such as: “That an expert states something within his or her domain of expertise is no reason to accept it,” and to mean it literally. Similarly, when defending From Consequences, the proponent may state that the terms “desirable” and “consequence” are, or should be, used in such a way that if an action’s consequences are desirable, the action itself counts as prima facie desirable. Third, the proponent can support his or her scheme by means of applying argumentation schemes different from teleological ones. To give some examples: the proponent may justify an argumentation scheme, such as From Cause to Effect, by means of a special, second order application of the argumentation scheme From Expert Opinion: “From Cause to Effect is a prima facie acceptable scheme in economical dialogues, because that’s what this expert in the philosophy of economic says”; Or s/he may try to justify his or her argumentation scheme, say From Genuine Belief, by means of a special application of the argumentation scheme From Popular Opinion 15: “From Genuine Belief is an acceptable scheme, for many reasonable people use it”; Or, say again, From Genuine Belief by means of From Analogy 16: “From Genuine Belief is an acceptable scheme for our discussion, because it was acceptable in those other discussions, on related topics.” And so forth. A specific argumentation scheme can be supported successfully by applying other argumentation schemes that the opponent is willing to accept. After all, arguing about logical issues need not be an all-or-nothing affair. Would it also be legitimate to use the argumentation scheme itself when arguing in favour of its acceptability? It can be, in special circumstances. If the opponent challenges the use of From Expert Opinion in a dialogue about, say, the European economy, s/he may still be willing to accept From Expert Opinion in the context of a somewhat different discussion, such as a metadialogue on the acceptability of argumentation schemes. In such a situation the proponent may make a philosopher of economy vouch for From Expert Opinion, in a reasonable and non question begging way. Fourth, the proponent may try to show that the contested argumentation scheme is a special case of a more general argumentation scheme that happens to be acceptable for the opponent. For example, if the opponent happens to accept From Position to Know, 17 the proponent may explain how From Expert Opinion constitutes a special 15. The subtype of the argumentation scheme From Popular Opinion that is called Pop Scheme reads: “Premise: Everybody in a particular reference group G accepts (rejects) A. Conclusion: A is true (false) / or: you should accept (reject) A” (Walton, Reed and Macagno, 2005, p. 311). 16. “Similarity Premise: Generally, case C1 is similar to case C2. Base Premise: A is true (false) in case C1, Conclusion: A is true (false) in case C1” (Walton, Reed and Macagno, 2005, p. 315). 17. “Major Premise: Source a is in a position to know about things in a certain subject domain S containing proposition A. Minor Premise: a assert that A is true (false). Conclusion: A is true (false)” (Walton, Reed and Macagno, 2005, p. 309).



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case of From Position to Know, thereby reducing the argumentation scheme to be justified to an argumentation scheme already accepted. If the opponent is unable to make it plausible that there is something especially fishy about the expert’s position to know, as compared to other positions to know, then such a strategy might work successfully. 18 For example, the proponent in the gay marriage case might try to support From Genuine Belief by explaining that appeals to moral intuitions are prima facie acceptable, and that appeals to genuine beliefs constitute just a special case. Fifth, if s/he supposes that her argument instantiates a formally valid argumentation scheme, the proponent may propose to start the kind of formal dialogue in which it is examined whether it is possible for the opponent to maintain a consistent set of dialogue attitudes if s/he commits herself to sentential forms that are exemplified by the argument’s premises and yet challenges a sentential form exemplified by the argument’s conclusion. They then opt for the rules of a dialogue logic, such as the rules of Rigorous Persuasion Dialogue (Walton & Krabbe, 1995, Section 4.4). Thus, there are many ways in which the proponent may try to make it plausible that the argumentation scheme that underlies his argument is a suitable one. Figure 2 shows these ways by continuing the dialogue sequence, given in Figure 1, where the proponent advances an argumentation scheme defence. P: argumentation scheme defence O: scheme criticism

P:Dismissive response By means of an instance of argumentation From Consequences

P:Argumentative response By means of a semantic argument

By means of an instance of some other argumentation scheme

By means of By means of a reducing the dialogical test of contested scheme the argumentation scheme’s formal to an accepted validity scheme

Figure 2.  Possible dialogues starting from scheme criticism

18. Similarly, Walton and Sartor suggest that argumentations schemes are reducible to Pollock’s reasoning scheme called “planning” (2013). However, they do not elaborate on this idea in detail, nor do they explain how it relates to the idea that all schemes should be justified by means of applying a teleological argumentation scheme.

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4. Conclusion When it comes to the adequacy of the argumentative connection of an argument, matters are up for discussion. First, I have made a case for the position that reasonable dialogue allows for the possibility of defending one’s argumentative connection in a fully particularist manner, without appealing to a general warrant, or to an argumentation scheme. This means that even when confronted with an opponent who is inquisitive and critical when it comes to the argument’s particular connection between its premises and its conclusion, the proponent can reasonably defend the argument’s connection premise without appealing to insights that generalize upon the connection premise, let alone to general logical insights. Second, I have examined those situations where the proponent does support his or her connection premise by means of an appeal to an argumentations scheme. It was found that there are at least five reasonable ways to justify the acceptability of that argumentation scheme, so that the proponent need not restrict himself or herself, as has been suggested in the recent literature, to a teleological defence, although that should be among his options. I hope to have made it plausible that the kind of argumentative defence that is appropriate for an argumentative connection is highly dependent upon contextual features, and specifically upon the choices of the dialogue participants.

References Barth, E., & Krabbe E. C. W. (1982). From Axiom to Dialogue: A Philosophical Study of Logics and Argumentation. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.  doi: 10.1515/9783110839807 Bermejo-Luque, L. (2004). Toulmin’s model of argument and the question of relativism. Informal Logic 24, 169–181. Blair, J. A. (2012). Groundwork in the theory of argumentation. Springer: Dordrecht. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-2363-4 Carroll, L. (1895). What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. Mind 4, 278–280. doi: 10.1093/mind/IV.14.278 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: cambridge university press. Freeman, J. B. (2005). Systematizing Toulmin’s warrants: An epistemic approach. In D. Hitchcock, & D. Farr (Eds), The Uses of Argument: Proceedings of a Conference at McMaster University. Hamilton: OSSA.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-005-4420-0 Govier, T. (2011). Conductive arguments: Overview of the symposium. In J. A. Blair & R. H. Johnson (Eds.), Conductive Argument: An Overlooked Type of Defeasible Reasoning (pp. 262–276). London: College Publications.



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Hamblin, C. L. (1970). Fallacies. Newport News, VA: Vale Press. Hitchcock, D. (2007). ‘On the Generality of Warrants’. http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/ ∼hitchckd/. van Laar, J. A., & Krabbe E. C. W. (2013). The burden of criticism: Consequences of taking a critical stance. Argumentation 27, 201–224.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-012-9272-9 Krabbe, E. C. W. (1992). So what? Profiles for relevance criticism in persuasion dialogues. Argumentation 6, 271–283.  doi: 10.1007/BF00154330 Krabbe, E. C. W. (2001). The Problem of Retraction in Critical Discussion. Synthese: An International Journal for Epistemology, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, 127, 141–159. doi: 10.1023/A:1010318403544 Krabbe, E. C. W., & van Laar, J. A. (2007). About Old and New Dialectic: Dialogues, Fallacies, and Strategies. Informal Logic 27, 27–58. Krabbe, E. C. W., & van Laar, J. A. (2015). That’s No Argument! The Dialectic of Non-Argumentation. Synthese 192(4), 1173–1197.  doi: 10.1007/s11229-014-0609-9 Leon, M. (2013). House Speaker’s Commitment to the Party of Stupid. MAL Contends …, March 17, 2013 (MAL Contends: http://malcontends.blogspot.com). Verheij, B. (2006). Evaluating arguments based on Toulmin’s scheme. Argumentation 19, 347–371. doi: 10.1007/s10503-005-4421-z Walton, D. N. (1990). What is reasoning? What is an argument? The Journal of Philosophy 8, 399–419.  doi: 10.2307/2026735 Walton, D. N., & Krabbe, E. C. W. (1995). commitment in dialogue basic concepts of interpersonal reasoning. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Walton, D. N., Reed, C., & Macagno, F. (2008). Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511802034 Walton, D. N., & Sartori, G. (2013). Teleological justification of argumentation schemes. Argumentation 27, 111–142.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-012-9262-y Willer, M. (2010). New surprises for the Ramsey test. Synthese 176, 291–309. doi: 10.1007/s11229-009-9494-z

Chapter 3

Argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content Two examples in same-sex marriage discourse Lilian Bermejo-Luque University of Granada

Following a conception of the rhetorical dimension of communication as a matter of its ability to induce beliefs and attitudes, this paper proposes an analysis of the rhetorical content of a piece of communication in terms of the perlocutionary effects that it can be expected to produce in its addressees. Following this view, a distinction is drawn between argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content, which is illustrated by considering some pieces of discourse about same-sex marriage. I argue that whether or not we deal with argumentation proper, we can find both types of rhetorical content in any type of communication.

1. Introduction The main goal of this paper is to characterize the rhetorical content of a piece of communication as a matter of the perlocutionary effects that it can be expected to produce in its addressees. Besides, following this account, a distinction will be drawn between argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content, as different from argumentative and non-argumentative communication. Thus, in Section 2, I consider a conception of the rhetorical in terms of the way communication is to symbolically influence its addressees, and following this view, some guidelines are provided for a speech-act account of the rhetorical content of a communicative act, in terms of its perlocutionary properties. In Section 3, I characterize argumentation as a certain type of speech-act whose characteristic perlocutionary effect is to invite inferences. Such inferences would constitute the paradigmatic rhetorical content of argumentative communication, according to this proposed conception of rhetorical content. In Section 4, I distinguish two types of rhetorical content: argumentative and non-argumentative, and I point out both that non-argumentative speech-acts may have argumentative rhetorical content and that argumentative speech-acts also doi 10.1075/aic.10.04ber © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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have non-argumentative rhetorical content. Section 5 includes the analysis of two pieces of same-sex marriage discourse in order to illustrate this distinction, whose theoretical consequences are finally analysed in Section 6. Particularly, I underline the fact that argumentative persuasion – i.e., the type of persuasion characteristically prompted by speech-acts of arguing – is usually plagued with rhetorical devices that may have nothing to do with its primary argumentative rhetorical content.

2. Rhetorical content as perlocutionary content Twenty-five centuries after the classical debate in ancient Greece between philosophers and sophists, the definition of Rhetoric and the rhetorical is still a field of controversy. Through its long history, Kinneavy (1971, pp. 212–218) has distinguished at least three conceptions of Rhetoric: an ancient figurist conception as a linguistic technique for embellishing discourse, an Aristotelian conception according to which the rhetorical is essential to public discourse and argumentation, and an Isocratean conception according to which there is a rhetorical dimension to every kind of communication. 1 Despite the use of the term “rhetoric” in everyday language as synonymous of “sophistry” (and, therefore, close to the former conception), in academia authors such as Campbell (1885), Richards (1936), Burke (1950) or Black (1965), among others, have carried out the renaissance and hegemony of the latter view, for which the rhetorical consists in “the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or induce actions in other human agents” (Burke, 1950 [1969, p. 41]). Importantly, this conception of the rhetorical not only acknowledges a rhetorical dimension to every instance of communication, but it also makes such rhetorical dimension central to the explanation to communication itself. However, to date, we still lack both a well-established account of the rhetorical dimension of communication, so understood, and a well-established model for interpreting particular pieces of communication as regards their rhetorical import. Speech-Act Theory could have provided an adequate theoretical framework to bring about both tasks. After all, thinking of the rhetorical dimension of communication as a matter of communication’s ability to influence its addressees invites thinking of the rhetorical in terms of perlocutionary properties. Unfortunately, however, the study of perlocutions has not attained much attention since Austin published his seminal work, How to Do Things with Words (1962). 2 As a c­ onsequence, 1. Depending on the interpretation, the latter conception may also be derived from Aristotle’s. 2. To date, there are only a few references in which we can find something like a theory of perlocutions proper: Cohen (1973), Campbell (1973), Gaines (1979), Davis (1980), Gu (1993), Attardo (1997), Kurzon (1998), Marcu (2000), Liu (2008).



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the relationship between perlocutions and the rhetorical dimension of communication has been scarcely analyzed in a systematic way; and, despite its prima facie plausibility, we do not have a model for the analysis of rhetorical content in terms of perlocutionary acts. 3 How should we interpret a piece of communication in order to get its rhetorical content within the framework of a theory of perlocutions? Actually, can we say that a piece of communication has a rhetorical content of its own, as something different from its actual effects on its addressees? And last but not least, how to demarcate the meaning and the rhetorical content of a piece of communication? All these are important questions that have a bearing on the way we interpret, analyze and evaluate communication in general and argumentation in particular; but, offering a proper answer is beyond the scope of this paper. However, what follows is a tentative first approach to it. To begin with, I think we can intuitively distinguish the meaning of a piece of communication from its rhetorical content by distinguishing two conceptions of addressees: either as interpreters able to recognize speaker’s communicative intentions, or as spectators vulnerable to the effects of communication and able to change their minds accordingly. Of course, the same addressee will normally play both roles in the last resort: after all, it is by understanding the speaker’s words that these words bring about not only an illocutionary meaning, but also a perlocutionary effect. However, the distinction between speaker’s meaning and rhetorical content points at the distance between content as meant, which has traditionally been the object of study of linguistic pragmatics, with its focus on locutions and illocutions, and content as understood, which has traditionally been the object of study of semiotics, discourse analysis, and other hermeneutical disciplines. In principle, what an addressee understands, which results from her ability to be affected by signs and symbols, is a matter of her being adequately responsive to stimuli, including symbolic stimuli. The normativeness implicit in the idea of understanding (and not merely being affected by) a communicative act is, paradoxically, to a great extent, a matter of whether the subject’s response is “normal”: an individual can be said to understand a performance p if and only if her response to p is to be expected. In turn, whether a response is to be expected is something that we learn empirically by observing the actual responses of addressees to communicative acts having similar features. This is why a suitable theory of rhetorical 3. To the best of my knowledge, the only descriptive model that adopts an account of the rhetorical properties of a discourse in terms of its perlocutionary properties is the Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). RST – which is a theory of text organization, not of interpretation – was first presented in Mann & Thompson (1987). Since then, it has gained increasing influence in the fields of computational linguistics, discourse analysis, theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics.

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content should be conceived as an interdisciplinary project, involving empirical insights from psycholinguistics, communication studies, or sociolinguistics, among other empirical disciplines. 4 In principle, the rhetorical analysis of a communicative act – that is, its interpretation as a rhetorical device – should enable us to understand or discover the sort of rhetorical effects that it is to produce in its addressees. But at this point, we must also distinguish between a conception of rhetorical analysis in terms of the rhetorical or perlocutionary intentions of the speaker (that is, the sort of response by the addressee that the speaker would be pursuing with her performance) and a conception of rhetorical analysis understood as an elucidation of its expected perlocutionary effects. Following the mainstream conception of perlocutions (Searle, 1969; Black, 1969; Bach … Harnish, 1979; etc), our proposed conception of rhetorical content will not take into account the rhetorical intentions of the speaker. Thus, in our account, analyzing the rhetorical content of a communicative act will be a matter of considering the way this act is to affect its addressees, whether or not the speaker actually intended such an effect. Remarkably, the possibility of interpreting a communicative act by considering the sort of effects this act is to produce (instead of considering the actual effects produced) enables us to take its rhetorical properties – like its being scary, funny, sad, clear, boring, convincing, etc – as independent, not only of the speaker’s actual intentions, but also of the addressee’s actual reactions: thus, for example, we can make sense of the fact that a joke may be funny even if the addressee, for whatever reason, does not laugh at it. This way, the rhetorical content of a communicative act would be tied to this act because we can make sense of its features as causes that will normally produce certain effects on its addressees. The empirical generalizations that determine such causal relations between the features of a piece of communication and its effects on individuals must be provided by the empirical disciplines that, as pointed out before, should concur to constitute a model for the interpretation of rhetorical content. In my view, this is how we must make sense of Austin’s idea that, contrary to illocutions, there is not a conventional link, but a causal one, between an utterance and its perlocutionary properties. Importantly, understanding the rhetorical content of a communicative act in terms of its perlocutionary properties amounts to acknowledge that the rhetorical dimension of communication exceeds its mere ability to persuade its addressees of what has been said. As Austin already pointed out in characterizing perlocutions (Austin, 1962, p. 110), their effects include emotional and attitudinal responses by

4. See Marcu (2000) for a defense of the role that empirical data should play in a systematic theory of perlocutions.



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addressees. 5 Thus, for example, understanding the perlocution of frightening someone by saying “if I were you, I wouldn’t do it” would not only amount to persuading that person of a claim whose propositional content is that the addressee should not go on with a certain plan, but also to understand that the corresponding attitude of fear would be in order. Consequently, the rhetorical content of a communicative act will include both the propositional content of the beliefs to be induced by this performance and the attitudes that this performance is to cause in its addressee. Let me offer the following example to illustrate this notion of rhetorical content, and a glimpse of what a model for the analysis of rhetorical content, so understood, would look like. Suppose that Chrissy Soprano is driving his car at night. A member of a rival gang is seated in the passenger seat. After an angry discussion Chrissy, pointing to a moor, says to him: “You know, we left Frank here”. Chrissy speaks seriously, with a low-pitcher voice, and looks somber. In this context, we may say that the expected response to Chrissy Soprano’s communicative act would be: BELIEF [Tony left Frank in a moor probably dead] + ATTITUDE: fear (involving belief [I am in danger]) + (inferred) BELIEF [I should do as he wants]. In this proposed account, such would be, roughly, the rhetorical content of Chrissy’s communicative act. Remarkably, this conception of rhetorical content allows for the possibility of acknowledging rhetorical content to non-verbal communication. Moreover, our non-intentional conception of the rhetorical would further imply that there are different types of communicative phenomena that can be analyzed from a rhetorical perspective – including objects that have not been produced with any (specific) rhetorical or communicative intention whatsoever – like, for example, the planning of a city or a wedding ritual. If we take the rhetorical properties of an object or phenomenon to be a matter of its ability to produce certain effects on its addressees, we will have to assume that there are many different things that can be analyzed from a rhetorical perspective. However, not just anything that can produce cognitive effects on us should be considered to have a rhetorical content: an object or phenomenon has a rhetorical content if it can be treated as a symbol, i.e., as something conventionally standing for something else. Thus, in principle, something like a big mountain, a wedding ritual or a bottle rack would lack any rhetorical content of its own. Yet, when such things play a role as symbols, we can interpret them in a way that makes apparent their rhetorical content, i.e., all that content for which they can stand for.

5. See also Campbell (1973, p. 290), who pointed out that “all speech acts produce some effects upon the feelings, thoughts or actions of those involved, some effects in such acts and, therefore, all speech-acts are perlocutions.”

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3. The speech-act of arguing Importantly, however, according to the proposed conception of the rhetorical defended so far, argumentation would be just a particular kind of communication with rhetorical content: after all, the speech-act of arguing is not the only speech-act with perlocutionary properties. Certainly, argumentation is a means to persuade our addressees of our claims and to induce the corresponding attitudes. But there are many types of communication able to induce beliefs and attitudes. For example, simply responding “my name is Alex” when asked our name, or exclaiming “what lovely weather!” on a sunny day, normally is a good means to persuade our interlocutors that that’s our name, or to induce a positive attitude towards the day. Yet, it seems strange to take such bare assertions as argumentation proper. How should we tell the difference between argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content? In order to provide an answer to this question, we must first define argumentation itself. The first characterization of argumentation as a type of speech-act was in van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst’s Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions (1984). However, their theory, Pragma-dialectics, subsequently incorporated an analysis of the rhetorical dimension of argumentation as strategic maneuvering (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2010). On this account, the rhetorical appears because, in argumentative interactions, parties try to reconcile their struggle for effectiveness as regards their goal of winning the argument, and the requirement of maintaining reasonableness. However, because in Pragma-dialectics argumentation is not analyzed in terms of Speech Act Theory, but in terms of the rules that constitute the ideal model of a critical discussion, the rhetorical properties of argumentation, so understood, are not analyzed in terms of the perlocutionary properties of the speech act of arguing. For my part, following van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s insight of thinking of argumentation as a speech-act, in Bermejo-Luque (2011), I proposed a linguistic normative model for argumentation, LNMA, which adopted Bach & Harnish’s (1979) Speech Act Schema in order to characterize argumentation as a second order speech act complex. Particularly, I characterized the illocution of arguing as an illocution composed of the illocution of adducing and the illocution of concluding. In this account, acts of adducing and acts of concluding are constatives – whether directly or indirectly performed, literal or non-literal; but they are second order because they can only be performed by means of first order illocutions. According to this model, a performance of, for example, “I promise I’ll take care, don’t worry” – which, in principle, just involves two first order speech-acts, i.e., a promise and a request – turn into a speech-act complex of arguing by turning into the constative



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speech-act of adducing that the arguer commits herself to take care and the constative speech-act of concluding that the addressee should not worry. 6 As such speech-act, argumentation would involve not only illocutionary properties, but also perlocutionary properties. In Bermejo-Luque (2010), I suggested that the characteristic perlocutionary effect of such speech-acts is triggering what R. Pinto (2011, p. 36) called an “invitation to inference.” For, in putting forward a claim as a reason (e.g. that we commit ourselves to take care), we invite our addressee to believe the reason and the implicit inference-claim that makes of that claim a reason for our target-claim (e.g. that if we commit ourselves to take care, then the addressee shouldn’t worry). The idea is that, in taking both claims at face value, the addressee is brought to infer the target-claim from the reason itself. 7 Following this account, argumentative persuasion would be persuasion prompted by argumentation in this way. The characteristic rhetorical power of argumentation would be a matter of its ability to persuade by inviting inferences in this sense. And such inferences would constitute, paradigmatically, the rhetorical content of a piece of argumentation. Remarkably, in order to invite inferences by arguing we need our addressees to come to believe two claims, namely: the reason that we adduce and the implicit inference-claim that makes of that reason a reason indeed for our target-claim. Obviously, our ability to make our addressees believe these claims cannot depend in turn on the possibility of offering further reasons for them. Otherwise, we would be doomed to an infinite regress of reasons for reasons, for reasons, etc. Consequently, if we do not want to reduce argumentative persuasion to the perlocutionary act of prompting beliefs in our addressees by means of reasons and inference-claims that they already believe (turning argumentative persuasion into mere reminding), we

6. Two first order speech-acts, say R (for reason) and C (for conclusion), become an act of adducing that R and an act of concluding that C because of their relationship to an implicit inference-claim whose propositional content is “if R, then C.” In a few words, it is by attributing to the speaker the implicit inference-claim “if I commit myself to take care, then you should not worry” that we interpret her utterances of “I promise I’ll take care” and “don’t worry”, as a single speech-act – namely, an act of arguing. Normally, the fact that the speaker has used some epistemic modal (like “probably,” “necessarily,” “presumably,” etc.) or an illative expression like “so,” “therefore,” “since,” “consequently,” etc. is what authorizes us to interpret the speaker’s performance as a speech-act of arguing. Very roughly, the idea is that, illocutionarily, acts of arguing, so characterized, count as attempts at showing their target-claims to be correct, that is, as attempts at justifying target-claims. 7. In Bermejo-Luque (2011, Sec. 3.4.3) I explain this process in terms of the production of an act of indirectly judging by the addressee.

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have to admit that there must be means to persuade our addresses of the reasons that we offer for our claims other than giving reasons for these reasons in turn, that is, other than arguing for these reasons.

4. Argumentative and non-argumetative rhetorical content Even though, as pointed out in Section 2, our proposed conception of the rhetorical dimension of communication does not limit itself to the persuasive dimension of communication, the variety of features that determine the rhetorical content of a piece of communication can be classified by recalling Aristotle’s distinction between ethos, pathos and logos. As commonly held, ethotic sources for persuasion are those whose effect is making the addressee trust the speaker – which is indeed a good way of getting the addressee to believe what the speaker says. Accordingly, in our account, ethotic rhetorical devices will be those whose effects on the addressee are dependent on the addressee’s appreciation of the speaker. In turn, pathetic sources for persuasion are those whose effect is making the addressee feel emotions as required by the message conveyed, which is a good way of getting the addressee to adhere to the speaker’s theses. Accordingly, pathetic rhetorical devices will be those whose effects on the addressee are producing attitudes, feelings and beliefs about emotions that (usually) accompany and match the message conveyed. Finally, logistic sources for persuasion are those whose effect is making veracious the message conveyed, which is indeed a good way of getting the addressee to believe so. Accordingly, logistic rhetorical devices will be those whose effect on the addressee is producing beliefs and judgments. Each of these types of rhetorical devices has its corresponding rhetorical contents, which, as pointed out in Section 2, are a matter of the effects that these devices can be expected to produce in the addressee or audience. Remarkably, ethotic and pathetic rhetorical devices will usually bring about attitudinal rhetorical content; and, normally, without recourse to linguistic expressions: the tone of voice, gestures and scenography of the performance may be enough to bring about ethotic and pathetic rhetorical effects, as well as the connotations of certain words. Contrastingly, logistic rhetorical devices require, if not linguistic expressions as such (as bare images can display rhetorical content logistically too), a reference to propositional contents, which would correspond to the beliefs and judgments that these pieces of communication are expected to induce. These three types of devices for bringing about the rhetorical content of a piece of communication usually work together. However, at times, they can conflict with each other. Here is an example of such a conflict:



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González Pons (the opposition spokesman), speaking with a smile of satisfaction in his face: “Zapatero (former Spanish prime minister) is a political disaster who has caused 4,5 millions of unemployment victims”  (for written reproduction of González Pons declarations in http://www.pp.es/actualidad-noticia/nos-gustariaver-blanco-obsesionado-por-sacar-espana-crisis, my translation) 8

As pointed out, the rhetorical content of this piece of communication would involve the propositional content of the beliefs to be induced into González Pons’ addressees as well as the propositional content involved in the attitudinal effects of his performance. Thus, very roughly, we would have: BELIEF (logistic) [The president has caused victims among the people] + ATTITUDE (pathetic): OUTRAGE (involving the belief [the president has caused victims among his people, the president is morally despicable, etc]) + ATTITUDE (ethotic): HAPPINESS (because of the smile on the speaker’s face), involving the belief [things are going well]. Obviously, the main ethotic device of this communicative act – namely, the smile, which would convey the attitude of happiness empathically – conflicts with the logistic and the pathetic elements of his performance – namely, the idea that the president has caused victims, and its corresponding attitude. In principle, the ethotic, pathetic and logistic rhetorical devices of non-argumentative communication – that is, of communication involving speech-acts other than the second order speech-act of arguing – do not bring about inferences by the addressees, but attitudes and plain beliefs and judgments. The propositional content of such beliefs and judgments and of the attitudes involved constitutes its non-argumentative rhetorical content. In turn, as we have seen, the paradigmatic rhetorical content of argumentation is an inference, namely, the inference that the addressee is invited to make, and we can call such inference its argumentative rhetorical content. Nonetheless, as explained in the last section, the ability of argumentation to invite inferences depends on its ability to make believe the reason and the inference-claim. In order to induce such beliefs in the addressee, the speaker may use not only logistic, but also ethotic and pathetic rhetorical devices. For example, if a teenager says to his mother “I promise I’ll take care, so don’t worry”, a good way to make his mother believe that he really commits himself to take care (i.e., to make her believe the reason he is offering) is to make himself look trustworthy – an ethotic rhetorical device. And if he wants to make his mother believe the inference-claim, namely, that if he commits himself to take care, then she should not worry, a good way to get it is to pretend that what he is going to do is easy and little risky (so that just being careful is enough for staying safe), which is something he can do, for 8. Unless otherwise indicated, websites were last accessed on 20 October 2016.

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example, by using gestures or a tone of voice that suggest that worrying in this case is exaggerated, and which can make his mother accept the conditional “if my son commits himself to take care, then there is nothing to worry about” (“because this activity isn’t risky”). By adopting both beliefs, the mother will thereof take the invitation to infer that she should not worry since her son commits himself to take care. In sum, the rhetorical content of argumentative communication does not merely amount to argumentative rhetorical content. As pointed out, it may involve ethotic and pathetic rhetorical devices bringing about attitudes instead of judgments and inferences. Moreover, a piece of argumentation may have rhetorical content that has nothing to do with the inference invited. For example, in certain circumstances, an argument difficult to follow, with many premises and connectives and no examples may have the rhetorical impact of discouraging replies, by conveying a feeling of respect or inferiority involving beliefs about propositional contents such as [I didn’t get to understand/this is such a difficult topic/the speaker is so clever/etc]. In turn, non-argumentative communication may involve argumentative rhetorical content. This happens when a non-argumentative speech-act manages to induce beliefs or judgments that, in turn, play as reasons for non-stated conclusions which, nevertheless, can be said to be part of the rhetorical content of the performance because they are in line with its overall rhetorical content. 9

5. Examples Let me offer the following analyses of actual examples in order to illustrate the distinction between argumentative and non-argumentative rhetorical content of both argumentative and non-argumentative communication. Admittedly, these analyses can only be very rudimentary, as we still lack the empirical generalizations that should grant our proposed interpretation of their rhetorical content. On the website of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) we find the following claim: The Supreme Court’s second ruling seriously impaired the freedom of Californians to advance the truth about marriage. (http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/Faith-and-Justice/6-3/News, my italics)

9. From a linguistic pragmatic point of view, this is something that can be done by conventional and conversational implicatures, by entailment, and even by presupposition. From a logical point of view, this would be a type of enthymeme – namely, an enthymeme whose conclusion is elided.



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In this text, a piece of communication that it is not argumentative per se (it is rather an assertion) happens to have an argumentative rhetorical content: in saying that the Supreme Court is seriously impairing the freedom of Californians, addressees are led to infer that the Supreme Court is behaving in a totalitarian way. ADF’s actual text does not draw such a strong conclusion nor does it involve any attempt at justifying it apart from the quoted claim. No further reason is offered for this conclusion, but the inference is served. Consider now the following paragraph of a longer text by Pablo Hinojosa (2004) in his blog www.psicobytes.com: I am completely in favour of allowing marriage between Catholics. It would be unjust and mistaken to try to forbid it. Catholicism is not a disease. Even though many people do not like Catholics or think they are strange, they are normal people and should have the same rights as the others, just as if they were, for example, computer engineers or homosexual.  (http://www.psicobyte.com/articulo/matrimonio_y_catolicos, my translation)

This is the initial paragraph of a text full of interesting rhetorical properties. Even regarding this excerpt, there is a lot to say about its rhetorical content. However, I will focus on those of its features that are relevant for the distinction I try to illustrate. To begin with, the overall rhetorical content of this text constitutes a scalar argument that pivots on a comparison, namely, the argument: there are just as many reasons to condemn Catholic marriage as there are to condemn same-sex marriage; and we should not condemn Catholic marriage. Therefore, none of them should be condemned. This rhetorical argumentative content is deployed by means of two combined sub-inferences, one for each of its premises, which are also part of its argumentative rhetorical content. On the one hand, there is a sub-inference whose conclusion is “there are just as many reasons to condemn Catholic marriage as there are to condemn same-sex marriage”. This conclusion is served by a non-argumentative speech-act, which is in fact the very reason that Catholics have traditionally adduced to condemn same-sex marriage, namely, that homosexuality is a disease. The mechanism used to convey this conclusion is irony: no one has ever questioned Catholics’ entitlement to marriage; therefore, it must be homosexuals that are the missing term of the comparison. Yet, the arguer insists that it would be unjust and mistaken to prohibit both types of marriage. Therefore, it is not a typical tu quoque, and his “defence” of Catholic marriage increases the ethotic and pathetic virtues of the discourse by being a plea for tolerance. This is the second sub-inference being part of the overall argumentative rhetorical content of the paragraph. In some more detail, its rhetorical analysis would go as follows:

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On the one hand, the text involves a pathetic rhetorical device, namely, suspending “reality” and changing the status quo in order to make it easier for addressees to put themselves in the shoes of homosexual people and reinforce part of the rhetorical content of the text, namely, the inference “there are just as many reasons to condemn Catholic marriage as there are to condemn same-sex marriage; and we should not condemn Catholic marriage. Therefore, none of them should be condemned”. It also involves two ethotic rhetorical devices, namely, the use of irony and humour, and the exhibition of moderation and respect. The author presents himself as being more tolerant and generous towards Catholics than what Catholics are towards homosexual persons. The rhetorical content of both ethotic devices is the propositional content involved in the attitudes of sympathy and tolerance conveyed, which contrast with those hypothetical intolerants that would not admit Catholic marriage. Besides, it involves two logistic rhetorical devices that bring about the argumentative rhetorical content that the fact that some people don’t like gays/lesbians or think that they are strange is not enough to deprive them of the same rights as the rest of the people.

6. Conclusions Through this paper I have tried to show both that acts of arguing may involve non-argumentative rhetorical content and that non-argumentative communication may prompt inferences that constitute its rhetorical content. More specifically, my goal has been to explain this thesis rather than to carry out an empirical research to prove it. In the proposed account of this paper, seeing argumentation as a rhetorical tool is seeing it as a means of inducing inferences of the form “(concluded) target-claim since (adduced) reason.” Such induced inferences would constitute the paradigmatic rhetorical content of acts of arguing. By facing argumentation this way, the addressee is led to infer that things are as stated by the speaker, and in doing so, the addressee is not “interpreting” the act of arguing, in the sense of “recognizing its meaning”, but just “following the argument”, in the sense of “being adequately responsive to its rhetorical properties.” On the other hand, following an argument does not require explicitly recognizing the speaker’s intention of symbolically inducing the corresponding inference, nor does it require recognizing her communicative intention of conveying that the reasons show that the target-claim is correct. Rather, it is a matter of coming to believe the speaker’s reason and her implicit inference-claim and, in this way, coming to infer as invited by the speaker.



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In this paper I have tried to show, though, that not every invitation to inference results from a speech-act of arguing. At times, non-argumentative communication may have argumentative rhetorical content. As we have seen, this happens when the expected rhetorical effect of a performance is to prompt a belief or a judgment that may work as a reason for a conclusion that has not really been said in so many words, and yet abounds in its overall rhetorical content.

References Attardo, S. (1997). Locutionary and Perlocutionary Cooperation: The perlocutionary Cooperative Principle.” Journal of Pragmatics. 27: 753–779.  doi: 10.1016/S0378-2166(96)00063-X Austin, J. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Harvard University Press. Bach, K., & Robert H. (1979). Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. Bermejo-Luque, L. (2010). Intrinsic vs. instrumental value: the rhetorical dimension of argumentation. In Argumentation, 24 (4): 453–474.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-010-9187-2 Bermejo-Luque, L. (2011). Giving Reasons. A linguistic-pragmatic approach to Argumentation Theory. Springer: Dordrecht Black, E. (1965[1978]). Rhetorical Criticism. A Study in Method. Madison, Wisconsin: The Wisconsin University Press. Black, M. (1969). Austin on Performatives. In K. T. Fann (Eds.), Symposium on J. L. Austin (pp. 401–411). London: Routledge. Burke, K. (1950 [1969]). A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press. Campbell, G. (1885). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. New York: Harper & Brothers. Campbell, P. (1973). A rhetorical view of locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 59 (3), 284–296.  doi: 10.1080/00335637309383177 Cohen, T. (1973). Illocutions and Perlocutions. Foundations of Language. 9, 492–503. Davis, S. (1980). Perlocution. In J. Searle, F. Kiefer, & M. Bierwisch, (Eds.), Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics (pp. 37–55). Dordrecht: Reidel.  doi: 10.1007/978-94-009-8964-1_2 Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (1984). Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions. Cinnaminson, USA: Foris.  doi: 10.1515/9783110846089 Eemeren, F. H. van & Houtlosser, P. (2010). Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamin.  doi: 10.1075/aic.2 Gaines, R. N. (1979). Doing by Saying: toward a Theory of Perlocution. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 65, 207–217.  doi: 10.1080/00335637909383471 Gu, Y. (1993). The Impasse of Perlocution. Journal of Pragmatics, 20, 405–432. doi: 10.1016/0378-2166(93)90038-Q Hinojosa, P. (2004). Matrimonio y católicos. Psicofonías. 18/10/2004] http://www.psicobyte.com/ articulo/matrimonio_y_catolicos (original version in Spanish). Kinneavy, J. L. (1971 [1980]). A Theory of Discourse. New York, London: Norton & Company. Kurzon, D. (1998). The Speech Act Status of Incitement: Perlocutionary Acts Revisited. Journal of Pragmatics, 29, 571–596.  doi: 10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00083-0 Liu, F. (2008). The Nature of Perlocution. Journal of Cambridge Studies, 3.1, 25 (2), 29–30.

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Mann, W. C. & Thompson S. A. (1987). Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation. Information Sciences Institute: Marina del Rey. Marcu, D. (2000). The Achilles’ heel of speech act theory. Journal of Pragmatics, 32: 1719–1741. doi: 10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00121-6 Pinto, R. (2011). Argument, Inference and Dialectic: Collected Papers in Informal Logic. Springer: Dordrecht. Richards, I. A. (1936 [1965]). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. New York: Oxford University Press. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Act: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.  doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139173438

Section II

Argumentation practices in political discourse environments

Chapter 4

Questioning the questionable Arguments and counter-arguments in political accountability interviews Cornelia Ilie

Malmö University

The aim of this chapter is to identify and scrutinize the mechanisms of overt and covert argumentation and counter-argumentation that underlie the question-­ answer turn-taking structure in a political accountability interview conducted as part of the BBC HARDtalk programmes. The political accountability interview (Montgomery, 2011) can be regarded as an interviewer-mediated hybrid dialogue genre that combines inquiry dialogue and persuasion dialogue in varying degrees. As an inquiry dialogue it exhibits a question-and-answer pattern of information-seeking and information-sharing, and as a persuasion dialogue it functions as a consistent pursuit on either side to advance argumentation-­supported interpretations and evaluations of targeted facts and events. While an interviewer is normally supposed to assume a neutral and impartial role in questioning the interviewee, there is increasing evidence (Bell & van Leeuven, 1994; Clayman, 2002; Heritage, 2002) that during the interview interaction, both interviewer and interviewee compete to assume control over meaning negotiation about the (re)interpretation and (re)contextualisation of controversial issues under discussion in order to impact the perceptions and beliefs of a multi-­layered and diverse audience. The analytical focus of the present investigation is twofold: on the one hand, the interplay of questions and answers used by the interviewer and the interviewee to articulate argumentative and counter-argumentative claims meant to legitimize or delegitimize the relevance and validity of debated standpoints in an interview about controversial political events (Russian interventions in Ukraine) and related international reactions; on the other hand, the argumentation strategies used by the interviewer and the interviewee to justify or to challenge the relevance and validity of competing definitions and (re)definitions of keywords central to the discussion.

doi 10.1075/aic.10.05ile © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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Introduction Over the last few decades interviews have become a current ingredient of many broadcast programmes, where journalists are expected to display not only verbal performance and stage presence, but also special questioning and dialogic skills. Some of the most salient features of an interview, such as participants’ roles, functions and underlying motivations, are determined by the socio-cultural context, circumstances and institutional setting in which the interview is taking place. One of the most familiar types of interviews is the media interview serving as an essentially dialogic form of interaction consisting of question-answer sequences that are supposed to comply with a number of institution-specific constraints, professional ethics norms and media communication principles (Heritage & Greatbatch, 1991; Bell & van Leeuven, 1994; Clayman & Heritage, 2002a). In media interviews the interviewer and the interviewee can be seen to pursue double agendas: on the one hand, a topic-oriented agenda aimed at carrying out institutional and issue-related goals, and on the other, an audience-oriented agenda aimed at adjusting to and meeting presumed audience expectations. Both interviewer and interviewee are normally aware that they are enacting a dialogue geared towards an overhearing and overlooking audience that is largely anonymous. While the two are talking to each other during the interview, their talk is nevertheless oriented to the audience as ratified overhearers (Goffman, 1981). Actually, when asking questions, the interviewers not only make specific reference to the audience, but they explicitly admit that they are asking questions on behalf of the audience (e.g. “Many of our viewers are wondering …”). Since interviewers can often be seen to engage in purposefully challenging questioning in an attempt to trigger revealing answers from interviewees (e.g. by holding them accountable, eliciting confessions, contesting testimonies), it is important to understand how the design of interviewing techniques and the underlying motivations of questioning practices play out in relation to the interviewees’ answers. Media interviews represent an increasingly researched institutional discourse genre, where varying context-specific discursive instantiations have been shown to reflect and also shape various uses and misuses of journalistic communication practices (Ekström & Patrona, 2011). The aim of this study is to critically examine the strategic and argumentative functions of the question-answer design and keyword (re)definitions in an accountability interview with a high profile political personality on controversial issues already debated in the public domain. The focus of the analysis is one of BBC’s HARDtalk programmes on 19th March 2014, during which BBC journalist Stephen Sackur interviewed Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman of President Vladimir Putin in connection with what most observers perceived as the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and following the



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decision taken by the EU and US leaders to impose sanctions intended to increase international pressure against the Kremlin. In doing this, special attention is paid to the overt and covert argumentative strategies used by the interviewer to elicit the interviewee’s accountability-related admissions, and by the interviewee to challenge and/or counteract the interviewer’s admission-triggering leading questions. The analysis focuses on the shifting borderline between accountable and non-accountable argumentation strategies, on the one hand, and the varying degree of discursive (in)congruence between the interviewer’s questions and the interviewee’s answers, on the other hand. A pragma-rhetorical approach and an argumentation analytical approach will be used to identify the focus, scope and argumentative force of (conventional and unconventional) types of questions used by the interviewer, and the extent to which the interviewee’s answers and comments are relevant or display contesting, evasive or counteracting reactions to questions. Special consideration is given to the questioning practice that interviewers exploit when asking questions in one-on-one political TV-interviews: they invoke third parties in order to give stronger support to their standpoints and they provide evidence to legitimize their (re)interpretation of the relevant keywords under discussion. The study aims to reveal argumentation patterns and strategies that coincide with the various ways of invoking extra parties. It also investigates in what ways and to what extent the borderline between interviewer partiality and impartiality, and between interviewee compliance and non-compliance is being transgressed.

Types of media interviews Modern and post-modern interviewing techniques have gradually acquired a high degree of diversity and complexity. As reported by Boyd, Stewart and Alexander (2008), BBC trainees are usually introduced to three basic types of interviews: (i) the hard exposure interview that investigates a subject; (ii) the informational interview which puts the audience in the picture; (iii) the emotional interview which aims to reveal an interviewee’s state of mind. While these three types provide a rather broad picture of the main orientations of an interview, practitioners learn to handle a wider range of media interviews, the best known of which are the following: hard news interviews (normally short, to the point, illustrating a news item); informational interviews (similar to hard news interviews, but not necessarily restricted to main stories, they can enquire about an event, something that is happening or about to happen); investigative interviews (aim at getting behind the facts to discover what really caused the events and sometimes what could be done to prevent a recurrence); adversarial interviews (whereby the interviewer gets into a war of words with the interviewee to get the questions answered); personal

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interviews (short interviews with an important figure of a society about his/her likes and dislikes, hobbies, pastimes, habits, or a detailed interview exposing personality profile); emotional interview (interviews made to lay bare someone’s feelings by letting the person who was the victim or one of the victims of an accident or event share their personal tragedy with the listeners). For obvious reasons, in real-life interviewing situations there are overlaps between individual types of interviews. From a discourse-analytical perspective, Montgomery (2008) identified four types of interviews: the expert interview (interview with experts); the affiliated interview (interview with journalists); the accountability interview (interviews with public figures such as politicians); the experiential interview (interviews with members of the public whose main communicative entitlement in the context of the news programme is to have had some relevant personal experience). However, as he pointed out, instances of mixed or undefinable cases do arise, as well as instances where an interview begins as one type and shifts into another. Also, the roles of the participants and the impact of their interventions may on occasion acquire new significance and bring about unexpected discursive effects as a result of shifts in discursive practices in the course of an interview. Such mixed types of interviews display particular correlations with mixed types of dialogue (Walton & Krabbe, 1995), e.g. inquiry dialogue, information-seeking dialogue and persuasion dialogue. For the purposes of the present study, the focus is on the argumentation-fostering mechanisms and functions of the accountability interview.

Political interviews as accountability interviews Through in-depth investigation of the field of broadcasting, Montgomery (2011) found that “it is the interview and the discussion that have become dominant ways for staging the encounter with politics, providing genres in which the behaviour and demeanour of politicians, as well as their views and arguments, are staged for scrutiny by the broadcast audience” (2011, p. 34). On Chilton’s (2004) view, the political media interview represents a particular discourse “genre that has come to rival the parliamentary institutions for making politicians accountable.” (2004, p. 69). In his analysis, he views political news interviews as a sub-genre of ‘political discourse’. However, for the present study it is more practical and useful to view such interviews as a sub-genre of the category of ‘news interviews’. There is considerable evidence that in the case of political interviews, the agenda-setting, communicative style and questioning structure of the interviewer-interviewee interaction have been undergoing noticeable changes over time. Increasingly aggressive interviewing practices have become more frequently used in the UK (Elliott & Bull, 1996; Montgomery, 2007; Tolson, 2012; Andone, 2013) and the United



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States (Schegloff, 1988; Clayman, 2002; Heritage, 2002). Moreover, a documented historical trend in the US indicates a declining deference to the President and the rise of a more aggressive posture in presidential press conferences (Burriss, 1989; Clayman & Heritage, 2002b). At the same time, there is growing evidence of similar changes in journalistic practice in other parts of the world, such as the Chinese government press conferences (Sun, 2010). Kampf & Dasksal (2011) shed light on cases of journalistic over-aggressiveness in Israeli political interviews, whereas Patrona (2011) reports blunt transgressions of journalist neutrality in Greek interviewing strategies, which amount to a re-definition of the standards of journalistic practice. Media interviews with political personalities are designed to hold the power elite accountable. They are particularly aimed at scrutinising and challenging high-profile interviewees, at unveiling their status and power relations, at exposing their strengths and weaknesses, at inducing them to publicly spell out their political commitments, as well as (often reluctantly) even personal disclosures. It comes as no surprise that interviewing journalists do exercise greater initiative and behave more assertively and even more aggressively. They are also more enterprising in the design of their questions, which have become more adversarial by raising matters that are problematic and embarrassing for the interviewee. Due to the increasing adversariality of questioning strategies, political interviews have turned into powerful instruments of political accountability. Accountability interviews with top level politicians and other people in positions of power have been the main focus of several research investigations. Thus, Clayman and Heritage (2002b) convincingly illustrate how interviewers manage to assert themselves in an adversarial manner while maintaining a formally impartial or neutralistic position. Interviewers are shown to speak on behalf of a third party introducing contentious views into the interview in the form of ‘third party attributed statements’ for the interviewee to agree or disagree with. Third party statements can be attributed to public figures (e.g. a rival politician), to accredited experts, or to the ‘public at large’. The accountability interview is, according to Montgomery (2007), built on questions designed to seek justifications from the recipient for their statements or lines of action and to challenge them. Unlike other types of interview, the accountability interview invites a different kind of attention from the audience, i.e. by allegedly asking questions on behalf of members of the public at large, it “invites the audience to identify with the interviewer as their spokesperson” (2007, p. 159). Montgomery indicated that prototypical examples of accountability interviews involve politicians being interviewed in relation to a relevant current news event or topic. In such cases there is often a high profile news interviewer whose objective is to call a public figure to account in relation to an issue or event of the moment, either for their own deeds or words, or for the actions and statements of the institution or party with which they are associated: “While

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the interviewer seeks to query the basis of a statement or action, typically the interviewee seeks to justify it.” (2011, p. 35). In his study, Montgomery reports departures from canonical norms of professional journalism in the political accountability interview by means of “attenuated questions, assertions, counter-assertions and micro-arguments”. Actually, it is the straightforward and explicit questions that are the least frequently used in interviewers’ turn-taking slots. Instead, the interviewees’ reactions and responses are typically prompted by third party attributed statements or widely contested views and arguments. While the present investigation confirms several of Montgomery’s report findings, it also reveals some underexplored effects of argumentative and counter-argumentative uses of questions (by interviewers) and answers (by interviewees).

Interview question design and underlying argumentation In institutional encounters such as the interviews, which display a pre-allocated asymmetrical turn-taking system, interpersonal relations and power balance are managed and jointly negotiated through the interplay of question-answer sequences. Obviously, the interviewer’s questioning strategies have an agenda-setting function by identifying a specific topical domain as the relevant and expected domain of response, and by indicating how broad or narrow the response is supposed to be. According to acknowledged conventions of interviewing, a question may be prefaced with one or more contextualizing statements – so-called prefatory statements – often accompanied by a question. These prefatory statements serve to frame the question for the sake of both the interviewee and the overhearing audience. As prefatory statements have become more frequently used and the right to make such statements fully institutionalized, journalists are normally using them to design more aggressive forms of questioning. Prefaced interview questions serve to give interviewers room to maneuver and tailor their line of questioning to suit their own purposes. Whereas straightforward questions start by default from the matters raised in the interviewee’s immediately preceding response, prefaced questions allow interviewers to avoid this constraint, framing a context of their own choosing for the question they are about to put in play. Prefaced questions are meant to confer more power and autonomy on interviewer questioning. An obvious function of prefaced questions, apart from framing the appropriate context for the subsequent question to overhearing audience members, is to provide justification for much more hostile and aggressive questioning strategies. A category of questions closely related to prefaced questions are the leading questions. These questions are questions designed to invite a particular answer that is implicitly suggested by the interviewer and easily inferable by the



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interviewee. Typical leading questions occur in courtroom questioning by means of which defendants and witnesses are induced to provide particular answers. In interviews, leading questions are used whenever the interviewer needs to legitimise the justifiability of his/her questions in order to obtain a higher acceptance by and a stronger impact on the audience. As far as the linguistic question-answer design of interviews is concerned, while the range of question types is relatively limited, the number of questioning strategies is practically endless. A special category of questions, called expository questions, are used to interactively indicate the introduction of, or shift to, a new topic or issue for discussion during question-answer dialogues. As illustrated in Ilie’s study on questioning patterns in talk shows (1999), there are also instances where expository questions are meant to focus on a controversial issue and/or to problematize it. These questions do not necessarily elicit a verbalized response since their function is rather to attract attention and provide preliminary information about the topic to be discussed, as well as to preface an argument. In terms of argumentative orientation, the characteristic functions of expository questions are often argument-eliciting in that they challenge the interlocutor to respond. Depending on the overall situation, the interaction end-goals and the power balance between interviewer and interviewee, questions acquire specific focus and argumentative force. Interviewers are skillful in using the context-dependent complexity and multifunctionality of questions for their own purposes (Ilie, 2015a). Rhetorical questions are a case in point in that they do not function as typical questions that ask for a particular answer or response, but instead they have the illocutionary force of a question and the perlocutionary effect of a statement. In other words, they are meant to be heard as questions and understood as statements (Ilie 1994, 2009a). Moreover, from a pragmatic point of view, rhetorical questions fulfil interactive functions that are shaped by institutional affordances and constraints. When used argumentatively, rhetorical questions cover a wide range of argumentation strategies, representing several categories of arguments: reasoning arguments, emotion triggering arguments, and mixed arguments. A basic distinction between a standard question, i.e. a question that is simply eliciting an informative answer, and a rhetorical question consists in the fact that the addresser of a rhetorical question does not elicit, but rather indirectly provides or points to, available information or knowledge. Performing a cognitive analysis of the effects of rhetorical questions, Petty, Cacioppo and Heesacker (1981) found that, depending on the socio-cultural context and the interlocutors’ psychological backgrounds, rhetorical questions can display varying degrees of argumentativeness, and consequently, of persuasiveness. In a rhetorical question the addresser’s message is normally conveyed through his/her commitment to one particular answer which is implied in the question by excluding all other possible answers.

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The discrepancy between the interrogative form and the assertive function(s) of a rhetorical question is reflected in the contrast between its questioning challenge and the propositional content of its implied answer, which can be seen to advance, reinforce or reject a belief, an assumption or an opinion. In other words, a rhetorical question often displays an argumentative stance in that it conveys the addresser’s attitude to information and evaluation of information, and does not request information unknown to the addresser, as standard questions are expected to do. Pragmatically related to rhetorical questions are echo questions. When reacting to interviewees’ responses, interviewers make use of echo questions to convey an attitude of surprise, disbelief, or challenge, with regard to the interviewee’s response, thus adding an argumentative undertone. More often than not, echo questions do not only repeat an utterance or part of it, requesting a repetition or clarification, but they also convey a particular attitude and/or opinion. In general, echo questions can be perceived as having at least two functions: (a) to elicit a verification and/or confirmation of adequate reception of the message by reformulating or paraphrasing the form and/or content of the echoed utterance, and (b) to convey a challenge and a qualification of the echoed utterance by questioning the previous speaker’s act(s) and intention(s), and by conveying a particular attitude towards them (Ilie, 2009a). This dual nature of echo questions, i.e. as echoic utterances and as questions, has been examined with reference to English echo question by Parker and Pickeral (1985) and by Dumitrescu (1990, 1991) with reference to Romanian and Spanish. Blakemore (1994) provided further evidence that echo questions can be “interpreted as communicating a questioning attitude” related to a preceding utterance (1994, p. 198). By acting as partly questioning and partly challenging, echo questions serve as interactive strategies for controlling the unfolding interaction by indirectly calling into questions the interlocutors’ interventions, as well as for focusing on particular notions and/or issues deemed to express strongly biased attitudes (Ilie 2008, 2015a).

Question-response argumentation While questioning practices involve micro-level interactions between interlocutors, the overall interpersonal processes in which they are embedded occur in a larger socio-cultural context that is interrelated with macro-level structures of communities of practice. This is particularly noticeable in political interviews, where interpersonal relations and power balance are managed to a large extent through question-answer processes. A number of pragmatic factors are correlated with answer adequacy: a display of both the questioner’s and the answerer’s degree of knowledge (state of knowledge and beliefs), the questioner’s and the answerer’s



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identities and roles, the power relation between the questioner and the answerer, the questioner’s explicit or implicit goals, the informative value of the answer and the relevance of the answer to both questioner and answerer. There is a close interdependence between questions and answers with regard to their discursive, interpersonal and rhetorical functions, as well as their context-­ specific argumentative value (Ilie, 1994). To get an adequate understanding of the (overt or covert) argumentation process underlying question-based dialogue genres such as interviews, it is necessary to proceed with a contextualised examination of the interplay between questions and their respective answers or responses. In conversation analysis the question-answer sequence is normally considered to consist of two turns and is referred to as question-answer (Q-A) adjacency pair, whereas in discourse analysis it is referred to as question-answer (Q-A) exchange. However, question-answer sequences often consist of three turns, namely question-answer-­ follow-up (Coulthard & Brazil, 1979), where the follow-up may convey a range of third-turn reactions, e.g. form- or content-related feedback, repetition, implicit evaluation, clarification requests. Research findings on questioning interaction in political interviews (Harris, 1991, 2001) indicate that the three-turn questioning practices are hierarchically structured and controlled by one dominant party, usually the interviewer, since s/he is entitled to an additional turn – follow-up turn – after the respondent’s answer. Particularly in accountability interviews follow-up questions give interviewers the opportunity to assess and comment on the appropriateness of the interviewee’s answer, as well as to shape the line of subsequent questioning according to a specifically chosen agenda. Ilie (2015b) showed how the argumentative force of follow-up questions and subsequent answers can account for (re)shaping institutional relationships and for producing shifts in the balance of power between interacting MPs in the UK Parliament. Within the institutional frame of parliamentary debates, the acts, identity, and multiple roles of MPs are explicitly challenged by means of follow-up questions. Both rhetorical questions and echo questions are used as follow-up questions by interviewers in the course of probing interviews with the purpose of orienting and shifting the discussion agenda, as well as predetermining the focus of subsequent questions. When an interviewee puts forward a controversial point of view, the interviewer is in a position to challenge it in a follow-up question. As a result, the questioning process displays argumentative and counter-argumentative moves, which are expressed through a varying range of claiming, challenging, protesting, justifying, defending, etc. speech acts. Such multifunctional questioning interview practices display recurrent 3-step strategies – question-answer-follow-up – whereby, on the one hand, the pros and cons of topic-related issues are being debated, and, on the other hand, the authority and credibility of the interlocutors (interviewer and interviewees) are being mutually challenged. When, during accountability

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interviews, there are obvious differences of perspectives or interpretations of facts and events between interviewer and interviewee, each of them will seek to provide evidence and arguments to challenge the justifiability and acceptability of the other’s statements and conclusions, so as to trigger the expected audience perception and acceptance of their own political agendas and standpoints. The important role played by questions and argumentation schemes in the critical evaluation of argument validity has been convincingly explained by the founders of the PragmaDialectical theory (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992). Critical questioning is crucial to accountability interviews, which typically deal with problematic issues that have two or more sides. So, irrespective of the position taken by the interviewee, the interviewer is likely to exercise his/her power by playing the devil’s advocate and challenging the interviewee’s position. Although the interviewer and the interviewee are not actually meant to argue with each other, the interviewer often assumes the role of a challenger at the service of the public of large, on behalf of whom s/he is allegedly doing the questioning. At the same time, to ensure minimum standards of journalistic neutrality and to avoid taking personal responsibility, the interviewer is normally expected to avoid making explicit claims or counter-claims when confronting the interviewee with challenging questions. Counter-statements and counter-questions are used by interviewers in follow-ups with the purpose of indirectly calling into question the interviewees’ credibility and accountability. Hence, accountability interviews can display a higher or lower degree of argumentativeness, depending on the determination or aggressiveness with which the interviewer challenges the interviewee’s standpoints, seeking to undermine the latter’s position and claims.

Analytical approach to argumentation in a political accountability interview For the present study a pragma-rhetorical approach has been used as it has the advantage of combining a micro- with a macro-level analysis in order to account for interpersonal argumentative interactions which are embedded in a larger ­socio-cultural and political context pertaining to a particular community of practice. The pragmatic analysis focuses on the uses of language that depend on speakers’ communicative intentions and the strategies that hearers employ to determine what these intentions are (Ilie 2009b, 2015a). An important task of this pragmatic analysis is to examine the shifting aspects of meaning construction and meaning transfer in actual question-answer argumentation by paying particular attention to the interpretation of context-sensitive multifunctional utterances and keyword conceptualisations and counter-conceptualisations (Koselleck, 2002). In order to make proper use of the pragmatic analysis, a systematic examination of context-specific



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rhetorical mechanisms of strategic maneuvering has been incorporated. With regard to strategic maneuvering, Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (1999, 2006) and Van Eemeren (2010) pointed out that in each of the stages of a critical discussion there is a rhetorical goal that corresponds to the dialectical goal and that interlocutors can make use of three analytical aspects to balance effectiveness and reasonableness: making a pertinent selection from the topical potential available at the stage concerned, approaching the audience effectively, and carefully exploiting presentational means. These three aspects correspond to three focal points that are benchmarking the rhetorical analysis – topics, audience adaptation and presentational devices – as will be shown in the present analysis. Accountability interviews with politicians have become a recurring ingredient in news broadcasts, because they are considered the easiest and most direct way for journalists to get comments or opinions from politicians about current issues (Clayman & Heritage, 2002a, p. 1). Every politician worth that title has given or will give countless interviews in his or her career, in order to defend their political stance or stand up to criticism. At the same time, politicians are aware that an interview can upgrade or downgrade their image, depending on their performance during the interviewing process as perceived by the audience. Since a lot is at stake for the interviewed politicians, certain journalists have become famous for adopting a very personal and inquisitive, even aggressive, interviewing style.

The argumentative interplay of questions and answers in Stephen Sackur’s interview with Dmitri Peskov The present analysis is a case study based on the BBC HARDtalk programme broadcast on 19th March 2014, during which Stephen Sackur interviewed Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman of President Vladimir Putin, after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and following the subsequent decision taken by the EU and US leaders to impose sanctions intended to increase international pressure against the Kremlin. On the BBC website this type of interview is described as “the result of detailed research and in-depth investigations”. The style often adopted by these interviewers is generally perceived as forthright and abrasive, especially when interrogating well-known politicians. This is particularly true of senior journalist Stephen Sackur, a long-standing HARDtalk interviewer. He regards his type of interview as a “one-on-one” dialogue that enables him “to quiz the men and women who shape our world” by means of “challenging questions” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/ journalism/skills/interviewing). Concerning his own interviewing technique, Sackur points to the importance of “getting the first question right”, which “requires thought and planning – a strategy”. According to him, the first question “sets the tone of the

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conversation, flags up what’s important, puts the guest under certain pressure, and may reveal something telling in the opening minute”. However, he admits that this may not be the best approach to every interview. Since interviewers like Sackur can be seen to engage in purposefully challenging questioning in an attempt to trigger revealing answers from interviewees (e.g. holding them accountable, eliciting confessions, contesting testimonies), it is important to scrutinize the functioning of their distinctive interviewing styles in order to better understand their questioning practices and the effect they have on the outcome of the interview. As an interview programme host, Sackur’s institutional role consists in establishing the topic(s) and asking the questions, but more importantly, deciding if and when a question has been answered in an acceptable or satisfactory way. Since an acknowledged goal of BBC’s HARDtalk interviews is to ask challenging questions about current controversial issues, a set of editorial value-based guidelines have been adopted as part of BBC policy and practices. One of the BBC declared core values is impartiality, to which a significant qualifier – “due” – is applied when describing the established journalistic practice according to which controversial subjects are treated with due impartiality. The distinction between “impartiality” and “due impartiality” is explained on BBC’s website as follows: The term ‘due’ means that the impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation and any signposting that may influence that expectation. […] Due impartiality is often more than a simple matter of ‘balance’ between opposing viewpoints. Equally, it does not require absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from fundamental democratic principles. http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/impartiality (last accessed on 25th June, 2016)

The above distinction corresponds roughly to the distinction discussed by Greatbatch (1998) and Clayman and Heritage (2002a) between ‘neutralism’ and ‘neutrality’. As they explain, there is no absolute neutrality, in the sense that the selection of topics and contexts is not neutral, and the formulation of questions is bound to induce specific answer expectations. As a result, the interviewer’s questions are supposed to comply with due impartiality (and not absolute impartiality) or neutralism (and not neutrality), and consequently are open to a range of perceptions and interpretations, being often perceived as exhibiting a higher or lower degree of argumentativeness. Sackur’s questions are no exception in this respect. Following the usual ritual of his programme, Sackur starts the interview with a brief and focused introductory presentation of the topic to be discussed and of the invited guest, as displayed in Excerpt (1), where the salient parts of the text have been underlined:





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(1) Sackur: A small chunk of European territory is annexed by a mighty neighboring power. It sounds like a chapter form twentieth century history, but it’s a story unfolding right now in Crimea. Vladmir Putin has ignored the dark warnings from the west and vested Crimea from Ukraine with ruthless efficiency. What now? My guest is Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. Is Russia ready for this crisis to intensify?

In these few introductory sentences, Sackur sets the scene for the probing questions to follow by conveying – with ‘due impartiality’ – his/BBC’s perspective on the events under scrutiny. He starts with strongly critical formulations about the aggression perpetrated against Ukraine, “a small chunk of European territory”, by Russia, “a mighty neighboring power”. When referring to Ukraine as “European territory”, he emphasizes the geo-political magnitude of the Russian intervention in Ukraine, regarded as part of Europe. The use of the verb “to annex” (see in-depth analysis in the next section) to characterise Russia’s aggression is meant to articulate the opening argument that imposes the agenda of the subsequent line of questioning. As is customary in this type of interview, this introductory presentation is immediately followed by one or two expository questions, whose role is not to elicit a direct answer, but to address the challenge and to underscore the controversial nature of the discussion topic. “What now?” is an expository question conveyed by an open-ended interrogative that serves to mark both the urgency of the issue and a sense of unpredictability. The second expository question – “Is Russia ready for this crisis to intensify?” – is explicitly challenging as it points to Russia as exclusively responsible for the crisis in Ukraine. At the same time its underlying message is argumentative in that it carries the presupposition of serious consequences facing Russia in the aftermath of its aggression against Ukraine. The question is framed as an argument-prefacing question meant to trigger expectations of subsequent confrontational questioning about Russia’s accountability. This is consistent with Ilie’s (1999) findings, according to which expository questions are used to focus on a controversial issue and to problematize it, by combining two functions, namely argument-prefacing and argument-eliciting. Immediately afterwards, true to his mission statement, Sackur starts off the interview proper with a compelling statement describing the situation in Moscow after the annexation, which is followed by the first question of this interview directly addressed to Peskov, as illustrated in the question-answer sequence below:

(2) Sackur: In the last few hours we have seen a lot of flag waving and triumphalism in Moscow marking the annexation of Crimea. Is that what you are really feeling right now, a sense of triumph?

Peskov: A sense of triumph, it’s an extremely emotional day here in Moscow and the entire Russia and in Crimea also. I wouldn’t actually call it “annexation”. It’s not annexation. I would rather prefer a word like “Crimea joining the Russian Federation”.

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Sackur: Yes, it’s not necessarily for you to choose the word that will be used around the world, other words are used by other people. In Europe as a sense of foreboding, I think summed up by the Polish foreign minister Mr. Sikorski, who he refers to this as “Russia’s Anschluss moment”, clearly reviving the history of Nazism and what they did in the 1930s. Peskov: Well, I don’t think that 90 – uh – 93% of population of Crimea will join the opinion of Polish Foreign Minister and also more than 90% of the population of the Russian Federation will uh – definitely disagree with him and then definitely it’s not a proper comparison, especially for the Polish Foreign Minister. Sackur: It is, though, based upon Russia’s military’s intervention, is it not? and the referendum that you regard as expressing the wish of the Crimean people, was conducted under the barrels of Russian guns. Peskov: No, not at all, not at all. We are not speaking about Russian intervention. President Putin has applied for Russian Parliament in order to get the right in front of the, the … the take-over in Kiev, in front of the endangered Crimean people, … he asked for the right to use military in solving … the conflict. And this right was granted to the head of state, but he never used that right actually [because …]

Sackur’s first interview question (“Is that what you are really feeling right now, a sense of triumph?”) is designed as a yes-no question that restricts the interviewee’s choice to two answers: ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Moreover, it is intended here as a leading question, which further constrains the interviewee to one of these answers, implicitly suggested by the interviewer. Its constraining effect is so much stronger due to the interviewer’s argumentatively framed statement that precedes the question: “In the last few hours we have seen a lot of flag waving and triumphalism in Moscow marking the annexation of Crimea.” This statement skillfully highlights the strikingly dramatic contrast between the indignation and the despondency experienced by Ukrainians after the annexation of Crimea and the ’triumphalism’ of Russians for whom the same event is a reason for celebration. Peskov is quick to confirm that it was “an extremely emotional day”, but he forcefully refutes Sackur’s claim that the triumphalism in Moscow marks “the annexation of Crimea” and promptly makes a counter-claim: “I would rather prefer a word like ‘Crimea joining the Russian Federation’”. The stark contrast between these two characterizations of the same event reveals an irreconcilable opposition between Sackur’s and Peskov’s evaluation of the same political event, a Disputable event according to Labov and Fanshel (1977). This contrast is reinforced by the juxtaposition of two distinct rhetorical appeals, i.e. the appeal to logos through reference to the widely condemned “annexation of Crimea” as a violation of Ukraine’s national sovereignty and territorial



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integrity, and the appeal to pathos through reference to the strongly felt emotional “sense of triumph” by Russians in Moscow over the annexation of Crimea. In order to make an assessment of the relevance of shared information between interlocutors in terms of event-related experiences, Labov and Fanshel (1977) classified the events about which statements are made in terms of the interlocutors’ knowledge. According to their framework, an A-event refers to a communicative event known to A (= speaker), but not to B (= hearer). For example, an A-event would typically be autobiographical: “I met a famous philosopher at last week’s conference.” B-events refer to events known to B, but not to A, and so they typically lend themselves to information-seeking questioning, which usually occurs in informational and investigative interviews. An AB event is an event considered to be known to both the speaker and the hearer, although there may be differences in information perception and interpretation. On Labov and Fanshel’s view, “if there is any doubt about the status of a particular event, it automatically falls into the class of D(isputable) events” (1977, p. 100). Not surprisingly, it is precisely such D-events that are the focus of questioning in accountability interviews like the one conducted by Sackur in the present case study. Applying Labov and Fanshel’s event categorization enables us to realise that the interviewer starts with a B-event-related question – about emotional moments – (i.e. an event known exclusively to the respondent) which is embedded in an introductory statement about an apparently AB-event – described as the “annexation of Crimea by Russia”, but which proves to be a D-event in the ensuing dialogue. Actually, Excerpt (2) displays an explicitly articulated instance of metadiscursive dispute about the appropriate way of describing and defining a highly contested political D-event. The interviewer’s account-eliciting statement asserting that the triumphalism in Moscow was marking “the annexation of Crimea” is categorically refuted by the interviewee in a counter-statement “I would rather prefer a word like ‘Crimea joining the Russian Federation’.” At this point it becomes obvious that the question – answer structure of the interview has shifted towards a statement – ­counter-statement structure, which entails argumentative and counter-­ argumentative moves, followed by subsequent moves of position justification. Such a discursive shift also involves a transition from one type of dialogue to another (Walton, 2005). In this particular case, there is a discursive shift from an information-seeking dialogue (typical of informational and experiential interviews) to a hybrid dialogue that combines an inquiry dialogue and a persuasion dialogue (both typical of accountability interviews). According to Walton (2005, p. 61), in a persuasion dialogue, a major goal is to resolve or clarify an issue (and eventually to persuade the other party), while in an inquiry dialogue the goal is to find and verify evidence (and eventually to prove or disprove a hypothesis). As a result of such discursive shifts, the accountability interview, like the one under discussion, acquires the characteristics of a hybrid type of political interview (Lauerbach, 2004).

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It is important to take into consideration that, based on their different standpoints, Sackur and Peskov are addressing two different audiences: while Sackur’s discourse is targeting a rather international audience of Westerners, Central and East Europeans, Peskov is primarily addressing a Russian and Russia-supportive audience. This difference becomes a major source of divergence between their respective argumentative stances. While they both agree about the obvious fact that Russians in Moscow feel a sense of triumph, they clearly disagree about the argument by cause, i.e. the understanding of the nature of the event that caused it, as illustrated below: Interlocutors

Effect

Cause

Interviewer Sackur

There is a sense of triumph in Moscow.

Interviewee Peskov

There is a sense of triumph in Moscow.

If there is a sense of triumph in Moscow … it is the effect brought about by Russia’s annexation of Crimea. If there is a sense of triumph in Moscow … it is the effect brought about by Crimea’s joining the Russian Federation.

It is not the effect, but the cause of the jubilation in Moscow that accounts for the interviewer’s and interviewee’s competing definitions of the event under discussion. Since Sackur is conducting an accountability interview, in the next turn he goes on to challenge the counter-definition proposed by Peskov (“Crimea joining the Russian Federation”) not by addressing a direct question, but by first pointing out that the latter’s definition is not shared by a majority of people and international observers. Afterwards he resorts to the rhetorical strategy of third party attribution, whereby he quotes an authoritative third party – Sikorski, the then Polish foreign minister – as the source of a powerful historical analogy to the annexation of Crimea, namely “Russia’s Anschluss moment”. Sikorski had purposefully made use of the German term “Anschluss” to convey the analogy with the invasion and forced incorporation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938 and thereby to activate the collective memory of a very large European and international audience. Quoting the analogy made by the Polish foreign minister serves as an ad verecundiam argument (also called ‘argument from authority’): in this case the argument is greatly reinforced by attributing the analogy to a highly respected and trusted politician whose standpoint is treated as shared by a wide international audience and who is also regarded as an expert authority in the matter under discussion (Walton, 2010). This ad verecundiam argument advanced by Sackur in his follow-up prompts the interviewee to respond with a challenging counter-argument: Well, I don’t think that 90 – uh – 93% of population of Crimea will join the opinion of Polish Foreign Minister and also more than 90% of the population of the Russian Federation will uh – definitely disagree with him […].



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Peskov openly contests the wide acceptability of the Polish Foreign Minister’s evaluative statement and challenges it in a counter-claim supported by an ad populum argument (also called appeal to the people or popular opinion), which starts from the assumption that large numbers of persons are more likely to be right than one given individual (Walton, 2005). Since it relies on the appeal to numbers, this type of argument can also take the form of an argumentum ad numerum, which makes the claim that the larger the number of persons who believe a claim, the stronger the supporting evidence is for the truth of the proponent’s allegation. However, as has often been noticed, such an argument can be fallacious on two accounts: first, the number of people supporting a standpoint is not necessarily relevant evidence for the truthfulness or validity of a particular claim; second, it is imperative to d ­ ouble-check the authenticity of the source of the invoked numbers, which may sometimes get falsified for manipulative purposes. This applies particularly to unverified, or unverifiable, statistical reports disseminated by unreliable news agencies. In a personal communication, the Russian researcher Natalia Yavetskaya provided a revealing piece of information: while the official Crimean election results showed a 97% vote for the annexation with a turnout of 83% of the total Crimean population voting in favour (reported in Washington Post), according to Forbes, there was at the same time a report about the March referendum to annex Crimea on the website of the President of Russia’s Human Rights Council that was quickly removed. This report showed a 55% vote for the annexation with a turnout of 40%, and only 22.5% of the total Crimean population voting in favour. A lot of skepticism still remains about the reliability of the referendum and its alleged results, which is further reinforced by Peskov’s hesitation between the two figures, 90% and 93%. Following Peskov’s counter-claim, Sackur continues to challenge him by reformulating his request as a tag question with a negative polarity (“is it not?”): “It is, though, based upon Russia’s military’s intervention, is it not?” The tag question does not only express a questioning stance, but it also constrains the interviewee into admitting an underlying presupposition, since it “makes explicit an implicated conclusion” (Maruenda-Bataller, 2002, p. 78). This is in line with Heritage’s (2002) claim that hostile questions formatted as negatively polarised tag questions are heard to overstep the boundaries of questioning and embody a position or take a stance rather than to simply ask for information. He found that interviewers resort to negative tag questions as a well-established strategy to avoid being accused of making assertions rather than asking questions. Peskov is further challenged by the interviewer’s directly accusatory statement about Russia’s accountability: “the referendum that you regard as expressing the wish of the Crimean people, was conducted under the barrels of Russian guns.” In his answer, formulated as a counter-statement, Peskov categorically refutes Sackur’s use of the keyword “Russian intervention” by means of a categorical denial:

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“We are not speaking about Russian intervention”. He also challenges the concept of “Ukrainian government” and refers to the government in Kiev by means of a deliberately downgrading counter-concept, i.e., “the take-over in Kiev”. In doing that, Peskov counteracts the evidence provided by the interviewer in an attempt to delegitimize the Crimean government and at the same time to legitimize the Russian intervention in Crimea. This proves once more that the argumentation and counter-argumentation that underlie the question-answer interplay in this interview is not simply about proposing or rejecting the (re)definition of keywords, but rather about arguing for or against the (in)appropriateness of their use, which will be discussed in the next section.

Argumentation through key words: Annexation of Crimea vs. Crimea joining the Russian Federation A particularly effective argumentation strategy in adversarial dialogue consists in initiating, or provoking, a discussion about the use or misuse of so-called controversial keywords (Ilie 2009b, 2009c), i.e. the specific concepts and conceptualization processes around which most of the interaction revolves. Versions of this strategy are widely used in argumentation-oriented dialogues, where a special case, as noted by Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (1999), is represented by “humptydumptying”, i.e. the attempt of one party in the debate to describe or refer to the debated issue in his/her own way, much like the way in which Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty insists on arbitrarily deciding, and imposing, the meaning of the words during a verbal interaction. As has been pointed put by Skinner (1999), the concepts we use form part of what we bring to the world in our efforts to understand it, and consequently they should be treated less as statements about the world than as tools and weapons of debate. Since keywords are powerful argumentation tools, Sackur’s and Peskov’s respective choice of words to describe the events under discussion reveals their divergent, and often irreconcilable, perceptions and evaluations of events. Controversial aspects of historically and politically significant definitions of keywords, such as “annexation”, “military intervention”, and “invasion” become obvious issues of public debate in moments of political crisis, as is obviously the case in the Ukraine crisis. Stephen Sackur uses his interviewing know-how to strike a balance between asking questions and making challenging statements so as to induce the interviewee into providing personal clarifications, explanations, or justifications of his standpoints. His interviewing technique consists in explicitly and insistently seeking to prompt self-reflective comments from the interviewee by focusing on the actual accounts and claims made in the latter’s responses. For a better understanding of



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the wider scope and deeper implications of the argumentative force underlying Sackur’s keyword “annexation of Crimea” and Peskov’s counter-keyword “Crimea joining the Russian Federation”, respectively, it is necessary to go beyond basic facts about word meaning and frequency, examining their argumentative force through collocations and interconnectedness with other words, as well as through the rhetorical conceptualisation process related to their interaction as thematic roles. Thematic roles (Fillmore, 1968; Carlson, 1984; Parsons, 1995) refer basically to who (Agent) is doing what (acting, moving, affecting) to whom (Patient) where (Location) why (Cause, Purpose) and by what means (Instrument). The way a speaker assigns such roles is an indication of a particular perception and representation of facts, events, etc. and of claims concerning causation, agency and responsibility. At the pragma-semantic level of linguistic interpretation, a thematic role designates a particular participant in an event and it thereby accounts for his/her relationship with the other participants in the same event. According to typological studies of roles, Agent and Patient are generally considered to be the two most basic and prototypical thematic roles. They can also mark the distinction between transitive and intransitive sentences, since in their active form transitive sentences always involve both an Agent, i.e. the willful instigator of an event or action, and a Patient, i.e. the affected participant. Thus, in Example (3) below, “the policemen” fullfils the role of Agent, and “the protesters” the role of Patient, irrespective of whether the sentence is formulated in the active or the passive voice. ACTIVE VOICE AGENT

PATIENT (–consenting)

The policemen arrested several protesters.

PASSIVE VOICE Several protesters were arrested by the policemen. PATIENT

AGENT

The arrest of several protesters by the policemen. PATIENT

NOMINALISATION

AGENT

Figure 1.  The relationship between AGENT and PATIENT remains asymmetrical across grammatical structures.

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As can be seen in Figure 1, by comparing the three formulations above, the two roles (Agent and Patient) remain the same in each of the three cases, irrespective of the syntactical construction that is being used, i.e. active voice, passive voice, or nominalisation. In other words, since they reflect real-life roles, the functions of thematic roles are irreversible, which is why thematic role reversals like the following become invalid: *Several protesters arrested the policemen. *The police was arrested by several protesters. The relationship between the two categories of interactants is asymmetrical in the sense that the protesters have no institutional status and no legal entitlement ‘to arrest’ the policemen. Hence the protesters cannot felicitously assume the role of Agent in relation to the policemen, just as the police, who are the ones holding the position of power, have institutional legitimacy in relation to the institutionally powerless Patients (= protesters). Actually, the action denoted by the verb “to arrest”, as defined in dictionaries (see below), presupposes precisely that the powerful Agent is not simply exercising power, but is entitled by authority of law to exercise that power. Moreover, it also presupposes that the Agent performs an action that directly affects the Patient (e.g. deprives the Patient of liberty), without having the latter’s consent. Merriam-Webster Dictionary online http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrest To arrest (verb) =  

to take or keep control over (someone) by authority of law Example: ‘She was arrested on suspicion of robbery.’

Collins English Dictionary online http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/arrest To arrest (verb) =

to deprive (a person) of liberty by taking him into custody, esp under lawful authority

Oxford Dictionaries online http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/arrest To arrest (verb) =  

to seize (someone) by legal authority and take them into custody Example: ‘The police arrested him for possession of marijuana’.

By way of comparison, let us now examine the correlation between the thematic roles of Agent and Patient and take a closer look at the interplay between Sackur’s keyword conceptualisation (“annexation of Crimea”) and Peskov’s keyword counter-conceptualisation (“Crimea joining the Russian Federation”). The nominal phrase “annexation of Crimea” is derived from the verb “to annex”, which is defined as follows:



Chapter 4.  Questioning the questionable 93

Cambridge Dictionaries online http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/annex To annex (verb) = to take possession of an area of land or a country, usually by force or without permission   Example: ‘The UK annexed this small island West of Scotland in 1955.’ Oxford Dictionaries online http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/annexation Annexation (n) =  

the action of annexing something, especially territory Example: ‘the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938’

As illustrated in the dictionary definitions above, the verb “to annex” indicates an action carried out by an initiating AGENT by force (by taking possession of an area of land or a country) and without the consent or permission of the PATIENT. The nominalization “annexation”, used by Sackur, reflects precisely this negative connotation, particularly because the term, as was pointed out by several world leaders, brings forth a strong analogy with Nazi actions during World War II. ACTIVE VOICE AGENT (+consenting)

PATIENT (–consenting)

Russia annexed Crimea.

NOMINALISATION Annexation of Crimea (by Russia) PATIENT AGENT (–consenting) (+consenting)

Figure 2.  International observers: Crimea’s (PATIENT) annexation by Russia (AGENT) displays an asymmetrical relationship.

In his counter-statement, Peskov refutes the use of the negatively connoted keyword “annexation of Crimea” and proposes instead a positive and Russia-friendly counter-keyword – “Crimea joining the Russian Federation”, which derives from the verb “to join” (= to voluntarily merge with, to get associated with, to become a part of), which is lexicographically defined as follows: Merriam-Webster Dictionary online http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/join To join (verb) =

to come into close association or relationship

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Macmillan Dictionary online http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/join_1 To join (verb) =  

to become a member of an organization, club, etc. e.g. ‘countries that would like to join the EU’

The pragma-semantic differences between the two verbs involve wider discrepancies at the discourse level. Unlike the verb “to annex”, the verb “to join” is used to indicate an action carried out by a supposedly consenting AGENT (= Crimea) with the purpose of merging with a larger and equally consenting AGENT (= Russia), which can duly be regarded as a CO-AGENT, since the verb presupposes its involvement in the decision and performance of the denoted action. Hence, Peskov’s use of the proposed counter-keyword conveys an entirely different event evaluation, which assumes that Crimea’s new political situation was brought about by mutual consent. It thereby confers a positive connotation on the whole event mainly because it shifts the role of the initiating AGENT from Russia to Crimea, thus treating the latter as a consenting AGENT (and no longer as a PATIENT), as illustrated in Figure 3: AGENT (+consenting)

CO-AGENT (+consenting)

ACTIVE VOICE

Crimea joined the Russian Federation GERUND Crimea joining the Russian Federation

Figure 3.  Peskov: Crimea (CO-AGENT) joining the Russian Federation (AGENT) displays a symmetrical relationship.

According to Peskov, the presumed action of ‘joining’ allegedly initiated and performed by Crimea – as a ‘consenting AGENT’ – is meant to counteract the widely shared interpretation by the international public and professional observers, and echoed by Sackur. Peskov is consistently trying to persuade the (international and multi-layered) audience about Crimea’s willful and consensual decision to merge with Russia, i.e. by joining the Russian Federation. In his counter-argumentative evaluation of events, Crimea is described as assuming an opposite role to the one it actually held in reality and that was reported on by independent European and other Western news agencies providing factual evidence about Crimea being deliberately treated as a PATIENT by Russia, the aggressively invading foreign power. Unlike Sackur, who provides verifiable evidence for the claims he puts forward in his accountability-eliciting statements, Peskov challenges Sackur with unverifiable counter-claims, including fallacious arguments like the argumentum ad numerum



Chapter 4.  Questioning the questionable 95

discussed above. In this way, Peskov himself contributes to undermining the credibility of his justificatory allegations and his version of the D-event under scrutiny. Consequently, the more commitments he makes by providing unverifiable arguments, the more he has to be held accountable for.

Concluding remarks The aim of this chapter has been to critically examine the strategic uses and argumentative functions of the question-answer design and keyword (re)definitions in a political accountability interview conducted as part of the BBC HARDtalk programmes with a high profile political personality. The investigation has focused on the mechanisms of overt and covert argumentation and counter-argumentation that underlie the question-answer turn-taking structure in an interview conducted by BBC journalist Stephen Sackur with Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman of President Vladimir Putin in connection with the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. An in-depth examination of the interview structure has confirmed earlier scholarly work according to which the political accountability interview belongs to a hybrid mediated dialogue genre that combines inquiry dialogue and persuasion dialogue in varying degrees. As an inquiry dialogue it exhibits a question-and-answer pattern of information-seeking and information-sharing, and as a persuasion dialogue it functions as a consistent pursuit on either side to advance argumentation-supported interpretations and evaluations of targeted facts and events. Since the interviewer and the interviewee do not seem to share many common assumptions about the issues under discussion, they can be seen to tailor their argumentative standpoints for different audiences, namely audiences that share their respective assumptions and interpretations of events. A central political controversy extensively discussed in the interview is the clash between two irreconcilable standpoints regarding a D-event conveyed by two different keywords, namely between what the Western public and professional observers have identified and defined as the “annexation of Crimea” by the Russian Federation, and what the interviewee chose to define as “Crimea joining the Russian Federation”. Challenged by the interviewer’s directly or indirectly accusatory statements about Russia’s accountability for the annexation of Crimea, the interviewee responds with counter-claims meant to delegitimize the standpoint advanced by the interviewer who exposes Russia’s aggression in Crimea, and at the same time to legitimize the Russian intervention in Crimea. The findings show that the strategies of argumentation and counter-­ argumentation that underlie the question-answer interplay in this interview is not simply about proposing or rejecting the (re)definition of keywords, but rather about arguing for or against the (in)appropriateness of their use.

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Montgomery, M. (2008). The discourse of broadcast news: A typology. Journalism Studies 9(2): 260–277.  doi: 10.1080/14616700701848303 Montgomery, M. (2011). The accountability interview, politics and change in UK public service broadcasting. In Ekström and Patrona (Eds.) Talking Politics in Broadcast Media (pp. 33–55). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/dapsac.42.06mon Parker, F., & Pickeral J. (1985). Echo questions in English. American Speech, 60 (4): 337–347. doi: 10.2307/454911 Parsons, T. (1995). Thematic relations and arguments. Linguistic Inquiry, 26: 635–62. Patrona, M. (2011). Neutralism revisited: When journalists set new rules in political news discourse. In M. Ekström and M. Patrona (Eds.). Talking Politics in the Broadcast Media: Crosscultural Perspectives on Political Interviewing, Journalism and Accountability (pp. 157–176). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/dapsac.42.13pat Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Heesacker, M. (1981). Effects of rhetorical questions on persuasion: A cognitive response analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40: 432–440.  doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.40.3.432 Schegloff, E. (1988). From interview to confrontation: observations of the Bush/Rather encounter. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 22: 1–4: 215–240.  doi: 10.1080/08351818809389304 Skinner, Q. (1999). Rhetoric and conceptual change. Finnish Yearbook of Political Thought, 3: 60–73. Sun, T. (2010). Adversarial questioning and answering strategies in Chinese government press conferences. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics, 8(2): 131–162. Tolson, A. (2012). ‘You’ll need a miracle to win this election’ (J. Paxman 2005): Interviewer assertiveness in UK general elections 1983–2010. Discourse, Context & Media, 1: 45–53. doi: 10.1016/j.dcm.2012.05.003 Walton, D. (2005). How to evaluate argumentation using schemes, diagrams, critical questions and dialogues. Studies in Communication Sciences, Special Issue, 51–74. Walton, D. (2010). Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press. Walton, D., & Krabbe, E. C. W. (1995). Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Chapter 5

Reason and passion in political rhetoric The case of Louise Michel’s (1830–1905) revolutionary discourse Manfred Kienpointner

University of Innsbruck, Austria

The central question, which I wish to answer with the help of the following case study in political rhetoric, can be formulated as follows: Can Louise Michel’s revolutionary rhetoric successfully combine reason (logos), character (ethos) and passion (pathos)? Michel’s revolutionary rhetoric is part of a long tradition of outstanding written and/or spoken freedom discourse. Moreover, it is an example of how an individual speaker adapts to and/or modifies existing preconditions and conventions within the genres of deliberation (communicative activity types within this genre: e.g. political speech, political essay, plenary debate) and adjudication (communicative activity types within this genre: e.g. court proceedings, arbitration; cf. van Eemeren, 2010, p. 143). In order to explore the general historical background of Michel’s speech, I first briefly summarize the philosophical discussion of the concept of „freedom“. After that, the central question will be tentatively answered on the basis of the classical Aristotelian trichotomy of logos, ethos and pathos. Louise Michel has been praised for her extraordinary courage, altruistic attitude and relentless energy. So there is no doubt that her ethos had a considerable impact on her rhetorical success. She was also highly efficient as far as the arousal of strong emotions in her audience is concerned (pathos). Less attention has been paid to Michel’s anarchist arguments (logos) and their verbal presentation. In this paper, some of the most important arguments to be found in her political speeches and articles will be analysed and critically evaluated. Moreover, Michel’s verbal presentation techniques will be described. Apart from the Aristotelian concepts of logos, ethos and pathos, Critical Discourse Analysis (cf. Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012) and Pragma-Dialectics, especially van Eemeren’s (2010, p. 40) elaboration of the concept of “strategic maneuvering” and its adaptation to the context of political rhetoric (cf. van Eemeren & Garssen, 2012), will be taken as a theoretical starting point. I conclude that Michel only partially succeeds in combining rhetorical efficiency with standards of rational argumentation. All in all, however, her political discourse has to be taken seriously. doi 10.1075/aic.10.06kie © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

100 Manfred Kienpointner



L’ énergie du désespoir n’est jamais vaincue (L. Michel, Prise de possession, 1890/2010: 20)

0. Introduction In this paper, I would like to answer the following central question with the help of a case study on Louise Michel’s (1830–1905) revolutionary rhetoric. This question can be formulated as follows: Can Michel’s revolutionary rhetoric successfully combine reason (logos), character (ethos) and passion (pathos)? Michel’s revolutionary rhetoric is part of a tradition of outstanding written and/or spoken freedom discourse, for example, Cicero’s (106–43 BC) Philippics, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s (1463–1494) treatise De hominis dignitate, Patrick Henry’s (1736–1799) speech Give me liberty or give me death, Georg Büchner’s (1813–1837) pamphlet Der Hessische Landbote, Emmeline Pankhurst’s (1858– 1928) speech Freedom or Death, Emma Goldman’s (1869–1940) speech Against Conscription and Nelson Mandela’s (1918–2013) speech An Ideal for which I am Prepared to Die (cf. Ilie, 2009; Jelinek, 2009; Kienpointner, 2007a, 2007b, 2012a, 2014a, 2014b, 2016; Widmer, 2011). In order to explore this general historical context of Michel’s speech, I first briefly summarize differing philosophical concepts of “freedom“ (cf. Section 1). Then the central question will be tentatively answered on the basis of the classical Aristotelian trichotomy of logos, ethos and pathos. Louise Michel has been praised for her extraordinary courage, altruistic attitude and relentless energy (cf. Mullaney, 1990; Maclellan, 2004; Kilian, 2008; Chastre, 2011; Gauthier, 2013). So there is no doubt that her ethos had a considerable impact on her rhetorical success. She was also famous for being highly efficient as far as the arousal of strong emotions in her audience is concerned (pathos). A short biographical sketch will further demonstrate the importance of Michel’s personality and her rhetorical skills for her success as a political speaker (cf. Section 2). Less attention has been paid to Michel’s anarchist arguments (logos) and their verbal presentation. In Section 3 of this paper, some of the most important arguments to be found in her political speeches and articles (cf. Michel, 1871/1999, 1883, 1890/2010, 1896) will be analysed as to their underlying argument schemes and critically evaluated (for a preliminary analysis of Michel, 1871/1999; cf. Kienpointner, 2014a, pp. 609ff.). Moreover, Michel’s verbal presentation techniques will be described, with a special focus on metaphor as a key element of political rhetoric in general (cf. Lakoff 2002, 2005, 2006) and of arguments from figurative analogy in particular (cf. Garssen & Kienpointner, 2011). As Lakoff has shown (2002, pp. 65ff.), metaphorical systems of morality, such as the (prototypically conservative) Strict



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Father Morality and the (prototypically progressive or liberal) Nurturant Parent Morality shape political discourse to a considerable extent. Apart from the Aristotelian concepts of logos, ethos and pathos, and the rich literature on argument schemes and their corresponding sets of critical questions (cf. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1983; Schellens, 1985; Kienpointner, 1992; Garssen, 1997; Walton et al., 2008), Pragma-dialectics, especially van Eemeren’s (2010) elaboration of the concept of “strategic maneuvering” will be taken as a theoretical starting point. Van Eemeren (2010, p. 40) defines strategic maneuvering as “the continual efforts made in all moves that are carried out in argumentative discourse to keep the balance between reasonableness and effectiveness”. I conclude that Michel only partially succeeds in combining rhetorical efficiency with standards of rational argumentation, that is, her strategic maneuvering sometimes fails. All in all, however, her political discourse can be evaluated as an interesting attempt to pave the way for more political freedom, which has to be taken seriously.

1. Freedom Freedom is one of the key terms of philosophy and many other disciplines such as law, psychology, sociology and political science. There is hardly any fundamental concept of human thought where definitions are so different and controversial. As freedom is a central concept in Louise Michel’s political discourse, its controversial definition has to be briefly discussed in order to clarify what Michel is talking about and to characterize her own concept of freedom. A more specific demarcation of the term can begin with a distinction between negative freedom, that is, “freedom of being determined by X”, and positive freedom, that is, “freedom of being able to do X” (cf. Fromm, 1980, p. 30). More specifically, negative freedom is the absence of external coercion and other restrictions in the scope of action of human agents. External coercion can have a biological basis (physical desires, bodily needs, limits of abilities), but also a social basis (cultural conventions, moral systems, religious norms, legal sanctions, economic constraints). Furthermore, freedom of decision and action can be limited by internal factors (subconscious motives for action, lack of self-awareness). Positive freedom is understood as the capacity to give one’s own will a direction, that is, to be able to put into practice a certain range of goals, according to the development of one’s talents and abilities. Moreover, freedom can be defined at the individual and the collective level; human rights have been characterized as individual rights, which ask for personal liberties, and as collective rights, which ask, for example, for a minimum wage for employees or which grant the independence and sovereignty of nations.

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Closely connected with the problem of defining “freedom”, the old and highly controversial debate about the possibility of free will has been stimulated by recent research in neurophysiology. The existence of free will has been denied by those who (such as the distinguished German neurologist Gerhard Roth) believe that human action is determined by external factors, more specifically, by neurological processes within the human brain (cf. Roth, 2004, pp. 171ff.). Of course, if this claim were true, a radical concept of freedom such as the one invoked by Louise Michel would no longer be possible (cf. below, Section 3). However, against this kind of determinism, the Swiss philosopher Peter Bieri (2005) plausibly argues that processes within neurological networks and concepts such as “will”, “freedom”, “human values”, “actions and goals” have to be interpreted at different levels, which can only be interchanged at the high cost of a category mistake. Moreover, Bieri also argues against a perspective which assumes the possibility of “absolute freedom”. Such a radical view, assuming the total freedom of will of human beings, was defended in 1486 by the brillant Renaissance philosopher Pico della Mirandola in his famous speech De hominis dignitate (cf. Pico della Mirandola, 1997; Kienpointner, 2016). But this position is self-defeating: If human actions were not constrained by anything, they would become totally arbitrary, and as such, would become uncontrollable by the individual (Bieri, 2001, p. 232). The intuition of control, however, is deeply rooted in our everyday concept of “freedom”. So freedom can only be conceived of as a partially achieved ability, limited relative to physical and psychological constraints, which direct our actions to a certain degree, without determining them totally. A similar view is held by the distinguished Portuguese neurologist Antonio Damasio, who claims that human beings have a certain measure of control of their actions, but do not have full control and not always (cf. Damasio, 2010, p. 35). Bieri defends a similar position: Freedom is a gradual concept, that is, we can work on our external and internal constraints, thus eventually arriving at a higher degree of control over our actions and decisions. In this way, our actions become more and more individualized (cf. Bieri, 2001, pp. 382ff., 2005). The possibility of free action was already defended by Immanuel Kant, who elaborated his concept of freedom in his “Critique of Practical Reasoning” (Kant, 1788/2012). He argues that human beings are free because of that part of their intellectual nature which is able to follow only reason in questions of good and evil, thus not being constrained by any aspects of the physical world (physical desires, emotions, personal interests etc.). Kant certainly deserves praise for clearly distinguishing between a variety of motives for action, which clearly would prevent the assumption of freedom for human action (egoist desires, fear of punishment, belief in God), and “pure dutifulness”, which only results from obeying the Categorical Imperative (2012, p. 50: “Act



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so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation”). However, he often characterizes this necessity of following the Categorical Imperative in such a way which makes it hardly conceivable to follow this Imperative without being enforced to do so in a slave-like manner (cf. e.g. “Unterwerfung” (“submission”), “Zwang” (“coercion”), “Joch” (“yoke”): Kant, 2012, pp. 120f., p. 127). In this way, Kant’s moral philosophy comes close to the metaphorical Strict Father Model of Morality, as described by Lakoff & Johnson (1999: pp. 415ff.). Therefore, one has to look for a concept of freedom where individual, autonomous decisions become possible, without assuming the existence of a universal ethical rule which has to be followed without exceptions: What if a person wants to live alone and does not care about the principles of a universal legislation? Would this be immoral? Furthermore, the concept of civil disobedience, theoretically developed by Henry David Thoreau, who famously claimed “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison” (1849/1983, 398), and later successfully put into practice by great political leaders and visionaries of non-violent resistence such as Lev Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, clearly shows that sometimes – or even most of the time in unjust systems of legislation – existing laws have to be violated by morally conscious citizens. Radical libertarian thinkers such as Louise Michel often rely on the right of citizens to violate unjust laws (cf. below, Section 3). A libertarian path to freedom had already been sketched by Wilhelm von Humboldt in the year 1792. Being independent of coercion by the state and cultural constraints is a necessary prerequisite for an individual unfolding of talents and abilities and their development into a harmonious and unique whole, which Humboldt calls the true purpose of man (cf. Humboldt, 1960, p. 64; cf. similarly Steiner, 1962, p. 123; Fromm, 1980, p. 187). From this point of view, a dialectic relationship of individual and political freedom can be derived: Political freedom is necessary as the background for the unfolding of individual freedom, and the latter must be guaranteed in a political community which deserves to be called free and which can remain free in the long term. This position provides a philosophical background for anarchist political speakers, such as Louise Michel, who want to overcome the concentration of power in modern states (cf. below, Section 3). Within politics, differing ideologies, world views and types of social organization have interpreted the possible scope of human action in very different ways. When these interpretations are implemented politically, they constrain the freedom of individual citizens more or less severely. There is a political continuum, which contains at least the following systems of political organization:

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1. Anarchism, which tries to abolish the controlling influence of governmental and economic power as much as possible (cf. Stowasser, 2009, p. 23; Bakunin, 1871/1998, pp. 67ff.; Kropotkin, 1902/1955; Chomsky 2005, pp. 190ff.); 2. Classical liberalism, such as the point of view of John Stuart Mill, who sees the limit of individual freedom in a respect for the freedom of others (cf. Mill, 1946, p. 8: “[…] the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will, is to prevent harm to others”); 3. Parliamentary democracy, that is, more or less democratically organized societies and states (cf. Lakoff, 2006, pp. 65ff.; Schmidt, 2010, pp. 370ff.); 4. Constitutional monarchy as defended by Hegel (1821/1970, p. 435), who praises an idealized concept of the state as the optimal realization of rationality (ibid. pp. 398ff.), which even deserves to be worshipped as a god-like entity and, finally, 5. Authoritarian systems (e.g. Communist or Fascist dictatorships), which suppress individual freedom systematically and almost unconditionally. While this coercion is hardly surprising in the case of Fascist states, “real existing socialism”, within the states of the former Eastern block, has refuted Marx/Engels’ (1848, p. 16) expectation that after a post-revolutionary transition stage with a dictatorship of the proletariat the state would die away by itself. Among other reasons, orthodox Marxism-Leninism failed because it did not manage to acknowledge pluralism, as libertarian Marxist Rosa Luxemburg pointed out to Lenin immediately after the October Revolution in the year 1917: “Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit der Andersdenkenden” (“Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently”; cf. Luxemburg, 1918, p. 50; Kienpointner, 2007b). What can this short overview about some concepts of freedom contribute to the analysis of political rhetoric, more specifically, the freedom discourse of Louise Michel? First of all, the overview shows that freedom always has to be looked at from a certain theoretical perspective, which can differ considerably according to the respective ideological background. Philosophically, Louise Michel’s radical concept of freedom relies on those theoretical positions (cf. Humboldt, 1960; Steiner, 1962; Fromm, 1980; Bieri, 2001) which try to establish a substantial concept of freedom, according to which individual freedom and freedom of action are indeed possible. Politically, Michel’s discourse follows anarchism (cf. Stowasser, 2009). Historically, her revolutionary rhetoric has to be judged in relation to the historical background of the late 19th century, with its expansion of industrial capitalism and the resulting widespread misery among the working class, and the almost total lack of social standards within a capitalist economy, which the ruling elites only began slowly to introduce as a result of the pressure of the emerging working class associations and trade unions.



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2. Louise Michel: Biography Louise Michel (May, 29, 1830 – January, 9, 1905; on her life cf. Mullaney, 1990; Maclellan, 2004; Chastre, 2011; Kilian, 2008; Gauthier, 2013) was born the daughter of Marianne Michel, a serving maid, and (probably) Laurent Demahis, the son of Charlotte and Charles-Étienne Demahis, châtelain of Vroncourt-la-Côte. Her grandparents took on responsibility for Louise and provided her with a good education, including a libertarian perspective concerning politics, at their Château Vroncourtla-Côte (Département Haute-Marne) in north-eastern France. Since her childhood, Louise Michel showed a strong sense for justice and a strong and unfaltering will. After the death of her father and grandparents, Marianne and Louise Michel had to leave Château Vroncourt. Michel undertook and completed teacher training (1852; cf. Gauthier, 2013, p. 47; Maclellan, 2004, p. 3) and began to work as a primary school teacher, first in little villages in the east of France, later (pp. 1856ff.) in Paris, where she opened her own school in 1865, close to Montmartre. As a teacher, she showed a strong emotional commitment to her pupils and students, used remarkably modern methods of teaching and encouraged her pupils to critical thinking (Maclellan, 2004, p. 3). In these years, Michel also began to write and publish poetry and became involved in radical political groups, which included leftist protagonists such as Auguste Blancqui (1805–1881), Jules Vallès (1832–1885), and Théophile Ferré (1846–1871), with whom she fell in love (cf. Chastre, 2011, pp. 45ff.; Gautier, 2013, pp. 71ff., pp. 154ff.; Mullaney, 1990, pp. 317f.). However, her greatest idol at the time was the great French author and political activist Victor Hugo (1802–1885), with whom she corresponded regularly for many years. After Napoleon III (1808–1873) was crushingly defeated at Sedan during the Franco-Prussian war (1870–1871), the Third Republic was proclaimed. The republican government at first continued the fight against Prussia; but after four months of siege of Paris, the government agreed an armistice with the Prussians. This fact, the disappointment about the financial pressure put upon Paris as part of the indemnity payments made to the Prussians and the conservative character of the new government under president Alphonse Thiers (1797–1877) led to the short-term revolution by the Paris Commune (from March 18 to May, 28, 1871; cf. Michel, 1898/1999; Maclellan, 2004: pp. 7ff.; Stowasser, 2006, pp. 307ff.). After promising achievements of decentralized social, cultural and economic reorganization, the Paris Commune had to defend itself against republican government troops, which were superior in number and weapons. Finally, the Paris Commune was totally defeated during the “Bloody Week” (La semaine sanglante, from May 21 to May 28, 1871), when approximately 20.000 people were killed, many of them not members of the Commune (cf. Maclellan, 2004, p. 12). Some leaders and members of the Commune were subjected to unfair trials and executed, among them Théophile Ferré.

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During the short life of the Commune, Louise Michel was indefatigable. She was active both as a nurse, a member of committees and last, but not least, as a soldier in combat, where she became famous because of her courage, efficiency and defiance. (Kilian, 2008, pp. 151ff.; Gauthier, 2013, pp. 110ff.). She surrendered to the government troops only when her mother was arrested in order to blackmail Michel. During her trial (December 16, 1871), she did not try to avoid a death sentence, but on the contrary, vehemently attacked the government and even asked for her execution (Michel, 1871/1999; Maclellan, 2004, p. 12; Gauthier, 2013, p. 174). However, Michel was not sentenced to death, but after two years in prison was exiled to New Caledonia (1873), together with other Communards. During this period of her life, Michel began to develop an anarchist view of politics (cf. Michel, 1896). In New Caledonia she began to teach again, both children of the Communards and the Melanesian indigenous people, whom she befriended and whom she encouraged to stand up for their rights (Killian, 2008, pp. 163ff.; Gauthier, 2013, pp. 217ff.). After a general amnesty, Louise Michel was able to return to France (1880) (cf. Gauthier, 2013, p. 245). She was welcomed by an enthusiastic crowd at St. Lazare station in Paris. Already two weeks later (November 21, 1880), she gave a speech at the Élysée-Montmartre, in which she revived the spirit of the Commune, preaching revolution. This speech was only the first in a long series of public addresses in France and abroad. Michel’s anarchist and feminist political discourse was considered so dangerous by the French authorities that she was constantly followed by the police. On March 9, 1883, together with Émile Pouget (1860–1931), she led a demonstration of unemployed workers in Paris, which resulted in a riot and the pillaging of three bakeries. At this demonstration, Michel raised the black flag (le drapeau noir) for the first time, which has since become a symbol for anarchism. She was put on trial and sentenced to 6 years imprisonment for incitement to looting. During her trial, she gave a speech (Michel, 1983), in which she defends her anarchist position, again without making any attempt to mitigate her position in order to avoid a severe sentence. The only time when her otherwise unshakeable mental strength began to crumble was in April 1890 when she was again arrested and a physician tried to commit her to a mental asylum (Gauthier, 2013, pp. 282ff.). Michel narrowly escaped this threat by migrating to London, where she lived for five years, contacted anarchist circles and opened a libertarian school. From 1895 onwards, having become a legendary political speaker, she led a tireless life of endless lecture tours in France and elsewhere, where she successfully spoke to thousands of people. She died from pneumonia in January, 1905 in Marseille. Her funeral in Paris, Levallois-Perret, turned into a major political demonstration, with more than 100.000 people (Maclellan, 2004, p. 23; Chastre, 2011, p. 126) participating in the funeral procession.



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Ever since, Michel has been an icon of courage, mental strength and extreme altruism (hence her epithets “la bonne louise” (“good Louise”), “la vierge rouge” (“the red virgin”)): Throughout her life, she possessed next to nothing, always giving away her own small material and financial resources to needy people in her surroundings. The great French authors, Victor Hugo and Paul Verlaine (1844–1896), have honoured Louise Michel with poems written about and dedicated to her: Viro maior (Hugo, 1871) et Ballade en l’honneur de Louise Michel (Verlaine, 1892).

3. Louise Michel: Arguments In the following, a few frequently recurring types of arguments in Michel’s political discourse will be analysed as to their underlying argument schemes and their means of verbal representation. The theoretical background for this analysis is constituted by principles of Classical Rhetoric as developed by Aristotle in his Rhetoric (2002) and Topics (2004), the New Rhetoric of Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1983), the Extended Theory of Pragma-Dialectics elaborated in van Eemeren (2010), and by contributions to the analysis and evaluation of political discourse within Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012). As far as Classical Rhetoric is concerned, I would like to take up the Aristotelian distinction between three means of persuasion (cf. Aristotle, Rhet. 1.2, 1356a, pp. 1–4), namely, ethos, pathos and logos. The last one (logos, that is, the arguments used by the speaker) will be the main focus in this section. However, it has to be made clear that for Aristotle, ethos and pathos were not illegitimate means of persuasion. So the character/the credibility of the speaker (ethos) and the emotions of the audience (pathos) were integrated into his theory of argumentation. The biographical sketch in Section 2 has shown how Louise Michel’s life and her remarkable courage, mental strength and altruism considerably enhanced her ethos as a speaker. In this context, it is also remarkable that Aristotle highlights ethos as maybe the strongest of all means of persuasion (Rhet. 1.2, 1356a, p. 13). As far as the emotions of the audience (pathos) are concerned, Rubinelli (2010, p. 53) justly remarks: […] Aristotle was enough of a realist to admit that an audience can be prompted to do something or accept certain beliefs by its emotions. Since he considers rhetoric to be the ability to find all the available means of persuasion, he includes – as the second main class of pisteis – those relating to the audience and that appeal to their emotions.

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The potential legitimacy of emotional arguments has also been lighlighted in recent contributions to argumentation theory, such as Plantin (2005, pp. 102ff.), Walton (1999, p. 197), Micheli (2010, pp. 111ff.) and Macagno & Walton (2014, pp. 63ff.). As far as the analysis of specific arguments is concerned, the rich literature on argument schemes, from Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca’s (1983) New Rhetoric to more recent contributions (cf. e.g. Walton et al., 2008) has provided us with comprehensive typologies of argument schemes. These typologies can be used to reconstruct and classify specific arguments as instances of underlying syntactic and semantic structures, which are typical for an argument scheme. Asking the critical questions corresponding to each argument scheme, this reconstruction can also serve as a basis for the evaluation of the soundness of the respective argument schemes, according to the tenability, relevance and sufficiency of the premisses. As argument schemes are not purely formal structures, but also semantic patterns of inference, they can tell us more about the soundness of specific arguments than a formal reconstruction, which can only reveal their logical validity (in the sense of classical two-valued propositional logic or predicate logic, cf. below). The reconciliation of the empirical description and the normative evaluation of specific arguments has always been a major goal of Pragma-Dialectics (cf. van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992, 2004). In recent contributions, the concept of “strategic maneuvering” (that is, the strategic acts which are performed in order to keep the balance between reasonableness and effectiveness) has enriched the theoretical apparatus of Pragma-Dialectics. Within the Extended Theory of PragmaDialectics, three types of strategic maneuvering are distinguished (cf. van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2006, p. 383; van Eemeren 2010, pp. 93f.): First, there is the choice made from the available “topical potential”, the (not always clearly delineated) repertoire of options for making an argumentative move that are at the arguer’s disposal in a certain case and at a particular point in the discourse. Second, there is the choice of how to adapt the argumentative moves made in the strategic maneuvering to meet “audience demand”, the requirements pertinent to the audience that is to be reached. Third, there is the exploitation of “presentational devices”, which involves a choice as to how the argumentative moves are to be presented in the way that is strategically best.

The combination of a descriptive and a normative perspective is also typical for Critical Discourse Analysis (cf. Reisigl & Wodak, 2001, Wodak, 2009). In their recent contribution to the theory and analysis of political argumentation, Fairclough and Fairclough (2012, p. 1) focus on “political discourse as primarily a form of argumentation, and as involving more specifically practical argumentation, argumentation for or against particular ways of acting, argumentation that can ground



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decision”. For the dialectical evaluation of political argumentation, Fairclough and Fairclough (2010, p. 63) make use of the norms of rational argumentation established within Pragma-Dialectics. The presentational devices used in political discourse very often include metaphor. The cognitive and ideological importance of metaphor in political rhetoric (and human communication in general) cannot be exaggerated. This has been amply demonstrated in Lakoff and Johnson’s Cognitive Theory of Metaphor (cf. Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 2002, 2005, 2006). Below, I will reconstruct the structure of some arguments containing figurative analogies, which always involve metaphors, in order to show the immense strategic importance of this presentational device. Within the limits of this paper, as outlined above, I have to concentrate on some particularly important arguments (Argument from Alternatives, Causal Arguments and Arguments from Figurative Analogy, but cf. also Ilie (2009) on the important role of definitions as a means of political rhetoric) and on the use of metaphor as a presentational device. Although I remain sympathetic to the general line of Michel’s political discourse, critical questions concerning the underlying argument schemes will be continually asked in order to evaluate the respective passages and to try to answer the question whether Michel succeeds in maneuvering strategically, that is, whether she manages to formulate argumentative texts which are at the same time both persuasive (given her extraordinary rhetorical success, there is little doubt about this) and rationally acceptable. Finally, I would like to show how Michel adapts to and/or modifies existing preconditions and conventions of the genres of adjudication and deliberation (cf. van Eemeren, 2010, p. 143; Andone, 2013, pp. 33ff.). The genre of adjudication belongs to the domain of legal communication and contains various communicative activity types, among them “court proceedings” and “arbitration” (cf. Feteris, 2015; Plug, 2015). The genre of deliberation belongs to the domain of political communication and contains many communicative activity types, for example, “political speech”, “political essay”, “plenary debate”, “political interview” (cf. van Eemeren & Garssen, 2012; Andone, 2013; Kienpointner, 2013; Ilie, 2016). In the following sections, I would like to show that Michel only partially conforms to existing regularities and conventions for court proceedings and public speeches. In this way, she constantly runs the risk of sanctions (e.g. severe punishments including, ultimately, the death penalty) for “breaking the rules”, but at the same time enhances her legendary ethos of a person who is never willing to compromise by giving up her political ideals and principles (on the use of “unparliamentary language” within plenary debates cf. Ilie, 2016, pp. 137ff.). The speech events which will be analysed below are Michel’s two defence pleadings at the occasion of her trials in the years 1971 and 1983, and her political essays “Prise de possession” (1890) and “Why I am an Anarchist! (1896).

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3.1

Argument from Alternatives

The first argument scheme which I am going to illustrate is the Argument from Alternatives (cf. Kienpointner, 1993; Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, p. 211). This scheme operates with the existence of alternative options for action, which are, at the same time, incompatible opposites, so that all alternatives exclude each other. Very often, these alternatives are presented in such a way that all of them except one are to be rejected as implausible, irrational, immoral or even impossible. The remaining option is the alternative favoured by the speaker. Assuming that there are only two alternatives (which, however, only rarely is really the case within political decision making!), the underlying logical structure of this argument scheme can be reconstructed as a disjunctive syllogism, where the negation of one alternative (q) leads to “p” as the conclusion. A more suitable scheme for situations with more than two alternatives can be reconstructed by a scheme with n alternatives, all of which bar one (= p) are excluded in the conclusion (“p, q, r, s, …” = true/probable or acceptable premises/conclusions; “V” = exclusive “or”; “∧” = logical “and”; “altn” = “nth alternative”): pVq ¬q ___________ Therefore: p.

       

p V q (V r V s … altn) ¬q (∧ ¬r ∧ ¬s … ¬altn) ____________________ Therefore: p.

This scheme is logically valid, that is, it necessarily leads to a true (plausible) conclusion if its premises are true (or acceptable as far as ethical norms are concerned)(on the distinction between truth (“Wahrheit”) of descriptive statements and acceptability (“Richtigkeit”) of normative statements cf. Habermas, 1988, p. 45). However, logical validity is not a sufficient condition for soundness within everyday argumentation. More specifically, soundness can only be achieved if logical validity is accompanied by the tenability of the premises, that is, the fact that the premises are all true (or based on acceptable ethical norms). If this is not the case, the argument from alternatives is in danger of degenerating and becoming fallacious, for example, a black-white-fallacy. This is often the case with Arguments from Alternatives which are based on only two alternative options, because any reduction of the alternatives of (political) action to only two mutually exclusive options is problematic (cf. Kahane, 1976, p. 56; Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1983, p. 321; Pirie, 1985, pp. 20ff.; Kienpointner, 1992, pp. 323ff.; Ilie, 2016, p. 138). My first example is a passage from the public defence delivered by Louise Michel during her trial after the violent suppression of the Paris Commune in the year 1871. In spite of her desperate situation, Michel decided to use her speech as a passionate plea for the Commune, an aggressive attack on the French republican government and the prediction of further revolutionary activities. Instead of asking for pardon, she presents her situation as leaving only two alternatives: freedom or



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death (the former having been made impossible by the government’s destruction of the Paris Commune). Hence, differently from normal institutional behaviour within the context of political or forensic rhetoric, Michel does not strategically adapt to audience demand in order to create “the broadest possible zone of agreement between the relevant views and preferences of the arguer and the audience” (van Eemeren and Garssen, 2012, p. 51). According to Michel, who uses a dramatic metonymy (more specifically: a synecdoche, that is, part-whole relationship) to further strengthen the impact of her argument, every heart beating for freedom (tout coeur qui bat pour la liberté), that is, every freedom fighter is left with only one alternative: death by execution. She also claims her execution as an act of justice, as she fought for the Paris Commune much in the same way as the thousands of communards who were kept in detention under miserable conditions and executed in the field of Satory, near Versailles (on the rule of justice (“règle de la justice”) as a means of argumentation, cf. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1983, p. 293, Kienpointner & Orlandini, 2005, Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, pp. 192ff.). With her threats of revenge, Michel makes an eventual pardon by the 6th Council of War at Versailles almost impossible, and further strengthens the dilemma of “freedom or death”: (1) Ce que je réclame de vous, […] c’est le champ de Satory où sont déjà tombés nos frères! Il faut me retrancher de la société. On vous dit de le faire. Eh bien, le commissaire de la république a raison. Puisqu’il semble que tout coeur qui bat pour la liberté n’a droit qu’à un peu de plomb, j’en réclame une part, moi ! Si vous me laissez vivre, je ne cesserai de crier vengeance […]. [“What I urge you, […] is the field of Satory [= the place where thousands of communards died, due to horrible conditions of detention as well as mass executions], where our brothers already fell! You have to eliminate me from society. You have been told to do that. Well, the commissary of the republic is right. As it appears to me that every heart which beats for freedom has no right other than a piece of lead, as far as I am concerned, I claim a part of it! If you let me live, I will not stop crying for revenge […]”]  (Michel, 1871/1999, 373f.; Gauthier, 2013, p. 174)

Given the relevant verbal and situative context, the argument from alternatives presented by Michel can be reconstructed as follows: For a freedom fighter such as Louise Michel, either radical political freedom or death are the chosen options. After the defeat of the Paris Commune in May 1871, radical political freedom is no longer possible. _______________________________________________________________________ Therefore: Death is the only option.

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In spite of the skilful and audacious presentation of her argument from alternatives, Michel’s argument can be criticized in several respects. First of all, further alternatives of action are conceivable, which could dissolve the dilemma postulated in the first premise: (1) For the moment, a life in freedom could be dismissed, with the hope of future resistence against the ruling elite, with hopefully better chances of success; (2) both life and personal freedom could be achieved by emigration to countries with strong(er) liberty rights. This further alternative was actually taken by thousands of communards (among them, for example, Jules Vallès), who fled to Belgium and to England. The second premise, too, could be criticized, because one could argue that radical political freedom is only made impossible for the immediate future, with the hope for far-reaching political changes remaining intact (for another example of an argument with only two alternatives of political action – se révolter ou mourir, pas d’autre alternative – cf. Michel, 1890/2010, p. 19). In the following example, taken from her article Prise de possession (first published 1890), Michel first again seems to establish a terrible dilemma of choice between only two alternatives for poor people (“being cheated or becoming a rogue”), but then offers a third, positive alternative, namely, revolution: (2) Toi qui ne possède rien, tu n’as que deux routes à choisir: être dupe ou fripon. Rien entre les deux, rien au-déla, pas plus qu’avant – rien que la révolte. [“You who possesses nothing, you have only got two routes to choose: to be cheated or to be a rogue. There is nothing in between, nothing beyond, nothing more than before – nothing but the revolt”]  (Michel 1890/2010, p. 26)

Similar criticism, as is the case in the first example, can be applied here, too. Although Michel in this passage acknowledges the existence of at least three alternatives of political action for poor people, further alternatives are not difficult to find: For example, civil disobedience, non-violent political resistence and political activities within trade unions and left political parties could be mentioned. 3.2

Causal Arguments

Many other arguments brought forward by Michel can be classified as different varieties of causal argument schemes. For example, quite often she evaluates political ideologies, institutions and their decisions and activities according to their positive or negative effects. This type of argument is called the Pragmatic Argument and is one of the most important argument schemes within political reasoning (cf. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1983, pp. 357ff.; Schellens, 1985, p. 157; Kienpointner, 1992, p. 340; Garssen, 1997, pp. 21f.; Walton et al., 2008, pp.100ff.; Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, pp. 35ff.). There are two versions of the Pragmatic Argument, a positive version,



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which highlights the positive effects of political decisions and activities, and a corresponding negative version, which underlines their negative effects (cf. Feteris, 2015, pp. 102ff, on the role of Pragmatic Arguments within legal argumentation): Pragmatic Argument (Positive version): If act A has positive effects B, C, D […] and has no, or fewer, or less important negative effects than an alternative act X, A should be done/ should be evaluated positively. Act A has positive effects B, C, D […]. Act A has no, or fewer, or less important negative effects than an alternative act X. _______________________________________________________________________ Therefore: Act A should be done/ should be evaluated positively. Pragmatic Argument (Negative version): If act A has negative effects B, C, D […] and has no, or fewer, or less important positive effects than an alternative act X, A should not be done/ should be evaluated negatively. Act A has negative effects B, C, D […]. Act A has no, or fewer, or less important positive effects than an alternative act X. _______________________________________________________________________ Therefore: Act A should not be done/ should be evaluated negatively.

Two further causal argument schemes can be classified as subtypes of the Pragmatic Argument. These subtypes deal with longer chains of the effects of political actions (effects B′, C′, D′ of B, C, D; effects B″, C″, D″ of B′, C′, D′, etc. etc.). More specifically, the Argument from Direction is based on the assumption that there will be an endpoint to this causal chain, which is prototypically assumed to be a catastrophy. The counterpart of the Argument from Direction is the Argument from Unlimited Development, where one assumes that there will be no limit to a (prototypically: positive) development, so that positive effects produce an unlimited chain of progressively more positive outcomes (on these schemes, cf. Perelman & OlbrechtsTyteca, 1983, pp. 379ff.; pp. 387ff.; Kienpointner, 1992, p. 342; 1996, pp. 142ff.). Taking up these causal argument schemes, Michel, on the one hand, repeatedly uses Pragmatic Arguments and Arguments from Direction for a devastating criticism of capitalism, and authoritarian states, that is, monarchies, but also of democratic republics of her time. On the other hand, Michel uses Pragmatic Arguments and Arguments from Unlimited Development in order to support her unshakeable optimism that revolution is close and inevitable (cf. e.g. “Cette transformation est imminente”, Michel, 1890/2010) and will produce ever more utopian ideals of social harmony and peaceful development. Due to lack of space, I can only list a few examples below, without reconstructing the underlying structure of the argument scheme explicitly.

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(3) On nous parle de liberté: il y a la liberté de la tribune avec cinq ans de bagne au bout. Pour la liberté de reunion, c’est la même chose. En Angleterre le meeting aurait eu lieu; en France, on n’a même pas fait les sommations de la loi pour faire retirer la foule qui serait partie sans résistance. Le peuple meurt de faim, et il n’a pas même le droit de dire qu’il meurt de faim. [“They keep talking to us about liberty: There is the liberty of speech with five years of prison at the end. As to the liberty of assembly, it’s the same. In England, the meeting would have taken place; in France, they have not even made a legal admonition in order to let the crowd retreat, which would have left without resistance. People are dying from hunger, and they do not even have the right to say that they are dying from hunger”]  (Michel, 1883)

This passage is taken from the defence speech Michel gave during her trial on June 22, 1883, accused for incitement to looting because of the pillaging of three bakeries during a demonstration on March 9, 1883. Using Pragmatic Arguments, Michel sarcastically points out the negative effects of the French government’s politics. More specifically, Michel highlights the discrepancy between the promises of the French republican constitution (independent law courts, liberty of assembly) and the results of the actual implementation of the respective legislation, which leads to trials and long years of detention (cf. Plug, 2015, p. 122, on the need of the transparency of judicial decisions for the general public). She also points out the differences between the implementation of the liberty of assembly in England, where, according to Michel, the incriminated demonstration could have taken place without major problems, and France, where the authorities did not even try to end the demonstration in a peaceful manner. Furthermore, she underlines the deplorable fact that not only do poor people not have enough to eat, but are even prevented from protesting against these miserable living conditions, with the French authorities thus violating the human right of the free expression of one’s opinion. According to Michel, all this is the effect of the official politics of the French republic. And Michel is surely right that widespread poverty and hunger was indeed a tremendous problem in the second half of the 19th century, in France and elsewhere. Moreover, the high number of exiled radicals in England at the time when Michel was speaking indicates that her claim about the difference between liberty rights in England and France has at least some plausibility. (4) Anarchy will not begin the eternal miseries anew. Humanity in its flight of despair will cling to it in order to emerge from the abyss. It is the rugged ascent of the rock that will lead to the summit; humanity will no longer clutch at rolling stones and tufts of grass, to fall without end. Anarchy is the new ideal, the progress of which nothing can hinder.  (Michel 1896)



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Example (4), taken from Michel’s short article Why I am an Anarchist (Michel, 1896), like many similar passages from her speeches and articles, illustrate her firm belief that anarchy will lead mankind to success, and that its success and progress are inevitable, that is, they cannot be prevented by reactionary forces. The persuasive force of this highly optimistic instance of the Argument from Unlimited Development (cf. also other instances in Michel, 1890/2010, p. 16; p. 21; p. 35f.) is further enhanced by a forceful analogy (cf. below Section 3.3 on the general structure of analogies): General structure of analogies: Proposition A : B equals proposition C : D; for example: progress of humanity (A) : anarchism (B) = climbing person (C) : using the rugged ascent of the rock that will lead to the summit (D); misery of humanity (A) : capitalist society (B) = climbing person (C) : clutching at rolling stones and tufts of grass (D).

More specifically, the following passage illustrates another use of the Pragmatic Argument. It shows Michel’s optimism (which can be found also within the texts of other radical leftist thinkers of her time (cf. Marx & Engels, 1848: pp. 7ff.) that the emergence of a socially just society is inevitable, and that technical progress will have the positive effect of radically changing and eventually replacing physical labour by machines. Technical progress plus anarchist equality will thus make human work an attractive and voluntary activity: (5) L’ attraction du progres s’affirmera d’autant plus que le pain sera assuré, et quelques heures de travail devenu attractif et volontaire suffiront pour produire plus qu’il n’est nécessaire à la consummation. [“The attractive power of progress will demonstrate itself all the more as daily bread will be assured, and a few hours of work which will have become attractive and voluntary will be enough to produce more than what is necessary for consumption”]  (Michel, 1890/2010, p. 18)

History has shown that Michel’s optimism concerning anarchism as a political movement and the impact of technological progress was only partially justified. A critical question concerning the positive variant of her Pragmatic Arguments in (4) and (5) could be the following one: Does act A really have positive effects B, C, D, […]? (cf. Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, pp. 64ff.). Far from becoming politically influential and even successful on a global scale, anarchism is nowadays a peripheral political minority movement (cf. Stowasser, 2006, pp. 463ff.). Its only short, but very remarkable success as a mass movement in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1937) was rapidly and brutally put down by the paradoxical ‘cooperation’ of Franco’s fascism and Stalin’s communism (cf. Orwell, 1989, pp. 197ff.; Stowasser, 2006, pp. 397ff.).

116 Manfred Kienpointner

Moreover, machines have indeed partially replaced strenuous human labour in industrially developed countries. But the brutal exploitation of physical labour is still the reality in many parts of the world, and even increasingly so, especially in developing Third World countries (cf. Werner & Weiss, 2003). Furthermore, in highly developed countries, machines have also become a means of defeating trade unions and other associations in their struggle for fair pay because they can replace human physical labour (cf. Martin & Schumann, 1997, pp. 160ff.). Finally, Michel has underestimated the potential of parliamentary socialism and trade unions to change the living and working conditions of the working masses (Critical question concerning the negative variant of her Pragmatic Arguments in (6): Does act A really have negative effects B, C, D, […]?). Misery has not continually been reproduced. In spite of huge drawbacks due to World War I and II, and in spite of the strong neo-liberal tendencies in our time, which have led to the huge concentration of economic power within globally active enterprises (cf. Werner & Weiss, 2003) and to the global financial crisis 2008, social democrats managed (and sometimes still manage) to lead governments within capitalist societies. Together with trade unions, they have contributed to a considerable increase in the average income of large sections of the population in industrialized societies. This has been achieved, most of the time, without revolutions, whereas revolutions, such as the Russian revolution of 1917 and other Communist or non-Communist revolutions in the 20th century have ultimately always led to authoritarian regimes. In this respect, the following instance of the Pragmatic Argument, formulated by Michel in a hyperbolic and sarcastic way in order to criticize the total inefficiency of the political strategies and activities of parliamentary socialism, has been refuted by the historical facts: (6) Pourtant, si cela vous plait, prolétaires du monde entire, restez comme vous êtes – peut-être que dans une dizaine de mille ans vous aurez réussi à hisser au pouvoir trois ou quatre des vôtres; ce qui vous fait espérer une majorité socialiste dans vingt-cinq à trente mille ans. [“However, if this pleases you, proletarians of the whole world, remain as you are – maybe within 10.000 years you will have succeeded in bringing to power three or four of you; which lets you hope for a socialist majority after 25.000 to 30.000 years”]  (Michel, 1890/2010, p. 29)

3.3

Argument from Figurative Analogy

The last type of argument I am going to illustrate is the Argument from Figurative Analogy, which is frequently used by Michel. Given their high frequency in political argumentation in general, Arguments from Figurative Analogy seem to be



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indispensable for political discourse. But as they rely on a comparison of entities belonging to clearly different domains of reality (this is why they are called “figurative analogies” or “different-domain analogies”), which makes the comparison controversial in many cases, it has been doubted whether they can be seen as a serious means of argumentation. Lumer (2000, p. 414) even generally classifies Arguments from Analogy as fallacies. However, I follow those who assume that Arguments from Analogy can be plausible arguments and have to be evaluated relative to their verbal and situational context, much in the same way as other types of argument (cf. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1983, pp. 501ff.; Mengel, 1995, p. 13; Woods, 2004, p. 253; Juthe 2005, p. 15; Walton et al., 2008, p. 43; Garssen, 2009, p. 133; Garssen & Kienpointner, 2011, p. 40; Kienpointner, 2012b, passim; Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, pp. 170ff.). On a highly general level, Arguments from Analogy can be reconstructed as follows (cf. Walton et al., 2008, p. 58): Argument from Figurative Analogy, descriptive version: Major Premise: Generally, case C1 is similar to C2 and C1 and C2 belong to (totally) different domains of reality. Relevant Similarity Premise: The similarity between C1 and C2 observed so far is relevant. Minor Premise: Proposition A is true (false) in case C1. _______________________________________________________________________ Conclusion: Proposition A′ is true (false) in case C2. Argument from Figurative Analogy, normative version: Major Premise: Generally, case C1 is similar to C2 and C1 and C2 belong to (totally) different domains of reality. Relevant Similarity Premise: The similarity between C1 and C2 observed so far is relevant. Minor Premise: To do A is right (wrong) in case C1. _______________________________________________________________________ Conclusion: To do A′ is right (wrong) in case C2.

Similarity obviously plays a decisive role in Arguments from Figurative Analogy. This notion can often be described more explicitly as the relation of equivalence between a statement about two well known, concrete concepts C and D (= Case 1, the “Phoros” of the figurative analogy) and a statement about two less known, abstract concepts A and B (= Case 2, the “Theme” of the figurative analogy). This proportion is illustrated by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1983, p. 501) with an example taken from Aristotle’s Metaphysics (II.993b):

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C les yeux des chauve-souris [the eyes of bats

PHOROS : D : la lumière du jour :

the daylight

= A = l’intelligence de notre âme = the intelligence of human soul

THEME : :

:

B les choses les plus naturellement évidentes the things which are by nature the most evident]

In the context of figurative analogy, metaphor can often be seen as a reduced, condensed form of fully explicit arguments (“une analogie condensée”, cf. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1983, p. 535). The high frequency of Arguments from Figurative Analogy in Michel’s political discourse can be explained by their didactic function, that is, their use as pedagogical devices for illustrating and clarifying complex issues (cf. Garssen & Kienpointner, 2011, p. 46), a characteristic which they share with metaphors. In this context, it is interesting to see that, in the same way as metaphors, which are powerful presentational devices in political discourse (cf. Lakoff, 2002, pp. 65ff.; 2005, pp. 38ff.; 2006, pp. 65ff.), figurative analogies, too, can also be considered as a presentational device used to putting forward and enhancing other types of argumentation in an indirect way (cf. Garssen, 2009, p. 139). Due to limits of place, I refrain from providing more than partially explicit reconstructions of the argument schemes underlying the list of examples I give below. Quite often, Michel uses Arguments from Figurative Analogy in order to provide additional support to the causal arguments analysed above. More specifically, with the help of her figurative analogies, Michel gives explanations for the breakdown of the capitalist system of exploitation and for the development of a better society in the future. The figurative analogies contain suggestive and forceful metaphors which portray both processes as inevitable. For example, the following Arguments from Figurative Analogy use types of Phoros-relations (C : D) which are based on highly evident states of affairs, using extremely imaginative source domains for the end of capitalist exploitation, such as the necessity of tearing off burning clothes at all costs, the necessity of very old trees’ falling into dust, the inevitable rotting away of a carcass: (7) Les maux intolérables qu’ils [= the poor people] souffrent depuis le commencement des societies humaines sont arrives à une acuité si grande qu’ils ont résolu de s’en débarasser comme on arrache un vêtement enflame en laissant après des lambeaux de sa chair. [“The intolerable evils from which the poor people have suffered since the beginning of the human societies have reached a degree of acuity so great that they have decided to get rid of them as one tears off burning clothing by leaving behind scraps of one’s own flesh”]  (Michel, 1890/2010, p. 9)



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(8) Heureusement, on ne peut pas vivre les jours d’autrefois et le vieux monde, pareil aux arbres séculaires, va d’un instant à l’autre tomber en poussière. [“Fortunately, one cannot live the days of earlier times and the old world, similar to hundreds of years old trees, will crumble into dust from one moment to the other”]  (Michel, 1890/2010, p. 11) (9) Le suffrage dit universel, c’était le dernier espoir de ceux qui voulaient faire vivre encore la vieille société lépreuse. Il n’a pu la sauver et la voilà, la marâtre, la parricide étendue sur la table de dissection, si putrefiée déjà qu’il faut enterrer le cadavre autour duquel, semblables aux chœurs antiques, gémissent ou vocifèrent toutes les douleurs qu’elles a causées. [“So-called universal suffrage was the last hope of those who wanted to let the old leprous society continue to live. It could not save her, and there it is, the uncaring mother, the parricide stretched out on the dissecting table, so putrefied already that it is necessary to bury the carcass around which, similar to the choirs of antiquity, all the pains it has caused are groaning and screaming”] (Michel, 1890/2010, p. 14)

Likewise, the inevitability of the creation of a new, better society by the working masses is analogically compared to the flowing of a big river after the opening of the floodgates: (10) Le fleuve roule, rien ne l’arrête, la misère a levé les écluses. [“The river flows, nothing can stop it, misery has opened its floodgates”]  (Michel, 1890/2010, p. 21)

Here I only partially reconstruct the underlying structure, simply providing an overview about the A : B = C : D structures of the four analogies employed in the examples quoted above: PHOROS Example (7): the tearing off of burning clothes (C) :   the saving of one’s life (D)   Example (8): hundreds of years old trees (C) : their falling into dust (D)

  =         =  

THEME   the damage caused by the destruction of the old society (A) : the ending of the misery of the poor masses (B)   the old capitalist world (A) : its total collapse (B)

Example (9): the leprous, rotting carcass of an uncaring mother/a parricide (C) : the burying of this carcass (D)   Example (10): a big river (C) : its unstoppable flowing after the floodgates have been opened (D)

  =         =    

  the old capitalist society (A) :   the destruction of the old capitalist society (D)   the working masses (A) : their unstoppable gathering for a universal strike (B)

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The strength of these figurative analogies, as in the case of all figurative analogies, relies on the intuitively strong plausibility of the proposition expressed as the Phoros of the analogy (cf. Kienpointner, 2012b), that is, the source domain of the respective metaphors (cf. Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Of course, burning clothes have to be torn off at all costs, age-old trees some day necessarily fall into dust, leprous rotting carcasses cannot be revived but have to be disposed off; and almost nothing can stop the deluge of water of a big river after the floodgates have been opened. However, and again generally so, the weakness of Arguments from Figurative Analogy is the indirect and often less than plausible connection of the Phoros and the Theme (the target domain) of the figurative analogy (cf. the “Relevant Similarity Premise” in the underlying argument scheme as reconstructed by Walton et al., 2008, p. 58). Critical questions concerning these figurative analogies could be formulated as follows (cf. Walton et al., 2008, p. 62; Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, p. 171): Are Case 1 and Case 2 similar, in the respects cited? Are the important (that is, the most relevant) differences (dissimilarities) between Case 1 and Case 2 too overwhelming to allow a conclusion which crosses the different domains of reality to which Case 1 and Case 2 belong? And history has indeed shown that some of the more spectacular analogical comparisons established by Michel have been refuted by the actual course of events. However, one has to concede that from the historical perspective of Michel, and given the widespread misery of the working masses of her time, an end of this deplorable and intolerable state of society within the near future was not so unrealistic as it may appear from our perspective. Moreover, Michel does not use the figurative analogies as her only or most decisive arguments. Rather, Arguments from Figurative Analogy are used by Michel as additional supportive means to strengthen her other arguments and to make them more vivid and easier to understand for a lesser educated audience.

4. Evaluation of Michel’s Arguments The more specific criticism of Michel’s arguments brought forward in Section 3 can be generalized to point out the following main weaknesses of her causal argumentation: Michel was far too optimistic about the chances of overcoming the structures of exploitation within capitalist societies and the establishment of a just society with an equal distribution of wealth. Correspondingly, she underestimated the chances of a long-term survival of capitalism. Moreover, her belief in revolution as the only alternative to coercion and submission is refuted by the massive negative outcomes of political revolutions in the 20th century.



Chapter 5.  Reason and passion in political rhetoric 121

However, this does not justify a complete rejection of her arguments analysed above in Section 3. At least to a certain extent, her Arguments from Alternatives, her causal arguments (Pragmatic Arguments, Arguments from Direction, Arguments from Unlimited Development) and her Arguments from Figurative Analogies proved to be right. This evaluation can be justified as follows: First of all, Michel has been right in assuming that the type of capitalism which was typical for the second half and the end of the 19th century, with its brutal forms of exploitation of the working masses, and the miserable living conditions of the masses, could not survive for too long. It had to be changed, and it was changed, at least in some privileged parts of the world. So her Arguments of Direction were partially correct. Secondly, the social, political and economic progress within some democratically organized and highly developed countries during the 20th century came close to Michel’s justified claims and optimistic expectations in her Arguments of Unlimited Development. In this way she was right that the liberty rights, the working conditions and the living conditions of the masses, especially of women and ethnic minorities, would improve considerably in the near future. She was only wrong as far as the political means for reaching that progress are concerned: where it was realized, the substantial progress was due to political reform and non-violent means of resistance rather than revolution. With historical hindsight, then, it might be argued that political deliberation (the general institutional point of which is “preserving democracy by deliberation”, cf. van Eemeren and Garssen, 2012, p. 47) rather than revolution is the more successful and sustainable means of political change (cf. also Ilie 2016, p. 134). Thirdly, while many of her Arguments from Figurative Analogy with their dramatic and often hyperbolic metaphors are weakened by the less than plausible relation between the source domains and the target domains, their tenability, relevance and sufficiency can at least be partially justified by the widespread misery of the masses at the time when Michel delivered these arguments. This misery had to be pointed out in a vivid, even dramatic way, which was understandable for the majority of the people attending her speeches and lectures. Fourthly, some points of her criticism of capitalism remain valid today (when a neo-liberal financial system caused a world wide economic crisis); for example, her critical remarks about the concentration of capital with the subsequent ruin of small enterprises and the middle class (“les petits et même quelques gros commerçants, ruinés par les grandes enterprises”; Michel, 1890/2010, p. 20) and the deficiencies of the capitalist bank system (“la danse macabre des banques”; Michel, 1890/2010, p. 19).

122 Manfred Kienpointner

5. Conclusion Louise Michel has had an enormous impact as an icon of anarchism and the working class. In terms of Aristotelian rhetoric, her “ethos” as a speaker and her ability to arouse the emotions of her audience (“pathos”) have attracted much more attention than her “logos”, that is, the arguments she brought forward in her speeches and articles. I have tried to show that her arguments, too, deserve close attention, both as far as their strengths and weaknesses are concerned. This leads me to a possible answer to the central question posed in the abstract of this paper: Can Louise Michel’s revolutionary rhetoric successfully combine reason (logos), character (ethos) and passion (pathos)? Michel’s arguments have deficiencies (false dilemma, false causal predictions, dubious figurative analogies), which make them less than fully convincing from a normative perspective, such as the set of norms established by Pragma-Dialectics. In this sense, her strategic maneuvering “derails” (van Eemeren, 2010, p. 41): In case of a derailment of strategic maneuvering the pursuit of effectiveness has gained the upper hand at the expense of the pursuit of reasonableness, so that the process of resolving a difference of opinion on the merits gets distorted.

However, I have also tried to show that some of Michel’s arguments have proved to be right, at least partially, and that her use of drastic figurative analogies in order to arouse strong emotions could be justified to some extent by the historical context of her political discourse. All in all, then, Michel at least partially managed to maneuver strategically in such a way that it could be called a successful balance between the efficiency and the rationality of political discourse. Thus, Michel managed to achieve a partial reconciliation of reason and passion in her political rhetoric.

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Maclellan, N. (2004): Louise Michel. Anarchist and Revolutionary Feminist, Jailed and Exiled for Leading the 1871 Popular Uprising in Paris. Melbourne: Ocean Press. Martin, H. P., & Schumann, H. (1997). Die Globalisierungs-Falle. Reinbek: Rowohlt. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848). Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei. London: BildungsGesellschaft für Arbeiter. Mengel, P. (1995). Analogien als Argumente. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang. Michel, L. (1871/1999). “Mes procès”. In L. Michel, La Commune (pp. 365–374). Paris: La Découverte. Michel, L. (1883). Le drapeau noir. In: http://rebellyon.info/Louise-Michel-et-le-drapeau-noir. html (seen last time September 26, 2013). Michel, L. (1890/2010). Prise de Possession. In L. Michel & S. Faure, Discours & articles (pp. 9–41). Noisy-le-Sec: l’Épervier. Michel, L. (1896). Why I am an Anarchist. Liberty, 3.3, 26. Michel, L. (1898/1999). La Commune. Histoire et souvenirs. Paris: La Découverte. Micheli, R. (2010). L’émotion argumentée. Paris: Cerf. Mill, J. St. (1946). On liberty and Considerations on Representative Government. Oxford: Blackwell. Mullaney, M. M. (1990). Sexual Politics in the Career and Legend of Louise Michel. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 15 (2), 300–322.  doi: 10.1086/494585 Orwell, G. (1989). Hommage to Catalonia. London: Penguin Books. Perelman, C. & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1983). Traité de l’argumentation. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Pirie, M. (1985). The Book of the Fallacy. London: Routledge & Kegan. Plantin, C. (2005). L’argumentation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Plug, H. J. (2015). Transparency in Legal Argumentation: Adapting to a Composite Audience. In F. H. van Eemeren, & B. Garssen (Eds.), Scrutinizing Argumentation in Practice (pp. 121– 132). Amsterdam: Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/aic.9.07plu Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (2001). Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge . Roth, G. (2004). Aus der Sicht des Gehirns. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Rubinelli, S. (2010). Ars Topica The Classical Techinque of Constructing Arguments from Aristotle to Cicero, Dordrecht: Clower. Schellens, P. J. (1985). Redelijke argumenten. Utrecht: ICG Printing. Schmidt, M. G. (2010). Demokratietheorien. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.  doi: 10.1007/978-3-531-92066-5 Steiner, R. (1962). Philosophie der Freiheit. Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben. Stowasser, H. (2009). Anarchie. Idee – Geschichte – Perspektiven. Hamburg: Nautilus. Thoreau, H. D. (1849/1983). Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: Penguin Books. Walton, D. N. (1999). Appeal to Popular Opinion. University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press. Walton, D. N., Reed, C., & Macagno, F. (2008). Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.  doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511802034 Werner, K., & Weiss, H. (2003). Das neue Schwarzbuch Markenfirmen. Wien: Deuticke. Widmer, T. (2011). American Speeches. New York: Library of America. Paperback Classics. Wodak, R. (2009). The Discourse of Politics in Action. London: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9780230233683 Woods, J. (2004). The Death of Argument. Dordrecht: Kluwer.  doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-2712-3

Chapter 6

Interpersonal style(s) in diplomatic argumentation online A study of argument schemes and evaluation in press releases of UNSC permanent members Elizabeth Swain

University of Trieste

This chapter contributes to a growing body of research on diplomatic argumentation with a corpus study of variation in interpersonal style, conducted from an integrated perspective of argument schemes and appraisal theory. Based on 50 press releases taken from the foreign ministry websites of five prominent countries, the study aimed to ascertain whether internationally shared conventions of the kind regulating subjectivity in traditional argumentation settings still operate in the contemporary global, online context. Scheme types (Walton et al, 2008), directives, and the appraisal categories of authorial attitude and graduation (Martin and White, 2005) were taken as markers of interpersonal style and their frequencies calculated for the whole corpus and the five component sub-corpora. The results showed a relatively small range of argument schemes, free use of authorial attitude overall, and considerable variation between the five sub-corpora. Discussion of the different configurations of schemes and appraisal resources focuses on their construction of interpersonal style and government identity.

1. Introduction Argumentation, negotiation and persuasion are sometimes distinguished as separate categories. Argumentation is thought to be concerned with the validity of opinions, ideas and beliefs, and the disinterested, rational pursuit of ‘truth’. Persuasion by contrast is seen as a more audience-oriented activity, concerned with convincing addressees to believe something, or of the need for actions (not) to be taken; its strategies include appeals to emotion, as in political propaganda or advertising. The term negotiation is used for interactive contexts in which goods and services are being exchanged, and where, as in diplomacy and other fields, interests and practical

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goals are at stake; threats and offers may be deployed to persuade interlocutors to perform some deed, or to believe that some action needs to be performed. However, the distinction between argument, persuasion and negotiation cannot be made so neatly, as Provis (2004) argues. Argument structures are frequently woven into negotiation (Amgoud & Vesic, 2011), and if we adopt van Eemeren et al’s functional definition (1996, p. 340) of argumentation as ‘increasing (or decreasing) the acceptability of a controversial standpoint for the listener or reader’, then persuasion is a legitimate and pertinent object in any study of argumentation. The taxonomy of argument schemes elaborated by Walton and his associates (2008) includes arguments seeking to influence both belief and action, and many practical reasoning arguments that appeal to emotion. Martin’s (1989) framework explicitly distinguishes between analytical arguments about how the world is, and hortatory arguments about how the world should be. Diplomacy is largely concerned with achieving practical goals, so the hortatory kind of argumentation is frequent. At the same time, its long tradition of understatement has developed a register of coded expressions for saying “sharp things to each other without seeming impolite” (Nicolson, 1969), in restricted professional situations. In this chapter the focus is on the rhetorical dimension of diplomatic argumentation to world public opinion, and with how the interpersonal investment in arguments produced for international public consumption is expressed and managed in press release postings on foreign ministry websites. Argumentation is found in a number of spoken and written, public and restricted diplomatic contexts, both historical and contemporary. In some of these contexts it is an optional feature rather than the defining rhetorical mode, as it is say, in the formal debate, academic essay or newspaper editorial. This may be why, in spite of this multiplicity of contexts, including several public ones, diplomatic argumentation has not attracted a great deal of scholarly attention (Kerr, 2010). What literature there is tends to focus on rhetoric and persuasion. Diplomatic negotiation and persuasion have been theorised and described from psychological, sociological, historical and practical diplomatic perspectives, often with a heuristic purpose (e.g. Fisher & Ury, 1991) or with a practical focus on contextual factors (Kurbalija, 2013). Donahue and Prosser (1997) carried out studies of public addresses to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and Security Council (UNSC) from diverse rhetorical perspectives; work in diplomatic and international relations studies has focused on persuasion in bi- or multi-lateral negotiations (Kerr, 2010; Kurbalija, 2013) and in US foreign policy discourse (Edwards & Valenzano, 2007). Work on public diplomacy, particularly in the US, has focused on audience and persuasion (Goodnight, 1998; Hayden 2007, 2010, 2012), and there is a growing body of IR literature on the opportunities and changes brought about by social media (e.g. Seib, 2012). In the fields of discourse analysis and linguistics, Wodak and Vetter (1999) analyse professional identity construction in media appearances by foreign policy representatives, and Partington (2003) carried



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out a corpus-based study of exchanges during US state department press briefings; other contexts of diplomatic argumentation include opinion pieces by foreign secretaries or officials appearing opposite editorials in newspapers (op-eds). Chapters on diplomatic correspondence in manuals for diplomats (Barston, 2014; Roberts, 2009) attest to the importance of stylistic conventions for maintaining face and minimising the potential for interpersonal conflict, e.g. when protesting at the actions of another government (Swain, 2014 and Swain, 2015 focus on politeness strategies). Yet the only previous language-oriented study of written diplomatic argumentation dealing with these issues that I am aware of is by Cohen-Wiesenfeld (2004, 2009), who analyses linguistic and discourse markers of subjectivity in a French language corpus of correspondence between France and Germany 1870–1914. The conventions of interpersonal restraint she investigates are still valued in diplomatic correspondence today (Barston, 2014), but in online contexts of public diplomacy, where governments argue their positions to worldwide audiences, may need to be reviewed. The present inquiry investigates the handling of subjectivity by the five permanent UNSC members when arguing their positions on a range of controversial foreign policy issues to the press and to the wider international community on the web. The aim is to understand whether the argumentation style still reflects common, if new, standard practices within an international professional community (Nicolson, 1969), 1 or whether the opportunity to argue national positions daily to world public opinion, rather than occasionally to the nation or to a counterpart in another foreign ministry, has led to the development of more idiosyncratic interpersonal styles of argumentation. To address these questions I chose to undertake a quantitative and qualitative analysis of argument scheme choice (Walton et al, 2008) and of authorial evaluations and directives in the language realizing them (Martin & White, 2005) in a corpus of 50 argumentative press releases. After a description of the corpus, these tools, and why I chose to use them will be explained in detail.

2. The corpus of press releases In this section I will briefly describe the criteria for selecting the 50 press releases in the corpus, and about their subject matter, structure, size and language. The press releases were posted on foreign ministry websites between 2012–14 and constitute 1. In 1939 Nicolson wrote about “the corporate feeling which the diplomatic service creates. Even as scientists and other experts find, when they meet together, that the interests of their calling transcend all differences of nationality or language, so also do the diplomatic services of the several countries evolve a form of solidarity and establish certain tacit standards which they all respect” (Nicolson, 1969, p. 40).

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a corpus totalling around 10,000 words. It comprises five sub-corpora of 10 press releases for each country: China, France, Russia, UK, and USA. Not all diplomatic press releases are argumentative; they may simply make announcements, e.g. of ambassadorial appointments, or express condolences or congratulations, or celebrate commemorative events. 2 The texts chosen for this study are all argumentative in that the author – a government spokesperson usually or sometimes a foreign minister – puts forward and justifies a position on some controversial topic in which political interest and / or national face is stake. Both interest and face have always been potential sources of conflict, but concern for the national image is perhaps more salient in the contemporary age of digital diplomacy, with countries being rated for their “soft power” and their ability to “win hearts and minds” along parameters which include government (human rights, violence) and use of digital diplomacy. 3 The foreign policy interests and priorities of the five UNSC permanent member countries differ – as a glance at the contents of their government’s foreign affairs homepage and the lists of press releases on any given day will show – and the corpus reflects this reality in its topics and range of position-takings. Two main themselves prevail: territorial disputes (south China sea; the Falklands; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Tibet; Ukraine) and human rights (usually the US, UK or France denouncing abuses of these in African, Middle Eastern or Asian countries). Some texts respond to criticism (particularly in the Russian but also in the Chinese corpus), and a couple in the China corpus counter Japanese revisions of WW2 history. The texts are normally quite short, between 70–550 words in length. In almost all cases only the government viewpoint is expressed; acknowledgement of other positions is rare, so the argumentation tends to be one-sided, 4 and any evaluation tends to be authorial, or perceived as the government’s view (the texts alternate 1st person singular and plural and 3rd person to express government positions). This brevity and one-sidedness may reflect the number and frequency with which these press releases are produced: up to ten daily on the US State Department site,

2. To the best of my knowledge, no traditional terms exist which differentiate argumentative from non-argumentative types, and insofar as the press release may fulfil at least two quite different purposes, “press release” is a conventional folk label, and not a genre in any functional definition of the term (Lassen, 2006). 3. I refer here to the index of soft power compiled by the private company Portland Communications for 2016. The other parameters used by them to rate soft power are education, engagement and enterprise. In Portland’s 2016 rankings, the USA is 1st, followed by the UK in 2nd, and France in 5th place. Russia and China are 27th and 28th respectively. 4. China’s explanation of the Japanese position on the Diaoyu islands is the only example of two-sided argumentation in the corpus.



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and between two to five elsewhere, allowing little time for a pondered analysis or assessment of multiple viewpoints as might be found, say, in an academic research paper, or in some Foreign Ministry memorandum written for internal use. The argumentation in the press releases rarely follows the neat structure premise 1^ premise 2^ conclusion that we find in idealised, formal accounts of argumentation. Often two or more argument schemes appear to be interwoven and overlapping in the same text, and sometimes the arguments are enthymemic, i.e. a premise or the conclusion is missing, and has to be inferred. The order of premises and conclusion varies; sometimes the conclusion of one argument may be the premise for another, and some arguments may have more than two premises. Many texts in the corpus open with a brief preamble describing the ‘facts’ of the case, sometimes in a cited question from the press, and sometimes, as in text (1) below, they bear a title, rather like a newspaper article. Sometimes these preambles take the form of a speech act or statement expressing the government’s emotional response to some event or situation: “We firmly condemn ..”; “We are deeply concerned by ..”. This interpersonal framing, as will be explained in the tools section, is often key to understanding the evaluative positions being adopted in the premises and / or conclusions of arguments, or to retrieving these from the intertextual environment. Another feature of the corpus is the hortatory nature of much of the argumentation. It is more often about persuading the addressees of the need for action to be taken, than about persuading them to believe something, though both types of argumentation are present. In hortatory arguments, the call for action is often formulated using the formula “we urge X to do Y” as in “We urge the US to take China’s concerns seriously..”. At other times, the call for action is expressed by modulated declaratives: “Assad must leave”; “the decision should be reviewed”. The French press release below serves to illustrate some of the features of the argumentative diplomatic press release I have described: (1) Arrest of a Pakistani girl on blasphemy charges and risk of death penalty France is especially concerned by the situation of a Pakistani girl who has been detained since Thursday on blasphemy charges. It welcomes the Pakistani president’s determination to shed full light on this case and urges the Pakistani authorities to release this young girl who, according to certain sources, apparently has Down syndrome. France wants to reaffirm that the very existence of the crime of blasphemy infringes upon fundamental freedoms, namely the freedom of religion or belief, as well as the freedom of expression. It urges Pakistan to comply with its international commitments in this area, notably the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  21st August, 2012 France

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The argumentation is framed by two opening statements expressing France’s attitudinal stance (in bold) towards the situation: it is “concerned” [affect: insecurity] but “welcomes” [affect: satisfaction] action taken so far. There appear to be at least two overlapping hortatory arguments, whose claims (underlined) in practical terms are synonymous: releasing the girl and respecting international commitments amount to the same thing. The premises for each of these claims however differ. One premise is from the practical reasoning argument from distress: the detained girl is young, suffers from Down’s syndrome, faces the death penalty and therefore should be released. The other scheme is rule-based, appealing to law: the arrest and detention is against the International Covenant and the Convention to which Pakistan is a party, therefore they are unlawful actions, and the girl should be released. The hortatory conclusions to each argument also deploy affect in the ubiquitous formula “[The government] urges X to …”

3. Analytical tools To analyse the interpersonal style of diplomatic argumentation I have chosen to use the tools of Walton’s argument schemes theory (AST) for classifying argument types (Walton et al, 2008), and the appraisal framework (AF) for analysing the language of evaluation in discourse (Martin & White, 2005). These choices were based on the following assumptions. First, that in argumentation, where positions are taken on controversial issues, evaluation plays a key role in aligning writers / speakers and readers, listeners or viewers; secondly, that the management of evaluative language affects the perceived subjective investment in the argumentation, and thirdly, that the choice of argument scheme is itself rhetorically meaningful and will likely constrain choices in the quality of evaluative language and hence the degree to which the argumentation is interpersonally charged. The management of subjectivity is important in many genres and discourse types for different practical and strategic reasons. In news reporting, attributing evaluations to unspecified third parties may shield journalists from charges of defamation, for instance, and in academic writing, the use of so-called ‘hedging’ devices in evaluative propositions allows authors both to moderate their personal commitment to evaluations and to acknowledge alternative views (White, 2003). In traditional diplomacy, the management of subjectivity is closely tied to the paramount maintenance of face (Berridge, 2010), and at the same time to the need, in multilateral negotiation, to balance alignment with maintaining a dialogue with the dissenting party. In this traditionally important task of managing subjectivity, choices of argument schemes and the evaluative language of appraisal are highly pertinent.



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3.1

Appraisal

Appraisal (Martin & White, 2005; White, 2012) is a comprehensive framework designed to enable systematic descriptions of even subtle nuances of evaluative meanings in discourse, and how these are deployed to align thought and behaviour. Developed in Australia during the 1990s, and grounded in systemic functional linguistics (Halliday & Hasan, 1989; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), the framework elaborates the affect dimension of the situational tenor, and is linked to the interpersonal metafunction of language. Appraisal is oriented towards the rhetorical functionality of evaluation; its scope is ‘encompassing [], moving well beyond linguistic construal of emotion into domains where attitude is deployed to control behaviour’ (2005, p. 36). Applications to date have been largely in the domains of journalism (Martin & White, 2005) and education (Coffin, 2002). I will draw on the appraisal categories of attitude and graduation for this study of interpersonal style in diplomatic argumentation. The examples in the following brief account come from my corpus. The attitude category deals with the expression of three types of attitudinal meanings: affect, appreciation and judgement. They are gradable and have a positive and negative dimension. Affect is concerned with emotional responses or disposition (“we are deeply concerned”; “we urge / call for / demand that / oppose”). First person affect is common in our corpus of diplomatic press releases (it is comparatively rare in journalistic or academic discourse). It often has the function of introducing an argument or arguments as in (2) and (3) below (affect in bold): (2) I am deeply concerned by emerging reports of a brutal massacre of civilians in Darayya, in the outskirts of Damascus [the text goes on to call for international action to stop the violence].  Foreign Minister Alistair Burt 26th August 2012 UK (3) We are surprised about the statement of American department of the non-governmental organisation Amnesty International after the recent meeting of its representatives at the Embassy of Russia in Washington, D.C., which misrepresents the discussion at the meeting. [the text goes on to refute the AI version and provide an alternative, Russian government account of what happened]  16th August 2012 Russia

Judgement has to do with moral assessments of behaviour. It comprises two subcategories: social esteem, for assessments of normality, tenacity and capacity, and social sanction, for judgements of veracity (truthfulness) and propriety (respect of behavioural norms). Many protests in diplomacy (Barston, 2014) are about the breaking of laws and agreements, or divergences from what are referred to as “international norms of conduct” so there is a lot of potential for social sanction. In these excerpts “Iran continuously stifles the voices of peaceful dissent” and “the

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illegal nature of Japan’s aggression and the stealing of Chinese territory” the behaviours of Iran and Japan are each evaluated with judgement: negative propriety. The opening expression of affective stance in excerpt 4 below is followed by explicit condemnation of the Cuban government’s behaviour with negative social sanction (wavy underlined): (4) Scores of Cuban Democracy Activists Detained on the Eve of Human Rights Day We are deeply concerned by the Cuban Government’s repeated use of arbitrary detention and violence to silence critics, disrupt peaceful assembly, and intimidate independent civil society. [the text goes on call on the Cuban government to cease these kinds of actions and allow democracy]  Victoria Nuland Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson 10th December 2012 US

Appreciation concerns evaluations of things, events and situations (“the situation is worrying/ troubling / grave / critical”). Two of its subcategories are frequent in the corpus. These are (i) reaction: impact, expressing the emotional effect of something on the appraiser (“worrying” “troubling”) and (ii) social valuation, related to the particular value something has in a given community (and which it may not have in another, e.g. “democratic” in “a democratic society” will be evaluated differently in different parts of the world). Excerpt (5) below from a press release citing the then UK Minister for Europe exemplifies the two subcategories, using social valuation (“comprehensive”, “independent”) to positively evaluate the UNHCHR’s report, and reaction: impact (“alarming”), to expresses the effect of the situation in Crimea on the Minister and his government: (5) We pay tribute to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who has produced a comprehensive and independent report that highlights the alarming human rights situation in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. [the text goes on to deplore the abuses and express support for and reiterate the UNHCHR’s call for a stop to the abuses]  David Lidington Minister for Europe 16th May 2014 UK

Graduation, the other appraisal category used in this study, groups a range of expressions that adjust the force and the focus of ideational and interpersonal meanings upwards (strongly, absolutely, completely) and downwards (slightly, rather, somewhat). We can see an example of upscaling in Excerpt (4) above, where “scores of ” in “scores of activists” intensifies the force of the ideational meaning of “activists”. Graduation force and focus are underlined in Excerpt (6) from a Chinese diplomatic press release protesting about a planned US encounter with the Dalai Lama:



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(6) Tibet-related issues are purely China’s internal affairs. Dalai, a political exile in nature, has long engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the disguise of religion. China firmly [graduation: force] opposes any foreign leader meeting Dalai in whatever form and any country or any person using Dalai as a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs. [citing norms governing international relations, the statement calls on the US to stop interfering in its affairs]  17th July 2011 China

The above example illustrates how graduation works to “flag” attitudinal meanings, i.e. direct the reader towards a particular evaluative interpretation of ideational meanings: “purely” in “purely China’s internal affairs” [graduation: focus] sharpens the focus on China’s internal affairs and flags China’s criticism of the perceived US encroachment in this area. Similarly, “long” in “has long engaged” [graduation: force] emphasises the temporal extent of the Dalai Lama’s activities, and intensifies China’s negative view towards them signalled by the affective expression “opposes” in “China firmly opposes”, which in turn is intensified by the use of “firmly” [graduation: force]. Furthermore, the expressions “any”, and “whatever” in “whatever form” cumulatively emphasise the extent [graduation: force] of China’s opposition. The force of evaluative meanings can also be adjusted by using more or less intensive expressions (e.g. “troubled” vs “appalled”) or by choosing non-core vocabulary (e.g. in a Russian release of 16th May 2014, the term “Kiev clique” is used to refer to the government of Ukraine, signalling Russia’s negative view of the latter). 3.1.1 Voice Corpus analyses of the frequencies of attributed and non-attributed attitude in school history (Coffin, 2002) and in journalistic discourse (Martin & White, 2005) have found that particular patterns of deployment of affect, judgement and appreciation are associated with varying levels of subjectivity; these configurations of appraisal resources have been described as “voice” styles. One key factor distinguishing voice styles in journalism is whether or not attitudinal meanings are attributed to third parties or sourced to the author; another is which type of attitudinal meanings are more or less frequent. The ‘reporter voice’ style is characterised by very low frequencies of unattributed attitude, for example, and very limited use of judgement. The ‘writer voice’ style by contrast has higher frequencies of authorial attitude and tends to deploy more appreciation and judgement of the social sanction kind. For this reason writer voice is interpersonally more charged than reporter voice; another contributing factor is the use of directives in hortatory argumentation. Moreover, these patterns tend to feature in traditional journalistic text types: reporter voice, suggesting objectivity, is typical in news reporting, and writer voice, suggesting greater subjectivity, is found in news analyses and editorials. Since texts

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deploying authorial, moral assessments of behaviour tend to be perceived as having greater subjective commitment than those using authorial appreciation or affect, we might expect conventional diplomatic discourse, with its tradition of understatement, to use authorial judgement sparingly. White’s studies of ‘neutral’ news reporting (2011) have shown however how graduation resources may be deployed, in the absence of authorial attitude, to introduce a greater subjective presence into the text. This use of graduation can be seen in the excerpt from the Chinese statement in (6) above. The investigation will confirm whether or not patterns of appraisal resources occur in the realisation of argument schemes in our corpus of diplomatic press releases as they do in history and journalistic discourse (and perhaps in other hitherto unexplored discourses). We are only considering authorial, non-attributed attitude here, however; the diplomatic press releases make no claim to be impartial, and any differentiation in voice styles will be according to the frequencies and types of unmediated attitude and graduation. The self-explanatory term “megaphone diplomacy” 5 has been applied to the style of negotiation conducted through press releases and public announcements, suggesting that the understated norm of traditional diplomatic correspondence in making protests, threats or declarations of war, even (Satow, 1917; Gaselee, 1939; Nicolson, 1969; Roberts, 2009; Barston, 2014) is not applicable in the online press release. That said, the provision of reasons for supporting protests and demands is consistent with maintaining face and openness to dialogue as well as with aligning support. Walton’s schemes provide a framework for the functional classification of those reasons, which as I hope to show below, prepare the ground for appraisal choices of attitude. 3.2

Walton’s argument schemes

Walton et al’s (2008) argument schemes are abstract models of patterns of human reasoning, extrapolated from observation of real-life arguments. Three broad categories – source-based arguments, rule-based arguments and arguments from practical reasoning – together encompass sixty schemes. The schemes are functionally based on the type of premises that defend a conclusion. They gloss multiple diverse potential realisations of the basic argument template of Conclusion – Major 5. Berridge and James explain that the term arose to describe “the style of public exchanges in the early 1980s between the Soviet Union on the one hand and the United States and the United Kingdom on the other. Afterwards President Reagan said of the early months of his first administration in the spring of 1981: ‘In my speeches and press conferences I deliberately set out to say some frank things about the Russians, to let them know there were some new fellows in Washington who had a realistic view of what they were up to and weren’t going to let them keep it up’”. (2001, p. 155).



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Premise – Minor Premise. Distinguishing these variations in practice entails sorting out conclusions and premises in sometimes non-linear sets of propositions, and doing this implies understanding evaluative and rhetorical coherence in the discourse as well as logical relations. For example, a source based or ethotic argument will entail some sort of evaluation of the source; a rule-based argument may avoid explicitly evaluative language in appealing to impartial judicial authority (Bower, 2015), or it may blame or praise somebody on the way for engaging in unlawful / lawful behaviour. Many practical reasoning arguments, such as those from consequences, fear or pity (Walton et al, 2008 pp. 100–112) entail the positive or negative evaluation of some present or future condition. Walton et al (2008) note how types of argumentation tend to be used in particular contexts, e.g causal argumentation in legal, scientific and everyday contexts of reasoning (2008, p. 164), ethotic and negative ethotic arguments (e.g. ad hominem) in political contexts, and arguments from bias in negotiation (2008, p. 155). I will anticipate here that my corpus analysis showed that governments choose among several scheme types, variously invoking laws, moral and ethical standards, precedents, authorities, appeals to compassion etc. These choices are meaningful, also in terms of the conditions they create for appraisal and alignment. Consider the following two excerpts (7) and (8) from press releases, one by China, one by the UK, which choose different schemes in their reasoned responses to the Crimea referendum in 2014. The Chinese release comes just after China abstained from a UNSC vote on a draft resolution. The statement justifies its critical stance on the vote using an argument from negative consequences, based on the premise “The UNSC’s vote on the draft resolution will only lead to confrontation among the parties” (my underlining in the text): (7) Q: Late last night Beijing time, the UN Security Council voted on the draft resolution presented by the US on the referendum in Crimea. What is China’s comment ? China abstained from the vote on the draft resolution on the referendum in Crimea [because it disagreed with the vote]. China always respects all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is a basic diplomatic principle that has long been upheld by China. We believe that due to the complex historical and practical factors, we should take everything into consideration when dealing with the Ukrainian issue. China disapproves of confrontation. The UN Security Council’s vote on the draft resolution will only lead to confrontation among all parties, which will further complicate the situation. It goes against the common interests of the Ukrainian people and the international community. Under the current circumstances, China calls on all parties to keep calm, exercise restraint and refrain from raising the tension. What is imperative now is to push for a political settlement. [..]  Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang 16th March 2014 CHINA

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Explicit authorial evaluation in the release is positive judgement of China who “respects all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity” and negative affect “China disapproves of confrontation” which implies more positive judgement of China (i.e. China works for peace and constructive dialogue) and negative judgement of those who voted. Otherwise the target of appraisal is the situation: “complex factors”, “lead to confrontation”, “complicate the situation”, are negative appreciation: social valuation. These appraisal choices are consistent with the scheme from negative consequences, which evaluates some potential outcome negatively and justifies the non-performance of some action. On the same day the UK issued a press release quoting the then Foreign Minister, William Hague: (8) Foreign Secretary says Crimea referendum should not convince anyone, UK will not recognise outcome. [] I condemn the fact that this referendum has taken place, in breach of the Ukrainian constitution and in defiance of calls by the international community for restraint. Nothing in the way that the referendum has been conducted should convince anyone that it is a legitimate exercise. The referendum has taken place at ten days’ notice, without a proper campaign or public debate, with the political leaders of the country being unable to visit Crimea, and in the presence of many thousands of troops from a foreign country. It is a mockery of proper democratic practice. The UK does not recognise the referendum or its outcome, in common with the majority of the international community. At the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers tomorrow we believe measures must be adopted that send a strong signal to Russia that this challenge to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine will bring economic and political consequences. Furthermore, any attempt by the Russian Federation to use the referendum as an excuse to annex the Crimea, or to take further action on Ukrainian territory, would be unacceptable. I call on Russia to enter into dialogue with Ukraine and with the international community to resolve this crisis through diplomacy and in accordance with international law, not to exacerbate it further through unilateral and provocative actions  Foreign Minister William Hague 16th March 2014 UK.

At least two conclusions are being argued for here. One is that the UK does not recognise the referendum: the argument is rule-based, appealing to law and custom (the referendum is “a mockery of proper democratic practice” and hence cannot be recognised). The other conclusion is that Russia should engage in dialogue rather than annex Crimea: the argument for this conclusion is from threat (“this challenge [] will bring economic and political consequences” from the EU, if Russia does not comply). Unlike the Chinese text there is explicit social sanction of Russia’s behaviour as arrogant and lawless (underlined in the text): “in defiance of calls by the international community for restraint”; “not a legitimate exercise”; “a mockery of



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proper democratic practice” “challenge to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”. The Chinese position is more conciliatory; by using an argument from negative consequences it shifts the focus off Russia’s actions to the need to avert conflict, and draws on appreciation for its evaluation. The UK’s combination of a rule-based argument and an argument from threat is more confrontational and deploys social sanction. The scheme choices are rhetorically strategic choices, then, calling for or enabling particular attitude resources in language and construing the argument as more or less subjectively charged. Taking into account the differences of perspective – Walton’s schemes are cognitive, and reflect and describe patterns of human reasoning in the staging of arguments, whereas the appraisal framework developed out of a social theory of language (SFL) concerned with social meaning making in situations – I believe the two sets of analytical tools can be used complementarily in this study. Though language is not the focus of AST, it is key to identifying the neat formulae of schemes in more tangled authentic discourse. Walton et al concede, in connection with enthymemic arguments, that a “natural language text of discourse can be difficult to interpret” (2008, 192), but the insights into evaluation and evaluative cohesion that appraisal can give are helpful in inferring the missing premises or conclusions of enthymemic arguments, in disentangling overlapping arguments, and in discriminating between similar schemes. Both AST and AF have a pragmatic dimension in that they each recognise implicit meanings in discourse: enthymemic arguments require a missing premise or conclusion to be inferred from “common knowledge”, and the category of invoked appraisal in AF theorises ways in which implicit evaluation may be expressed. In the Q/A press release below it is not explicitly stated that China is breaking international law, and the 2nd premise in the rule-based scheme is missing. The evaluative expression “we are deeply concerned” assists in its retrieval by colouring the ideational meanings which follow with negative affect. The rule-based argument can thus be recovered: Premise 1 Freedom of overflight [..is] essential. Premise 2 China’s declaration of ADIZ is an unlawful breach of that freedom. Conclusion The US government – which abides by the law – does not accept ADIZ. (9) Question: Is there any specific guidance or information we are giving to U.S. carriers operating in China’s recently declared Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)? Answer: Freedom of overflight and other internationally lawful uses of sea and airspace are essential to prosperity, stability, and security in the Pacific. We remain deeply concerned by China’s November 23 declaration of an “East China Sea Air Identification Zone.” The U.S. government generally expects that U.S. carriers operating internationally will operate consistent with NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen) issued by foreign countries. Our expectation of operations by U.S. carriers consistent with NOTAMs does not indicate U.S. government acceptance of China’s requirements for operating in the newly declared ADIZ.  Press briefing 27.11.2013 US

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Many other such examples could be given, where an affective disposition (we condemn; we are deeply disturbed by) is the only or a key explicit attitudinal expression in the text setting the tone for the interpretation of surrounding ideational meanings, enabling the retrieval of missing premises or conclusions of enthymemes.

4. Frequency data for schemes and authorial attitude This section presents the data for frequency analyses of argument schemes, appraisal (authorial attitude and graduation) and directives in the corpus. Table 1 below presents the frequencies for argument scheme type for each sub-corpus and overall: Table 1.  Argument schemes in the corpus: frequency of use by country and overall (total) Argument scheme Rule-based Source-based

Rules Expert opinion Position to know Popular opinion Ad hominem Double standards Bias Practical Positive / Negative values reasoning based Negative consequences Precedent Distress Threat Cause to effect Evidence

China France Russia 4 4

8 1

1 2 5

1 1

US

TOTAL

1 2

3

18  7  2  1  5  2  2  4 13  2 11  3  1  1

2 1 4 2 1

1

1

2

UK

4 2

2 4

1 1 2

1 1

5 1

1

Of Walton et al’s 60 scheme types (2008, pp. 309–346), only 14 occur in the corpus (and only half of these more than once or twice). Schemes from all three macro-categories are present: practical reasoning based schemes are the most frequent (36) followed by rule-based schemes appealing to law and custom (19) and source-based schemes (18). Within the macro-categories, the most frequently used types overall are the schemes from rules, from negative consequences and from distress. The sub-corpora, each of which uses between 4–8 schemes only, show considerable variation. Notably, China’s most frequent schemes are from rules and from expert opinion; France’s are from rules and from distress; Russia has a high concentration of source-based schemes, particularly negative ethotic ones, followed by arguments from negative consequences; the UK has a high concentration of



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practical reasoning schemes, the most frequent of which is from negative consequences. Similarly for the US, whose most frequent scheme is from distress, followed by from rules. Notably France, the UK and the US have no or very few source-based schemes; the bulk of these are located in the Russian corpus, followed by the Chinese corpus. China has few practical reasoning schemes. Table 2.  Argument scheme frequencies in the sub-corpora China France Russia UK US

rules (4); expert opinion (4); threat (1); ad hominem (1); negative consequences (1); cause to effect (1) rules (8); distress (6); negative consequences (6); expert opinion (1); (negative) value (1) ad hominem (4); negative consequences (4); rules (2); position to know (2); double standards (2); precedent (2); popular opinion (1); bias (1) negative consequences (4); expert opinion (2); rules (1); (positive) value (1); (negative) value (1), distress (1); threat (1) evidence (1) distress (5); rules (3); negative consequences (2); positive values (1); bias (1); threat (1)

We turn now to the results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the corpus and sub-corpora for unmediated inscribed attitude, graduation and directives (frequencies per 500 words): Table 3.  Frequencies per 500 words for values of authorial attitude and graduation and for directives in the five sub-corpora and corpus AFFECT JUDGEMENT APPRECIATION GRADUATION Directives

China

France

Russia

UK

USA

Corpus

 4.5 6 2 7 3

7 6  3.5   4.25 5

  2.5 13   3.5   4.3    0.04

7 5 6 5 2

5 5 5 3   2.45

 5.2 7 4  4.7  2.9

Of the three categories of attitude, the most frequent overall is judgement (7 occurrences per 500 words). Affect is the next most frequent attitude category overall (5.2 per 500 words). Appreciation is the least frequently deployed attitude resource (4 per 500 words). Graduation occurs more frequently than Appreciation (7 p500w). As with the argument schemes, there is considerable variation in frequencies of authorial attitude and graduation between the sub-corpora. The frequency of judgement varies between 5–13 p500w. It is only the most frequent attitude category in the Russian corpus, where with 13 p500w it is almost double the average frequency, and in the Chinese corpus (6 per 500 words). Affect frequency varies between 2.5–7 p500w. It is the most frequently deployed attitude type in the French and the UK corpora (7 p500w), where it occurs at almost three times the rate in the

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Russian corpus, which has the lowest frequency of 2.5 p500w. Appreciation varies from 2–6 p500w. It is most frequent in the UK and the US corpora (respectively 6 and 5 p500w), and it is least frequent in the Chinese corpus (2 p500w). The three attitude categories have the same frequency in the US corpus, which is never far from the corpus average on any score. The picture for directives also varies considerably. Directives are most frequent in the French corpus (5 p500w), followed by the Chinese corpus (3 p500w). They are the least frequent – and very infrequent – in the Russian corpus (0.04 p500w). The occurrence of graduation values varies too, from 3–7 p500w. Graduation is most frequent in the Chinese corpus (7 p500w) where the rate is over double the lowest, US frequency; in the French, Russian and UK corpora frequencies are close to the average of 4.7 p500w.

5. Discussion To sum up, the data on type and frequency of argument schemes and authorial attitude and graduation show a relatively small range of argument schemes of all three basic types, and free use of unmediated attitude and graduation. The reported frequencies of attitude and directives attest to levels of subjective investment in the argumentation which experience suggests are more comparable to usage in news editorials than in traditional diplomatic correspondence. These high levels of subjective presence can be explained in terms of the non-specialist, largely unknown audience of world public opinion, unfamiliar with the diplomatic register of written communications, and the fact that, although government officials of states can be expected to read it, no direct response from them to the argumentation is anticipated. However, if this is megaphone diplomacy, the considerable variation across the sub-corpora shows how the megaphone settings can be adjusted. There are different combinations of schemes and associated configurations of the appraisal resources of attitude and graduation. And there are preferences for certain combinations in the individual sub-corpora, which suggest more or less subtle differences in the interpersonal styles of argumentation of each. Varying choices amongst the scheme and appraisal options differently construct the governments and their audience. They also reflect the topic and purpose of the argumentation, the level of interest at stake and the degree of commitment to the arguments being put forward, all factors which constrain choices among scheme and appraisal options. Arguments over territorial claims tended to appeal to rules, sometimes deploying social sanction to denounce contraventions of laws and agreements; arguments over human rights mostly appealed to distress or rules and were hortatory, deploying affect in the call for action and / or appreciation in



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appraising the plight of victims; responses to criticism tended to deploy negative ethotic arguments and to have correspondingly high levels of social sanction in the negative appraisal of sources. Over half the statements in the Chinese corpus deal with territorial disputes in which China has a strong interest (the Diaoyu islands and Tibet) or less direct concern (Crimea). The others respond to US criticism of China’s human rights record, and refute Japanese revisions of WW2 history. China’s arguments mostly appeal to authority: schemes from rules and from expert opinion dominate. The argumentation tends to be hortatory, with the second highest frequency for directives after France. China has the highest rate of graduation, which compensates for the lowest rate of inscribed attitude in the corpus. 6 These patterns tend to construe the interpersonal relationship between the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its audience as distant, and the role of China as one of power and authority. The French corpus releases are mostly about human rights (abuses in Syria, Gambia, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, and universal women’s rights). In deploying both the solidarity scheme from distress and the power scheme from rule for arguing human rights cases, there is a tendency to condemn the perpetrators of crimes as well as to appeal to suffering of victims, often through invocation rather than direct inscription of judgement and appreciation. The French corpus shares the highest frequency of affect with the UK corpus. Much of the affect is located in the introductions to the press releases in performatives using “condemn” and “denounce” which colour the unfolding text with invoked negative judgement and negative appreciation. France has the highest occurrence of directives. These choices construct a dual role for France of solidarity and assertive power in upholding human rights: the frequent condemnations construe an adjudicating interpersonal style of argumentation. The Russian corpus stands out from the other corpora in many respects. Mostly the press releases either respond to criticism (by Amnesty, the UNHCHR, the US and the EU) of its human rights record and actions in Ukraine, or mete it out (to the US, the UK, Ukraine, the other UNSC members). The corpus shows a marked preference for source-based, particularly negative ethotic arguments (ad hominem, double standards, bias) and correspondingly very high levels of social sanction. There are no arguments from distress (one text dealing with the Iraqi victims of private US military companies selects an ad hominem scheme). Explicit directives are almost negligible: the argumentation aims at aligning the audience with evaluative propositions, not proposals. Conclusions often have to be inferred. Other marked choices in the corpus are rhetorical questions (two) inviting the listener / reader’s 6. Graduation: force is present as intensification in some judgment values, e.g the intensive expressions ‘hysterical’ ‘arrogant’ ‘ignorant’ are used in one release to appraise a Japanese revisionist.

144 Elizabeth Swain

alignment with negative judgements of behaviour, and the presence of sarcasm and irony, signalled in two statements by scare quotes and present also in the use of figurative or non-standard language (‘plot’ ‘wards’ ‘whitewash’). Russia is constructed in this small corpus as a victim of others’ injustice, addressing a familiar audience which it seeks to bring on board adopting a populist style of argumentation. The topics of the UK corpus are predominantly human rights abuses (in Syria, Nigeria, Crimea, Egypt and Uganda) and territorial disputes (Crimea, Falklands, Palestinian occupied territories). With France the UK has the highest level of authorial affect, which is its most frequently deployed attitude resource. The most used scheme with human rights cases is from negative consequences, but although the distress scheme is dis-preferred, empathy for the victims of crimes and abuses is expressed in the affect: insecurity value concern / concerned which accounts for about one third of total UK affect values, and is often located in argument preambles. The UK has the second highest frequency of graduation; three fifths of graduation values serve to intensify affect (deeply concerned; strongly condemns / opposes) and appreciation (very important; deeply worrying). The UK has the lowest frequency of directives after Russia. These results tend to construe a solidary role for the UK rather than one of power, with much of its subjective assessment realised through affect resources, which tends to narrow the interpersonal distance with audience. The US corpus is dominated by human rights issues and shows a preference for the distress scheme. The other issues are territorial disputes, and the arguments used on these appeal to rules. The frequencies of all appraisal types are close to the average, and the US corpus has the lowest overall frequency of combined appraisal values of attitude and graduation. The mid-range frequency of directives was quite surprising, given the popular view of the US as bossy and interfering. These features tend to construe a more solidary role for the US than a power role; the relatively measured use of authorial attitude and graduation is more in keeping with traditional diplomatic practice.

6. Conclusion Using argument schemes and appraisal categories of attitude and graduation as markers of interpersonal style, this study set out to establish whether shared international conventions such as those operating in traditional diplomatic argumentation to contain personality regulate the management of subjectivity in the press releases on contemporary foreign ministry websites, or whether different countries were developing their own, more liberal approaches to subjectivity when arguing their positions to world public opinion. The results of a manual and thorough analysis of 50 argumentative press statements showed the latter to be the case, and that,



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drawing on a small number of schemes and free use of authorial attitude, individual countries selected sometimes quite different configurations of resources. Further, the analysis suggested possible relationships between foreign policy interest areas and argument scheme choice, and confirmed an anticipated relationship between some scheme choices and types of appraisal. Taken as a whole, the corpus showed some vestiges of the traditional diplomatic repertoire for understatement, but the free occurrence of authorial social sanction and affect and the use of negative ethotic arguments are closer to the style of newspaper editorials than of argumentation in interstate diplomatic correspondence, with its careful management of subjectivity. Comparative analysis of the sub-corpora suggested that the web environment has provided a global, public forum in which states compete to argue their case to the world, in the process forging independent argumentation styles which construct their values and policy interests, their relationship with the global public, and their role and status within the international community.

References Amgoud, L., & Vesic, S. (2011). A formal analysis of the outcomes of argumentation-based negotiations. Journal of Logic and Computation, 22 (5), 957–978.  doi: 10.1093/logcom/exr037 Barston, R. P. (2014). Modern Diplomacy. London: Routledge. Berridge, G.,& James, A. (2001). A Dictionary of Diplomacy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Berridge, G. (2010). Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bower, A. (2015). Arguing with law: strategic legal argumentation, US diplomacy, and debates over the International Criminal Court. Review of International Studies, 41, 337–360. doi: 10.1017/S0260210514000217 Coffin, C. (2002). The voices of history: Theorising the interpersonal semantics of historical discourses. Text, 22 (4), 503–528. Cohen-Wiesenfeld, S. (2004). L’inscription de la subjectivité dans le discours diplomatique. Semen, 17 (2), 41–58. Cohen-Wiesenfeld, S. (2009). Argumentation logique et subjectivité masquée : le cas de la note diplomatique. In V. Atayan & D. Pirazzini (Eds), Argumentation: Théorie – Langue – Discours. Actes de la section ‘Argumentation’ du XXX. Deutscher Romanistentag, Vienne, Septembre 2007, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Donahue, R. T., & Prosser, M. H. (1997). Diplomatic Discourse. International Conflict at the UN. Addresses and Analysis. Greenwich, CN: Ablex. Edwards, J. A., & Valenzano, J. M. (2007). Bill Clinton’s “new partnership” anecdote: Towards a post-cold-war foreign policy rhetoric. Journal of Language and Politics, 6 (3), 303–325. doi: 10.1075/jlp.6.3.03edw Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst, R., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. et al (1996). Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Fisher, R., & Ury, W. L. (1991). Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. New York: Penguin (2nd edition). Gaselee, S. (1939). The Language of Diplomacy. Being the Gregynog Lectures. London: Bowes & Bowes. Goodnight, G. T. (1998). Public argument and the study of foreign policy. American Diplomacy, 8, http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD _Issues/amdipl_8/goodnight.html. Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I .M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan R. (1989). Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a SocioSemiotic Context. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Hayden, C. (2007). Arguing public diplomacy: The role of argument formations in US foreign policy rhetoric. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 2, 229–254.  doi: 10.1163/187119007X240514 Hayden, C. (2010). The role of audience in public diplomacy. In Conference Proceedings of the alTa conference on argumentation of the American National Communication Association, San Francisco. Hayden, C. (2012). The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts. Lanham MD: Lexington Books. Kerr, P. L. (2010). Diplomatic Persuasion: An Under-investigated Process. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 5 (3), 235–26.  doi: 10.1163/187119110X508512 Kurbalija, J. (Ed.) (2013). Persuasion: The Essence of Diplomacy. Diplofoundation: Malta. Lassen, I. (2006). Is the press release a genre? A study of form and content. Discourse Studies, 8(4), 503–530.  doi: 10.1177/1461445606061875 Martin, J. R. (1989). Factual Writing: Exploring and Challenging Social Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Nicolson, H. (1969). Diplomacy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Partington, A. (2003). The Linguistics of Political Argument: The Spin-doctor and the Wolf Pack at the White House. London: Routledge.  doi: 10.4324/9780203218259 Provis, C. (2004). Negotiation, persuasion and argument. Argumentation, 18 (1), 95–112. doi: 10.1023/B:ARGU.0000014868.08915.2a Roberts, I. (2009). Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/law/9780199559275.001.0001 Satow, E. M. (1917). A Guide to Diplomatic Practice. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Seib, P. (2012). Real-time Diplomacy: Politics and Power in the Social Media Era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.  doi: 10.1057/9781137010902 Swain, E. (2014). Mood metaphor in diplomacy: From bilateral correspondence to the web. Unpublished paper presented at 25th European Systemic Functional Linguistic Conference, 10–12 July, Paris, France. Swain, E. (2015). (Im)politeness in a diplomatic context: The case of the Zinoviev letter. In M. Busà & S. Gesuato (Eds), Studi in Onore di Alberto Mioni (pp. 863–874). Padova: CLEUP. Walton, D., Reed, C., & Macagno, F. (2008). Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511802034 White, P. R. R. (2003). Beyond modality and hedging: A dialogic view of the language of intersubjective stance. Text, 23 (2), 259–284. White, P. R. R. (2012). http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/.



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White, P. R. R. (2011). English-language hard-news style as a strategic stance: understanding the rhetorical potential of the “objective” news report. Unpublished paper presented at the 12th international pragmatics conference 3–8 July, Manchester, UK. Wodak, R., & Vetter, E. (1999). The small distinctions between diplomats, politicians and journalists: The discursive construction of professional identity. In R. Wodak, & C. Ludwig (Eds), Challenges in a Changing World (pp. 209–238). Vienna: Passagen.

Ministries of Foreign Affairs Websites The Chinese MFA: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ The French MFA: http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/ The Russian Federation MFA: http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/main_eng The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO): https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office The US State Department: http://www.state.gov/

Section III

Argumentation practices in legal discourse environments

Chapter 7

The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context A case-study Giuliana Garzone

Università degli Studi di Milano

This study focuses on the police interview with the purpose of showing that, when it is aimed at ascertaining and proving a suspect’s guilt, it has an essentially argumentative character, unfolding as a critical discussion, although this is not at first sight evident and has hardly been noticed in the literature so far, probably on account of the strict structural and procedural constraints to which this institutional discursive event is subject. The analysis takes as its starting point a case study, an interpreter-mediated interview involving an Italian suspect arrested in England, and reconstructs the argumentative discussion and the argumentation schemes deployed in it. It also examines the impact of the presence of the interpreter as a complicating factor that makes the nature of the interview as a critical discussion even more difficult to pinpoint, also because of the extreme fragmentation of dialogue associated with language mediation. The approach taken here for argument reconstruction and for the analysis and evaluation of the argumentative process in the police interview is essentially based on pragmadialectics (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002; van Eemeren, & Grootendorst, 1995a, 1995b, 2004). The main standpoints and the difference of opinion that the interview is aimed at resolving are identified, then the focus shifts to the reconstruction of the argumentation structure of the event and the argumentation schemes deployed. By studying the use of argumentation in a highly regulated institutional context, where communication is subject to stringent restrictions, this study intends to contribute to the understanding of context-dependency in argumentative discourse, with special consideration for the meso-context (police investigative procedures, interpreter mediation) and the macro-context (the judicial legal process) and their consequences for the strategic maneuvering (cf. van Eemeren, 2011, p. 144). A further element explored is the marked power asymmetry between interlocutors inherent in the police interview as an activity type and the impact of interpreter mediation on the interaction, and in particular on the advancement of argumentation.

doi 10.1075/aic.10.08gar © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

152 Giuliana Garzone

1. Introduction This study focuses on the police interview with the purpose of showing that, when it is aimed at ascertaining and proving a suspect’s guilt, it has an essentially argumentative character, unfolding as a critical discussion, although this is not at first sight evident and has hardly been noticed in the literature so far, probably on account of the strict structural and procedural constraints to which this institutional discursive event is subject. The analysis takes as its starting point a case study, an interpreter-mediated interview involving an Italian suspect arrested in England, and reconstructs the argumentative discussion and the argumentation schemes deployed in it. It also examines the impact of the presence of the interpreter as a complicating factor that makes the nature of the interview as a critical discussion even more difficult to pinpoint, also because of the extreme fragmentation of dialogue associated with language mediation. By studying the use of argumentation in a highly regulated institutional context, where communication is subject to stringent restrictions, this study intends to contribute to the understanding of context-dependency in argumentative discourse, with special consideration for the meso-context (police investigative procedures, interpreter mediation) and the macro-context (the judicial legal process) and their consequences for the strategic maneuvering (cf. van Eemeren, 2011, p. 144). A further element worthy of attention is the marked power asymmetry between interlocutors inherent in the police interview as an activity type and the impact of interpreter mediation on the interaction, and in particular on the advancement of argumentation. The Chapter is organised as follows. Section § 1.1 introduces the genre of the police interview, also in its interpreter-mediated version; § 1.2 illustrates the methodological framework and the analytical tools deployed. The case study is introduced in § 2, and is discussed critically in 2.1 and 2.2, where the policeman’s arguments and the suspect’s counterarguments are reconstructed. Concluding remarks follow in section § 3. 1.1

The police interview

As a communicative practice set in a specific kind of institutional macro-context (van Eemeren, 2011, p. 148), the police interview is a highly constrained discourse genre, regulated by law in most countries. In the UK, it is subject to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and its Codes of Practice (2002), where an interview is defined as “the questioning of a person regarding his or her involvement in a criminal offence or offences which, by virtue of paragraph 10.1 of Code C, is required to be carried out under caution” (PACE Codes of Practice 2002, C 11.1A, 54). 1 1. The PACE Codes of Practice are five, each denominated with a letter from A to E. Therefore, provisions included in the Codes are referred to here not only by the page, but also by the relevant letter and paragraph number.

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 153

In order to comply with the requirements introduced in the Codes (and in particular in Code E: cf. PACE Codes of Practice 2002, pp. 117–129), today all interviews are tape-recorded, 2 a measure aimed at preventing the text from being manipulated in the written recording and transcription process, as frequently happened in the past, if only as a result of the drafter’s intention to produce a coherent, linguistically appropriate statement. The result was that the transcripts of declarations or testimonies were highly inaccurate (cf. Gibbons, 1996; Rigney, 1999; Fowler, 2003; Coulthard, 2004, p. 20; Hale, 2007, p. 74), as is not surprising in a system in which the statements given by the interviewees were not supposed to be reported verbatim as ‘wording’, but indirectly as ‘meaning’, and therefore ‘twice cooked’ (cf. Halliday, 1994, p. 253). In his discussion of the police interview as a genre, Gibbons (2003, pp. 142–145) describes its generic structure as including essentially three main parts, the first aimed at what he calls “primary reality framing”, 3 specifying details of the current reality of the interview room; the second consisting in the “central” questioning section concentrating on the “secondary reality core”, i.e. on ascertaining specifically the details of the event under investigation; the third and final part reverting to the primary reality frame, embedding into it a narrative version of the secondary reality in which conclusions are drawn and a summary is given of the results of the questioning process. In a discursive perspective, the police interview as a communicative event is subject to very strict constraints regarding the parties’ contributions. In particular, its initial and final sections – including respectively party identification, reminder of entitlement to free legal advice, caution, final request of any possible addition to information given, recapitulation of facts ascertained and filing of charges or statement of relief from charges – are subject to detailed procedural rules resulting in a pre-fixed script, with hardly any deviation admitted. The conduct of the central part of the interview, focusing on the “secondary reality core”, is also subject to recurrent procedures, although it does not have to follow a pre-set script. It normally consists of the reconstruction of the suspect’s behaviour, including intentions and circumstantial details, being aimed at ascertaining a person’s involvement in the offence and his/her intention to commit it. Following US usage, a crucial distinction is made between ‘interview’, a superordinate word simply referring to a questioning event aimed to find information and facts about a certain episode, and “interrogation”, which refers to a purposeful form of interview “conducted once it is reasonably certain that the person being questioned is guilty”, and is mostly aimed at gathering supporting evidence 2. For a synthetic description of the material procedures followed for the recorded tapes, cf. Russell, 2002, pp. 111–112. 3. On the distinction between primary and secondary reality, originally introduced in connection with courtroom discourse, cf. Hale and Gibbons (1999). Cf. also Gibbons (2003, pp. 78–79).

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or “securing a confession” (Shuy, 1998, p. 8; cf. Berk-Seligson, 2000, p. 233 n. 2), 4 qualifying as the kind of event in the legal process that Walton (2000, p. 712) classifies as an “inquiry dialogue”. This is the kind of interview that is investigated in this work and shown to be inherently argumentative, on account of its purposive character. As regards lexical choices, it will be referred to here with the specific term “interrogation”, but also with the superordinate word “interview”. As concerns the relations among participants, that police interviews as communicative exchanges are normally characterized by power inequality is widely recognized in the literature (e.g. Fairclough, 1989, pp. 18–20; Heydon, 2005). In particular, talking about a witness interview at a police station, Fairclough sees this inequality as inherent in the situation, as it is “determined by social conditions, more specifically by the nature of the relationship between the police and members of the ‘public’ in our society” (Fairclough, 1989, p. 19). In this perspective, the power inequality characterizing any formal exchange between a police officer and a member of the general public can be accounted for in terms of the institutional order in which it is embedded, being subject to orderliness and constraints determined by the rules and procedures operating in the institution (cf. Sarangi and Roberts, 1999, pp. 3–4). 5 When the interviewee is not a witness, but a suspect under arrest, this power distance is increased because of the specific interaction order applying to the police interview. Although in strictly legal terms the burden of the proof falls upon the institution, in actual fact in the interview the suspect is clearly in the position of defending himself, i.e. of proving his or her own innocence, in order to see the accusations against him or her dropped. An interesting aspect investigated in research concerns the ways in which the interviewer exploits his/her position of power discursively, leaving the suspect hardly any opportunity to put forth his/her arguments and making his/her version of the facts prevail. In the case of interpreter-mediated encounters a further element of asymmetry 6 is given by the inadequate or non-existent knowledge of the interview language on the part of the interviewee; this is supposed to be corrected thanks to the provision of interpreting services (cf. Garzone, 2002, pp. 249–251). However, there is a risk that the interpreter’s interventions may interfere with the flow of discourse 4. As Berk-Seligson points out (2000, 233 n. 2), differently from the US, in Britain all communicative events involving investigators and suspects are normally referred to as “police interviews”. 5. The term ‘institutional order’ is originally taken from Berger and Luckman (1966, p. 83), but in this context it is used with the meaning given to it by Sarangi and Roberts (1999) who apply it specifically to professional discourse. 6. A distinction is made here between power inequality and asymmetry, which is a more general concept as it is used to refer to communicative interactions where different conditions of access to communication apply to each participant (Orletti, 2000, p. 12).

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to the detriment of directness in communication. This sometimes causes a serious problem, as is the case in the study discussed here, where the resulting organization of talk is somehow resented by the interviewee, who occasionally prefers to try a non-mediated contact with the interviewer and answers questions directly in his poor English (e.g. lines 95, 97, in Extract 2 below, and lines 284, 287 in Extract 3). One of the issues investigated here is to what extent this problematic linguistic situation weakens the strength of argumentation, especially on the suspect’s side. To date relatively limited scholarly attention has been devoted to the police station interview as a discourse genre, with the additional drawback that, given the difference in provisions concerning the police interview in different legal systems, research results are not always comparable (Haworth, 2006, p. 740). So far studies conducted by linguists or discourse analysts have dealt with general issues and linguistic aspects (Shuy, 1998; Heydon, 2005), the delivery of the caution (or “Miranda warning”: Shuy, 1997; Cotterill, 2000), questioning techniques and coercive force of questions (Ogle, Parkman & Porter, 1980; Rigney, 1999, Newbury & Johnson, 2006), phenomena of distortion in the interviewing process (Gibbons, 1996) and issues involved in the drafting of written records and transcription of statements (Coulthard, 1996, 2002). In addition, some works have been published in interpreting studies focusing on the interpreter-mediated interview, e.g. chapters in works on public service interpreting (e.g. Hale, 2007, pp. 71–79), and studies looking at the effects of the interpreter’s presence on the dynamics of the interview (Russel, 2000; Fowler, 2003), with special attention given to the discursive impact of the interpreter’s intervention on the professional interaction (Garzone, 2011), and at issues involved in the translation of the Miranda warning and of coercive questions (Berk-Seligson, 2000; 2002). Recently two book-length studies have been published exploring various aspects of the interpreted-mediated police interview: Mulayim, Lai and Norma (2015), which is professionally oriented, being addressed mainly to law enforcement officers and professional interpreters, 7 and Nakane (2014) which takes an essentially sociolinguistic approach and looks at the impact of interpreter mediation on the genre structures and features of police interviews as a linguistic as well as legal process. To my knowledge, no research has been devoted so far to the study of the police interview as a form of argumentation: a gap that this work aims to bridge. In particular, this study aims to answer the following research questions: can the police interrogation be considered an argumentative activity type? To what extent does it comply with or depart from the critical discussion model? How are arguments deployed within the formal constraints the police interview is subject to? Replying 7. The book is published in the Advances in Police Theory and Practice series, edited by Dilip K. Das.

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to these questions will contribute to a better understanding of the conditions under which argumentation operates in a highly regulated institutional context, also characterised by power asymmetry and linguistic inequality, with a view to adding to the understanding of argumentation in context. 1.2

Method

In broad terms this study is set in a multi-method discourse-analytical framework, and uses notions drawn on genre analysis, conversation analysis and pragmatics (cf. e.g. Hall, Sarangi & Slembrouk, 1999, p. 296; Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974). Special consideration is given to works focusing on language in the legal process, and in particular in the police interview (cf. Corsellis, 1995; Kurzon, 1996; and all the essays in Part II of Cotterill, 2002; Hill, 2003; in addition to the works already referred to in § 1.1). In addition, the fact of dealing with an interpreter-mediated interview makes it necessary to refer also to research on public service interpreting (e.g. Wadensjö, 1998; Roy, 2000; Angelelli, 2004) and in particular on legal interpreting at the police station as well as in the courtroom (e.g. Colin & Morris, 1996; Berk-Seligson, 1999, 2000; Russell, 2002; Fowler, 2003). Within this general framework, the approach taken here for the reconstruction and analysis of the argumentative process in the police interview is essentially based on pragma-dialectics. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004, p. 95) thus explain the compound denomination of this approach: “this kind of analysis derives its pragmatic character from the fact that the discourse or text is viewed as a coherent whole of speech acts; its dialectical character lies in the premise that these speech acts are part of a systematic attempt to resolve a difference of opinion by means of a critical discussion”. Pragma-dialectic principles are particularly useful if one is to carry out a viable reconstructive analysis of the argumentative moves deployed in resolving a difference of opinion and generate an “analytic overview” that can be used as a basis for the systematic evaluation of the discourse involved. In the case of a police interrogation, i.e. a police interview aimed at gathering supporting evidence when there is the reasonable hypothesis of a suspect’s responsibility, the difference of opinion can be found in the policeman’s and the suspect’s competing versions of the facts under investigation. Given the often fragmentary and disorderly manner in which arguments are put forth in a critical discussion, the analysis mostly requires reconstruction transformations: deletions, for the purpose of excluding digressions and speech acts that are not relevant; permutation, in order to bring together and re-order arguments that are scattered in different parts of discourse, addition of premises that are only implicit and elements that are expressed eliptically, and substitution of unclear or ambiguous expressions (cf. van Eemeren, & Grootendorst, 2004, pp. 96ff.; van Eemeren, 2011, pp. 142–143).

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For the sake of argumentation reconstruction, the concept of argument scheme is fundamental. It refers to the way the different reasons relied on in argumentation are connected with the standpoint defended in each case (van Eemeren, & Grootendorst, 2004, p. 4; p. 119). Van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Snoeck Henkemans distinguish three main categories of argument schemes: symptomatic argumentation in which “a standpoint is defended by citing in the argument a certain sign, symptom or distinguishin mark of what is claimed to be the standpoint” (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 96–97); argumentation based on a relation of analogy where “a standpoint is defended by showing that something referred to in the standpoint is similar to something that is cited in the argumentation, and that on the grounds of this resemblance the standpoint should be accepted (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 98–99); and argumentation based on a causal relation, where “a standpoint is defended by making a causal connection between the argument and the standpoint such that the standpoint, given the argument, ought to be accepted on the grounds of this connection” (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 100). For each scheme there is one or more critical questions representing ways of critically checking the soundness of an argument (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 98, p. 99, p. 101) and identifying fallacies in argumentation, i.e. deficient moves (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004, p. 158) violating the rules that are instrumental to resolving the dispute (cf. van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992, pp. 94–102; van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1995a; van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004, ch. 6, pp. 123ff.) and in so doing try to prevent the resolution of the difference of opinion. In light of the notions introduced so far, in the next section an authentic case study will be relied on in order to analyse the interpreter-mediated police interview as an argumentative discussion, reconstructing the structures of the arguments put forth by the two main actors to defend their respective standpoints.

2. The case study The interpreter-mediated interview which will be used as a starting point for the analysis was recorded in a police station in one of the Greater London boroughs and regards the arrest of an Italian young man – a limited English user – with the charge of possession of controlled drugs with intent to supply. 8

8. The case has been anonymized by changing all names and specific references.

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The procedures followed in this case comply with the provisions of the PACE Codes of Practice strictly and are therefore pre-set. In the first sequence, in accordance with the code of practice for the tape-recording of police interviews with suspects (Code E), the Police Constable (PC) who conducts it specifies the place of the interview, the time it begins and the names of all those present (PACE Codes of Practice 2002, C 11.5, p. 56; C 12.6), i.e. another police officer, the suspect, a lawyer attending onto the duty of assistance scheme, an interpreter (quite unusually a man) and himself. He reminds the suspect of his entitlement to free legal advice (PACE Codes of Practice 2002, C 11.2, p. 55) and, before asking any questions about the alleged offence, he cautions the suspect that his answers or his silence (i.e. failure or refusal to answer a question or to answer it satisfactorily) may be given in evidence to a court in a prosecution, making recourse to the specific formula put forth in PACE Code of Practice C (2002, 10.4, p. 52). The discovery of a large quantity of controlled drugs (classes B and C) found on the suspect provides evidence of the offence (actus reus), but according to UK law in order to obtain a conviction the police also has to prove his mens rea, e.g. his knowing intention to commit the alleged offence. This is the specific aim of the interview, which in actual fact is better defined as an interrogation, being typically goal-focused and consistently directed towards its pre-determined end. Analysing the interview in pragma-dialectical terms means interpreting it as an argumentative conversation starting from a difference of opinion between the two main interlocutors, as they have competing versions of the facts under investigation, and reconstruct it as a critical discussion. It is important to note that in the case of the police interview, the notion of critical discussion is applied sensu lato, given that its outcome can never be a real resolution of opinion, but rather either the agreed prevalence of the police’s version (in case of admission of guilt) or of the suspect’s version (in case of demonstration of innocence), or the confirmation of charges by the police, in spite of the suspect’s claims of innocence. In the case under discussion, the Police Constable’s standpoint coincides with the charges brought against the Italian suspect at the time of his arrest. It consists in the proposition “you are guilty of possession of controlled substances with intent to supply under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971”. It is stated in official terms only at a later stage in the interview, when the PC is satisfied that sufficient supporting elements have emerged. Initially it is merely implied, and the charges against the Italian suspect are only reported in the summary of relevant events that the PC provides at the beginning of the interrogation, after the statutory part:

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 159

Extract 1. PC = Police Constable, Int = Interpreter 9 83 84

PC Int

85 86

PC Int

87 88

PC1 Int

89 90

PC1 Int

91 92

PC1 Int

you were arrested in the early hours of this morning, lei è stato detenuto nelle prime ore di stamattina, you were detained in the early hours of this morning eh:: for an offence of possession with intent to supply in reato di possesso con l’intenzione di fornire. in offence of possession with the intention to supply before we begin I would like you to tell me your account prima di iniziare io vorrei chiedere da lei di dare la sua versione before starting I would like to ask from you to give your version of what you did di ciò che ha fatto of what you did last night prior to your arrest ieri sera prima di essere detenuto last night before being detained

Before analysing the content of Extract 1, some observations are in order. It is a peculiarity of the police interview that it tends to be unnaturally orderly in conversational terms (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974), as participant roles and rules governing the question-and-answer sequence usually prevent overlaps and interruptions. It is also worth noting that the presence of an interpreter contributes to weakening the detainee’s position and his arguments. In the pre-set initial part (ll. 1–82) preceding Extract 1, the interpreter simply translates chunk by chunk the data given by the various participants to be recorded for the court providing a “voiceover text” for the benefit of the Italian interviewee, but in the rest of the interview he is directly involved in the questioning sequence in which he participates as a facilitator in a triadic exchange (interviewer-interpreter-interviewee interaction) (cf. Mason, 2001). For situational constraints and statutory reasons, he has to use a mot-à-mot interpreting technique, i.e. word by word translation of very short stretches of text, sometimes only two or three words, rather than an “interpretive” rendering, i.e. a more effective technique based on the reformulation of meaning independent of the surface organization of the source text (Seleskovitch & Lederer, 1986, p. 105; cf. Garzone, 2011, p. 323). This causes a considerable segmentation of the information given, systematic interruptions in the communication flow, often even leading to disruption of cohesion and syntax. All this is made worse by several linguistic inaccuracies in the interpreter’s rendition, in some cases also legal terms 9. An interlinear English translation is provided for turns in Italian.

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(cf. Garzone, 2011, pp. 322ff). For instance, here the denomination of the offence is translated literally from English rather than by making recourse to the specific name of the offence in Italian, “detenzione e spaccio di sostanze stupefacenti” (lit. ‘possession and supply of drugs’), thus resulting in a communicatively ineffective rendering. Segments 84 and 86 are syntactically disconnected, the word ‘reato’ is constructed with the wrong preposition (in reato) to indicate the cause of the arrest, and the translation given in turn 88 is awkward, as it makes explicit the illocutionary point of the question – expressed indirectly by the policeman (“I would like you to tell me”) – by using the verb chiedere (‘to ask’), again combined with the wrong preposition: “chiedere da lei” instead of “chiedere a lei”. Obviously, the segmentation of the utterance into short phrases makes it difficult for the interpreter to focus on the syntactic cohesion of his rendering, with an effect of further fragmentation and disconnectedness of the final version, an effect which has been observed also in previous studies (cf. e.g. Garzone, 2011; Nakane, 2014, p. 104) As regards the content of Extract 1, in that initial stage of the interrogation the suspect takes his standpoint admitting the offence of possession, but denying that he had any intent to supply. His standpoint, consisting of the proposition “I am guilty of possession, but not of intent to supply”, is expressed immediately and spontaneously in the first stage of the interview replying to an “open” question of the PC. Incidentally, it is interesting that the policeman starts the interrogation adopting the least coercive of all interviewing strategies, i.e. the “cognitive” strategy that allows “the interviewee to mentally re-live and recount events in a free-flowing way” (cf. Colin & Morris, 1996, p. 48), and asks “before we begin I would like you to tell me your account of what you did last night prior to your arrest.” (lines 87–91). This is the suspect’s reply: Extract 2. Det = Detainee, Int = Interpreter, PC = Police Constable 93

Det

94 95

Int Det

96 97

Int Det

98 99 100

Int PC Int

(.) OK io io sono andato nel club OK I I went into the club I went into the club avevo thirty-three pills had thirty-three pills thirty-three pills but I got for my cioè ce l’ho ma erano erano le mie erano le mie erano non per venderle but I got for my that is I have it but they were were mine were mine were not to sell them they were mine they weren’t to sell sorry could you repeat that? they were mine they weren’t to sell (2.0)

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As the suspect cannot deny the basic charge, he admits to it but rejects the intent to supply thus attempting to avoid a more serious incrimination. As regards possession offences, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 distinguishes between the general offence of possession (s.5(1) of the Act), providing for penalties: from two to five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine, and possession with intent to supply (s.5(3) of the Act), which is a much more serious offence punishable with penalties from 14 years’ to life imprisonment and/or a fine. The suspect’s stance consists in rejecting the opposing standpoint but not totally, as he cannot deny carrying large quantities of controlled substances on him (“I am not guilty of possession with intent of supply, I am only guilty of possession”). So he denies the intent to supply, which is a very serious offence, but admits or, better, concedes being guilty of the general offence of possession, which is much less serious and punishable by lesser penalties. Thus it can be said that the discussion is based on a mixed difference of opinion, as the second party not only rejects the first party’s standpoint, but responds by adopting a different position, i.e. expressing his own standpoint (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 8–9). In the next two sections, the arguments put forth by each of the two interlocutors will be discussed in detail, analysing them in terms of argumentative patterns. 2.1

The PC’s arguments

On account of the fact that the charge of possession needn’t be demonstrated, as the Italian guy is unquestionably guilty in that respect having been caught with large quantities of controlled substances on him, the PC needn’t seek any confirmation of his possession of drugs, so his main argument focuses only on the intent to supply, his stance being expressed in the following proposition “the suspect had intent to sell” (cf. 1. in Figure 1 below). Being in a position of total control of the conversation, he pursues it by means of a series of questions focusing, in terms of Gibbons’ (2003) scheme, on the secondary reality framing, i.e. on the reconstruction of the suspect’s behaviour in the last few hours before his arrest that may be useful to support his standpoint argumentatively. It is peculiar of the police interview that the PC’s arguments are expressed in the form of questions, breaking down the course of the events under discussion into small segments without actually ever making explicit the function of each segment within the argumentation being developed. In this case macro- and meso-contextual factors, i.e. institutional constraints and the pre-set format, have the effect of altering the pragmatic profile of the speech event (cf. van Eemeren, 2011, p. 151), thus confirming the impact of contextual factors on argument construction.

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For the sake of the reconstructive analysis, given that in the argumentation process the PC’s questions deal with several elements in an apparently casual order, it is difficult to say whether the complex argumentation he constructs is multiple or co-ordinative (i.e. whether it consists of defences of the same standpoint that are not dependent on each other to support it, or of arguments that are so weak individually that they “must be taken together to constitute a conclusive defence” (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 96–97). Therefore here a maximally argumentative analysis 10 will be applied (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 75–76), interpreting it as an instance of multiple argumentation, i.e. as a complex of various alternative and independent defences of his standpoint that as a whole provide substantial evidence in favour of his version of the facts. The arguments the PC deploys, re-organised in an orderly sequence, are the following: 1.1. the suspect had so much drug on him that it can’t have been only for personal use; 1.2. he went to the Fire nightclub, which apparently has a reputation for being a place where controlled drugs are sold, and met people there, 1.3. he has no income from work nor benefits, so he needs money badly, which is a very good motive for selling drugs.

In the actual interrogation other minor supporting elements are mentioned. One is that the suspect was still sober at 6 o’clock in the morning when he was arrested, which is quite unusual for someone spending the night in a club, and can be taken as an indication of his being there on business; the other is that in addition to carrying 33 pills in his pocket, he was hiding other drugs in the crotch of his trousers, a suspicious behaviour potentially confirming his mens rea. It is important to note that none of the clues involved in each argument is expressed directly, but questions are aimed at making the suspect admit the factual elements supporting them. Only the main standpoint is stated explicitly in the final recapitulation of the interview in terms of a formal charge (cf. ll. 382–398, Extract 3 below). The whole argumentative scheme enacted by the PC can be represented as follows:

10. The expression “maximally argumentative analysis” describes the choice to analyse the argumentation as multiple in case of ambiguity, i.e. when it is not clear if the argumentation is coordinative or multiple (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 76). It was introduced on the analogy of the strategy of maximally argumentative interpretation (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 43–44), i.e. the decision to interpret as argumentation also utterances whose argumentative function is not really clear. The two notions are not to be confused.

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 163

Police Officer’s Arguments 1 the suspect is guilty of the offence of possession with intent to sell

1.1 33 pills + hashish and cannabis were found on suspect (material evidence)

1.2 he went to the Fire nightclub

1.3 he has no income from work or benefits

Figure 1.  Police officer’s multiple argumentation.

Each argument in Figure 1 rests on an unexpressed premise, which can be reconstructed as represented in Figures 1a, 1b and 1c below: 1 the suspect is guilty of the offence of possession with intent to sell

1.1 33 pills + hashish and cannabis were found on suspect (material evidence)

&

(1.1’) Carrying large quantities of controlled drugs is typical of peddlers

Figure 1a.  Argument 1.1: unexpressed premise. 1 the suspect is guilty of the offence of possession with intent to sell

1.2 He went to the Fire nightclub

&

Figure 1b.  Argument 1.2: unexpressed premise.

(1.2’) Going to the Fire nightclub is a symptom of intending to sell drugs

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1 the suspect is guilty of the offence of possession with intent to sell

1.3 He has no income from work or benefits

&

(1.3’) Selling drugs might provide him with an income

Figure 1c.  Argument 1.3: unexpressed premise.

Argument 1.1 and argument 1.2 are of a symptomatic kind (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 96–97; cf. § 1.3 above). The basic scheme of a symptomatic argument is as follows:   Y is true of X, Because: Z is true of X And: Z is symptomatic of Y.

In the most cogent of all the arguments relied on by the PC regards the quantity of drugs carried by the suspect at the time of his arrest, which in spite of being the first and foremost of all arguments put forth in the interview is brought up only in one of its final stages. It is based on a symptomatic relation, as follows:   The suspect had intent to sell Because: 33 amphetamine pills, hashish and cannabis were found on him (material evidence) And: carrying large quantities of controlled drugs is typical of someone who intends to sell.

Extract 3 shows how this main argument is put forth by the PC, who also materially exhibits the substances seized at the time of the Italian guy’s arrest: Extract 3. Det = Detainee, Int = Interpreter, PC = Police Constable, Law = Lawyer 261 262

PC Int

263 264 265

Law Law Int

and just gonna show Mr Espositi, voglio mostrare al signor Esposito, I want to show to Mr. Esposito Exhibit SJB1, Ex SJB, pezzo di prova S J B 1, piece of evidence S J B 1

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 165

Extract 3. (continued) 266 267

PC Int

268 259

PC Int

270 271 272

Det PC Int

273

Det

274 275 276

Int PC Int

277 278 279

PC Law Int

280 281

PC Int

282 283

PC Int

284 285 286

Det PC Int

287 288 289

Det PC Int

290 291 292 293

Det PC Det PC

which is the thirty-three white tablets, cioè le 33 pasticche bianche, that is to say the 33 white pills are those the items that were taken off of you at the night club sir? sono queste le cose che furono sequestrate da lei al night? are these the things that were seized from you at the night club? yes. can you tell me exactly what they are? può dirmi di che cosa esattamente consistono? can you tell me what they exactly consist of? penso che siano amfetamina I think they are amphetamine I think they’re amphetamine. what type of amphetamine? che tipo di amfetamina? what type of amphetamine? sorry the exhibit number is S A alpha B bravo1 sorry not SJB. thank you. chiedo scusa ma il pezzo di prova è S A L S A B 1 no S A L 1 I apologize but the piece of evidence is S A L S A B 1 and not S A L 1 and also, ed anche, and also can you tell me what this is?= =può dirmi che cos’è questo? can you tell me what this is? yes. this is for myself. do you know what it is sir? e lei sa che cos’è? and do you know what it is? yes for smoke. what drug is it? che droga è? what drug is it? hashish. and this is? cannabis. cannabis. Lovely.

166 Giuliana Garzone

The police is in possession of undisputable hard facts supporting the accusations, but according to standard procedure in common law legal systems the interviewer aims at making the suspect acknowledge his responsibility. To be used as evidence these facts have to be shown to carry probative weight, i.e. to have the effect of proving the allegations made, which is usually done by means of inferences. Only when its probative weight has been ascertained, can the evidence be used and transferred forward to, or ‘thrown onto’ the conclusion (Walton, 2000, p. 726). In the interview analysed here the PC relies on a cluster of plausible inferences that lead to the ultimate conclusion that the suspect is guilty of possession with intent to supply, thus making his version of the contested facts prevail over that of the suspect, who pleads innocent on that count. Argument 1.1 would be sufficient in itself to support the charges were it not for the need to prove the probative weight of the material evidence and the suspect’s mens rea. Therefore, two other arguments are deployed. Argument 1.2 is also symptomatic. The relevant scheme can be applied as follows:   the suspect had intent to sell Because: being at the Fire night club is true of the suspect And: being at the Fire nightclub is symptomatic of having intent to sell.

Thus in the interview the PC insists that the suspect admits that he habitually goes to that night club, but the guy expressly denies it: Extract 4. PC = Police Constable, Int = Interpreter, Det = Detainee 101 102

PC Int

103 104 105

Det PC Int

106 107

PC Int

108

Det

why that particular club? perché quel night in particolare? why that night club in particular? because I like it, I’m gay. OK no no problem with that. non c’è problema. there is no problem is that a regular place where you go to? questo è un posto che lei frequenta regolarmente? is this a place you attend regularly? no, it’s the second time.

But later the suspect himself indirectly confirms his familiarity with the place as he admits that he did not simply happen to be in that club by chance, but had gone there by express choice taking a taxi (“with cab”, l. 127), had paid to get in and was well acquainted with some of its patrons:

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 167

Extract 5. Det = Detainee, Int = Interpreter, PC = Police Constable 177 178

PC Int

179 180 181

Det PC Int

182

Det

183 184 185

Int PC Int

186 187

Det Int

did you meet anyone in the club that you know? lei si è incontrato dentro il night con qualcuno che già conosceva? did you meet inside the night club with someone you already knew? yes. who was that? e chi era questa persona? and who was this person? he’s a:: è un ragazzo nero. si chiama Marco di Roma he’s a:: a black guy. his name is Marco from Rome a black lad Marco from Rome lovely. and what did you speak about? e di che cosa avete discusso tra di voi? and about what did you discuss amongst you? no ho preso un drink con lui. abbiamo bevuto una cosa insieme. I had a drink with him, we had a drink together.

This argument is somehow compounded by some accompanying elements that the PC manages to induce the suspect to admit, as for instance the fact that the guy was still sober at 6 in the morning when he was arrested, which is unusual for someone who goes to a night club for entertainment only (cf. Extract 6): Extract 6. Det = Detainee, Int = Interpreter, PC = Police Constable 248 249

PC Int

250

Det

251 252 253

Int PC Int

254 255 256

Det PC Int

257 258 259

Det PC Int

260

Det

and what did you do in the club? e cos’ha fatto dentro il night? and what did you do inside the night club? ho preso un drink e stavo ballando. I had a drink and I was dancing I had a drink and I was talking. circulating around? andava in giro? were you going around? yes and dance. can you remember how much you had to drink? può ricordarsi di quanto aveva bevuto? can you remember how much you had drunk? two drink. which was? e cioè? that is? one beer and one sambuca.

168 Giuliana Garzone

Argument 1.3, hinging on the fact that the suspect does not work and does not receive benefits either, is essentially based on a causal relationship (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, pp. 100–102, cf. 1.3 above), a kind of argumentation scheme that usually features a linguistic indicator of cause-effect such as “lead to”, “cause”, “result in”, etc. (cf. van Eemeren, Houtlosser & Snoeck Henkemans, 2007, pp. 164ff.) The basic scheme of causal argumentation is as follows:   Y is true of X Because: Z is true of X And: Z leads to Y,

It can be applied to the case at hand as follows:   selling drugs is true of the suspect Because: being without work and not receiving benefits (thus being in need of an income) is true of the suspect And: being without work and not receiving benefits (thus being in need of an income) leads to selling drugs

In the interview the PC only ascertains the facts and does not express the consequence, rather he leaves it implied: Extract 7. 160 161

PC Int

162 163

Det PC

164

Int

165

Det

166 167 168

Int PC Int

are you working at the moment? lei lavora attualmente? are you working at present? no. if you’re not you’re not working are you claiming benefits at the moment? se non sta lavorando attualmente sta ricevendo benefici °…zioni° if you are not working at present you are receiving benefits °…tions° no, prendo i soldi da mio padre prendo. no, I get the money from my father I get no I get money from my father I get it. lovely. va bene. all right

In putting this argument forth, the policeman may appear to be relying on objective facts (a person who does not get any money either from work or from unemployment benefits needs to earn some), but actually he can also be seen as enacting what Garfinkel (1956) calls a “degradation ceremony”, i.e. as a strategy attacking not the suspect’s testimony, but his character” (cf. Gibbons, 2003, p. 113). In rhetorical terms, this can be broadly classified as an ad hominem argument, i.e.

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 169

an attempt to discredit the opponent so that he/she can no more defend himself/ herself adequately, which is inherently fallacious. While in the literature on fallacies, the argumentum ad hominem is generally analysed as a fallacy of relevance, in the pragma-dialectical model it is analysed as a violation of the rules for critical discussion (van Eemeren & Grotendorst, 1995b, p. 224), i.e. a device that may prevent the resolution of the difference of opinion. The reconstruction of the critical discussion continues in the next section where the detainee’s counterarguments and line of defence will be reconstructed and discussed. 2.2

The suspect’s critical questions and the outcome

The interviewee’s line of defence is enacted by replying to the PC’s questions, as in the context of the police interrogation a suspect’s contribution are not free, but subject to the interviewer’s elicitations. Figure 2 represents the structure of his arguments: Suspect’s Arguments 1 I admit offence of possession, not intent to sell

1.1 The drug was mine it was not to sell

1.2 I went to the nightclub to meet friends

1.3 My father sends me money

Figure 2.

Given that the discussion occurs in the form of an interrogation in which he is the interviewee, the suspect expresses his (counter)arguments in the form of replies to the PC’s questions. As anticipated above, his main standpoint consists of the proposition: “I am guilty of possession, but not of intent to supply”. After asserting it in his first reply to the PC (lines 95–98 in Extract 2 above), he supports it by providing answers that implicitly raise critical questions for the most salient of the PC’s arguments, i.e. questions aimed at determining whether each argument meets the criteria of soundness relevant to that type of argumentation (cf. van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 98, p. 99, p. 101). In response to the most cogent allegation against him (1.1 in Figure 1 above) – carrying a large quantity of drugs on him – the suspect’s counterargument is: “Carrying large quantities of drug can be accounted for on the ground that I did not want to leave it at home where there are people who study and intend to stay clear of the drug” (ll. 235–242), as emerges in Extract 8:

170 Giuliana Garzone

Extract 8. 233 234

PC1 Int

235

Det

236 237 238

Int PC1 Int

239

Det

240 241

Int Det

242

Int

why did you have so much (.) pills with you? perchè aveva tante pillole con sé? why did you have so many pills on you? because perchè io sempre ce le ho con me non le lascio a casa. because I have them always with me I don’t leave them at home because I always have them with me I never leave them at home. can he elaborate on that please? può dire più cose in merito? can you say any more things to this effect? no perchè a casa ci sono delle delle persone che studiano, no because at home there are some some persons who study no because at home there are people who’re studying, e non vogliono problemi con la droga and do not want problems with drug and they want to stand clear of these things.

His replies imply the following critical question: are there any other reasons that may account for his carrying so much drug? This is the main suitable form for a critical question to be asked about argumentation based on a causal relation (cf. van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 99). As regards argument 1.2, the Italian guy’s replies raise a critical question when he states that the reason why he went to the club was to meet friends, which implies the critical question: “Are there any other reasons that may account for the fact that the he went to the Fire night club?” (ll. 178–190, Extract 5). Argument 1.3 is based on a causal relationship and the critical question to be asked is: “Does Z always lead to Y?” (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 101). This is exactly the kind of question raised by the Italian guy’s answer: the fact that he is out of work and does not receive benefits does not necessarily lead to his having intent to sell because his father sends him money so he can make a living (cf. Extract 7 above). This implies the critical question: “Does the lack of an income always lead to selling drugs?”. Overall, the critical questions raised by the suspect are suited to the PC’s arguments that he wants to challenge, and in rhetorical terms would be capable of putting their soundness into question. Therefore, it can be stated that, although the fact of having to pass through an interpreter makes it less effective, the suspect’s defence is conducted quite aptly, but does not lead anywhere because of the hard evidence against him. Thus, when the time comes to conclude the interview, which consists of 405 turns in all, the PC ignores the suspect’s arguments and proceeds to put forth his conclusion, resolving the difference of opinion in favour of his own version of the

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 171

events. After asking the suspect if he has anything further to say (as provided for in the PACE Codes of Practice 2002, C § 11.4, 55), he goes on to explain what opinion he has formed about the offence, on the basis of which a prosecution will be brought against him. As already pointed out above, this is the only time in the interview when the PC states his main standpoint explicitly, in light of all the arguments in favour of it that he has gathered in the course of the interview: Extract 9. 379

PC

380

Int

381 382 383

Det PC Int

384 385

PC Int

386 387

PC Int

388 389

PC Int

390 391 392 393

Det PC PC Int

394 395

PC Int

396 397 398

Det PC PC

399 400

Det PC

well sir. is there anything else that you wish to add to clarify any point anything that you haven’t told me? c’è qualche cosa che vorrebbe aggiungere dire più di quanto lei già ha detto? is there anything you would like to add more than what you have already said? nothing nothing no. I just wanted to clarify this point, volevo chiarire un ultimo punto, I wanted to clarify one last point just one final point. un ultimo punto. one final point you had possession of controlled drugs in your possession, lei aveva possesso di stupefacenti controllati in suo possesso, you had possession of controlled drugs in your possession for your own use you say, per suo uso personale come sta dicendo, for your personal use as you are saying yea. for myself. for yourself. but, as I said to you before, ‘cause for the quantity, già le avevo detto prima io penso che grazie alla quantitativa, already I had told you before I think that thanks to the quantity I believe that you were there to sell them, lei era lì per vendere, you were there to sell no. to supply them unlawfully. per fornire queste cose illegalmente. to supply these things illegally no. no. OK. This interview is now concluded.

172 Giuliana Garzone

As emerges clearly in ll. 396–400, no agreed upon resolution of the original difference of opinion is achieved, rather it is the PC’s version that is made to prevail. The suspect – in spite of the overwhelming evidence against him – rejects the final outcome by simply saying “no”, and he does so weakly, probably also on account of his inadequate linguistic resources. But the PC proceeds to the confirmation of the accusations against the Italian detainee. In purely logical terms the suspect’s arguments are tenable, and the critical questions he raises about the PC’s arguments are rhetorically viable, but his standpoint relies on a premise based on the wrong inference that the quantity of drugs found on him may be considered not to exceed the quantity admitted for personal use. Although in the UK in investigating and prosecuting offences there are no guidelines or specific limits about the quantity of drugs carried by an individual that can be considered to be for personal use (EMCDDA 2013), there are wellknown conventional limits (cf. http://www.thegooddrugsguide.com/), 11 and the drugs found on the suspect largely exceed these quantities, in addition to being variously assorted. Thus the soundness of the critical questions raised by the Italian suspect is totally impaired by the wrongness of the premise they rely on. Conversely, whatever the theoretical limits of the PC’s arguments, their strength lies in the fact that all the alternative possibilities for his reconstruction and interpretation of the facts are inhibited by the viability of the evidence in his hands.

3. Conclusions The analysis of the case study has shown clearly that, unless the interviewee does not originally admit the charges laid against him/her, the police interrogation is an inherently argumentative piece of discourse starting from a difference of opinion between the interviewer, whose aim is to prove the charges against the person accused by means of the questioning process, and the suspect who rejects them either totally or – as in the case examined here – partially. In this type of situation, one possible outcome is an agreed-upon resolution to the difference of opinion, which occurs when the suspect admits or confesses his/her guilt, or when the interviewer becomes convinced of his/her innocence. But in many other cases, as in that of the Italian suspect charged with possession and intent to supply, there is no possible concerted resolution, as the suspect will persist in asserting his partial innocence, while the policeman will rely on available evidence and on the arguments deployed in the course of the interview to make

11. Last accessed 30 June 2016.

Chapter 7.  The interpreter-mediated police interview as argumentative discourse in context 173

his version of the facts prevail, thus causing the process of indictment against the suspect to start. The fact that the PC totally ignores the suspect’s attempt to undermine the arguments brought against him is accounted for not only by the evident power difference between him and the interviewee, but also by the evidence in his hands, which provides a viable premise to his argumentation effort. Conversely, this same evidence undermines the validity of the suspect’s defence, however sound the critical questions he raises may be. This apparent incongruence can be accounted for by considering the impact of the institutional context on police interviewing as an activity type, which is subject to explicit regulative statutory rules, and is to be conducted even in cases where the evidence is unquestionable, in order to have it acknowledged by the person accused and show that it carries probative weight. A further effect of contextual factors is the peculiar profile of the police interview as a speech event, given that the police’s standpoints are realized by means of questions and the interviewee’s critical questions are expressed in the form of replies. Of course, the considerations put forth here are generalizations based on a case study, which – however fairly representative – has its peculiar characteristics: there is only one suspect who is prompt enough as to defend himself reasonably well by raising suitable critical questions, the evidence against him is overwhelming, etc. Therefore, for a fuller understanding of the police interview as an argumentative text more extensive analysis is needed in order to be able to outline an argumentative profile that may have general validity for its description and analysis.

References Angelelli, C. (2004). Medical Interpreting and Cross Cultural Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511486616 Berger, P. L., & Luckmann T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise its the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books. Berk-Seligson, S. (1999). The impact of court interpreting on the coerciveness of leading questions. Forensic Linguistics 6 (1), 1350–1771. Berk-Seligson, S. (2000). Interpreting for the police: issues in pre-trial phases of the judicial process. Forensic Linguistics 7 (2), 212–236. Berk-Seligson, S. (2002). The Miranda Warnings and Linguistic Coercion: The Role of Footing in the Interrogation of a Limited-English-Speaking Murder Suspect. In Cotterill, Janet (Ed.), Language in the Legal Process (pp. 127–143). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Colin, J., & Morris R. (1996). Interpreters and the Legal Process. Winchester: Waterside Press. Corsellis, A. (1995). Non-English Speakers and the English Legal System. A Handbook of Good Practices for Those Working in the Legal System Across Language and Culture, Cropwood Occasional Paper No. 20. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology. Cotterill, J. (2000). Reading the Rights: A Cautionary Tale of Comprehension and Comprehensibility. Forensic Linguistics 7 (1), 4–25.

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Cotterill, J. (Ed.) (2002) Language in the Legal Process. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Coulthard, M. (1996). The official version: audience manipulation in police reports of interviews with suspects, In C. R. Caldas-Coulthard, & R. M. Coulthard (Eds), Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 164–176). London, Routledge. Coulthard, M. (2002). Whose voice is it? Invented and concealed dialogue in written records of verbal evidence produced by the police. In J. Cotterill (Ed.) Language in the Legal Process (pp. 19–34). London: Palgrave. Eemeren, F. H. van. (2011). In context. Argumentation 25, 141–161.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-011-9211-1 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (1995a). The Pragma-Dialectical Approach to Fallacies. In H. V. Hansen & R. C. Pinto, Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings (pp. 130–144). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (1995b). Argumentum ad Hominem: A Pragma-dialectical Case in Point. In H. V. Hansen & R. C. Pinto, Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings (pp. 223–228). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The Pragma-dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst, R. & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2002). Argumentation. Analysis, Evaluation, Presentation. Mahwak N.J. & London, Lawrence Erlbaum Ass. Publishers. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser, P., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Argumentative Indicators in Discourse. A Pragma-Dialectical Study. Dordrecht: Springer.  doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-6244-5 EMCDDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction) 2013. European Drug Report 2013. Trends and Developments. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Online at [last accessed 30 June 2016]. Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London and New York: Longman. Fowler, Y. (2003). Taking an Interpreted Witness Statement at the Police Station: What did the Witness Actually Say?. In L. Brunette, G. Bastin, I. Hemlin and H. Clarke (Eds), The Critical Link 3: Interpreters in the Community. Selected Papers in Legal, Health and Social Services (pp. 195–209). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/btl.46.21fow Garfinkel, H. (1956). Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies. American Journal of Sociology, 61 (5) March, 420–424.  doi: 10.1086/221800 Garzone, G. (2002). Conflict in Linguistically Asymmetric Business Negotiations: the Case of Interpreter-Mediated Encounters. In M. Gotti, D. Heller and M. Dossena (Eds.) Conflict and Negotiation in Specialized Texts (pp. 249–271). Bern: Peter Lang. Garzone, G. (2011). Professional discourses in contact: Interpreters in the legal and medical setting. In N. C. Candlin, & S. Sarangi (Eds) Handbook of Communication in Organisations and Professions (pp. 319–340). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.  doi: 10.1515/9783110214222.319 Gibbons, J. (1996). Distortion of the Police Interview Process Revealed by Videotape. Forensic Linguistics, 3 (29), 289–298. Gibbons, J. (2003). Forensic Linguistics. Introduction to Language in the Justice System. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Hale, S. B. (2007). Community Interpreting. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9780230593442

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Hale, S. & Gibbons, J. (1999). Varying realities patterned changes in the interpreter’s representation of courtroom and external realities. Applied Linguistics 20 (2), 203–220. doi: 10.1093/applin/20.2.203 Hall, C., Srikant S., & Slembrouck S. (1999). The legitimation of the client and the profession: Identities and roles in social work discourse. In S. Srikant & C. Roberts (Eds.), Talk, Work and Institutional Order. Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings (pp. 293– 322). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.  doi: 10.1515/9783110208375.3.293 Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Haworth, K. (2006). The dynamics of power and resistance in police interview discourse. Discourse & Society, 17(6), 739–759.  doi: 10.1177/0957926506068430 Heydon, G. (2005). The Language of Police Interviewing: A Critical Analysis. Houndmills & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hill, M. D. (2003). Identifying the source of critical details in confessions. The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 10(1), 23–61.  doi: 10.1558/sll.2003.10.1.23 Kurzon, D. (1996). To speak or not to speak: the comprehensibility of the revised police caution (PACE). International Journal for the Semiotics of Law IX (25), 3–16.  doi: 10.1007/BF01130379 Mason, I. (Ed.) (2001). Triadic Exchanges. Studies in Dialogue Interpreting. Manchester: St. Jerome. Mulayim, S., Lai, M., & Norma C. (2015). Police Investigative Interviews and Interpreting. Context, Challenges, and Strategies. Boca Raton Fla.: CRC Press. Nakane, I. (2014). Interpreter- mediated Police Interviews. A Discourse- Pragmatic Approach. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Newbury, P., & Johnson A. (2006). Suspects’ resistance to constraining and coercive questioning strategies in the police interview. The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 13 (2), 213–240. Ogle, R., Parkman A., & Porter J. (1980). Questions: Leading and Otherwise: A Framework for Judicial Discretion. Judges’ Journal 19 (3), 42–45. Orletti, F. (2000). La conversazione diseguale. Potere e interazione. Roma: Carocci. Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984. Codes of Practice. Revised edition 2002. London: HMSO. Rigney, A. C. (1999). Questioning in Interpreted Testimony. Forensic Linguistics 6 (1), 1350–1371. Roy, C. (2000). Interpreting as a Discourse Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russell, S. (2000). “Let Me Put it Simply …”: The Case for a Standard Translation of the Police Caution and its Explanation. Forensic Linguistics 7 (1), 26–48. Russell, S. (2002). ‘Three is a crowd’: shifting dynamics in the interpreted interview. In J. Cotterill (Ed.), Language in the Legal Process (pp. 111–126). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sacks, H., Schegloff E. A., & Jefferson G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation. Language 50 (4) Dec., 696–735.  doi: 10.1353/lan.1974.0010 Sarangi, S., & Roberts, C. (1999). The dynamics of interactional and institutional orders in work-related settings. In S. Srikant & C. Roberts (Eds.) Talk, Work and Institutional Order: Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings (pp. 1–57). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110208375.1.1 Seleskovitch, D., & Lederer M. ([1984]1986). Interpréter pour traduir. Paris: Didier erudition. Shuy, R. W. (1997). Ten Unanswered Language Questions about Miranda. Forensic Linguistics 4 (2), 175–196.

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Shuy, R. W. (1998). The Language of Confession, Interrogation and Deception. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wadensjö, C. (1998). Interpreting as Interaction. London & New York: Longman. Walton, D. N. (2000). Argumentation and Theory of Evidence. In C. M. Breur, M. M. Kommer, I. F. Nijboer, I. M. Reijntjes (Eds.), New Trends in Criminal Investigation and Evidence (pp. 710–732), Vol. 2. Antwerpen – Groningen – Oxford: Intersentia.

Transcription conventions In the Extracts, the text in italics provides the interlinear translation of the previous line; an asterisk indicates that the underlined section of the preceding phrase contains either an incorrect translation or inappropriate use of Italian. Symbol (1.5) (.) ((information)) :::::

Meaning Pause timed in 10th’s of seconds. Micro-pauses of less than 0.2 seconds. Relevant contextual information added by the transcriber. Lengthening of a sound; the number of colons show the relative stretch of sound. CAPITAL LETTERS Utterance/word enunciated more loudly than surrounding speech. °word° Decrease in volume (word) Transcriber’s guess ↑ Rising intonation. >words< Speech delivered at a markedly quicker pace, relative to surrounding talk. = Latched speech. [text in square brackets] Overlapping speech. {sic} Linguistic mistake, which the transcriber has checked to be actually present in the original utterance. Filler English Umm Mhm Ah Eh Uh Oh

  Italian umm mhm Ah, eh eh ehm oh

Meaning   Doubt Expression or request of agreement Emphasis Query Staller Surprise

Chapter 8

Context and genre in judicial argumentation A case-study Francesca Santulli

Libera Università IULM, Milano

This chapter takes into consideration the role of context in the production of judicial texts, focusing on judgements as a genre which displays special argumentative and textual characters. The purpose of the research, hinged on a case study, is to investigate how deeply and in which ways some features of the professional community generating an argumentative text – namely, the legal system and the traditional rules typical of the judicial community in the Italian tradition – influence both the logic and the linguistic structure. The case study combines quantitative and qualitative analysis. Frequency lists and concordance lines produced with the Wordsmith Tools software are analysed and compared with data emerging from qualitative investigation in a discourse-based perspective, focusing on the actual use of argumentation. The analysis shows how the judge develops the argumentative line, taking a stand in the interlocutive dimension, and thus complying with legislative and discursive norms typical of the Italian judicial context.

1. Introduction This chapter focuses on the argumentation in the juridical context, and in particular on judgements in the Italian tradition. To sketch the framework of the analysis, it is useful to start from a very general notion, namely the idea that – despite the conviction of some researchers suggesting that every instance of discourse has an argumentative component (Plantin, 1996; Amossy, 2009) – some discourse communities are inherently argumentative and there are some discourse genres in which the argumentative type is more systematically represented. In this perspective, legal discourse has an obvious argumentative component, which has been recognised in the development of rhetoric and argumentation studies. Within the legal sector, argumentation plays a crucial role in judiciary texts – which in the case of judgements has been recognised as a fundamental principle, avoiding groundless and arbitrary decisions. Beyond this universal agreement, doi 10.1075/aic.10.09san © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

178 Francesca Santulli

however, some features of the professional community generating the argumentative texts – namely, the legal system and the traditional rules typical of a given culture and language area – can influence both the logic and the linguistic structure of texts produced in the realm of a stable and highly recognisable genre. The aim of this research is to ascertain how deeply the legal context influences the production of judgements in the Italian legal and judicial tradition, in which generic norms – including marked linguistic choices and typical logic structures – play a very important role. In Section 2, the interconnection between argumentation and legal discourse will be briefly sketched (2.1); then, the role of context in argumentation studies will be taken into consideration (2.2), with special attention for judgements in Italy (2.3). This discussion will introduce the case study investigated in Section 3: on the basis of a recent judgement dealing with language policy, it will be shown how the arguments (and counterarguments) put forth by the parties are exploited and evaluated by the judge. In this respect, the analysis of the case study will highlight the importance of textual strategies adopted to take a stand in the interlocutive dimension. In the conclusions (4), the special nature of judicial argumentation in Italian judgements will be emphasised, showing the crucially discursive and dialogic character of argumentation in this generic context.

2. Argumentation and the judicial context 2.1

Historical background

As mentioned above, the relevance of argumentation in the legal sector is particularly evident in the judicial context, as can be easily proved not only in a descriptive synchronic perspective but also in historical terms. The very origin of rhetoric – which implied the persuasive use of arguments – is linked to the judiciary context, in 5th century b.C. Sicily; moreover, one the three genres of rhetoric discourse codified by Aristotle (and later adopted also in Rome) is the judicial. The theoretical relevance of judicial argumentation is confirmed by the wide corpus of fundamental texts produced in this area, both in the ancient world and in modern times. The works of famous rhetoricians – Cicero in the first place – are linked to their judicial activity, and have become prototypical examples of argumentative practice. The re-birth of rhetoric in the 20th century is also intertwined with juridical theory and legal activity. Suffice to remember that Ch. Perelman, the founder of New Rhetoric (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tytecha, 1958), started his research in the legal sector and published a seminal work totally devoted to juridical argumentation (Perelman, 1976). Perelman’s ideas in this field are frequently cited, and have been



Chapter 8.  Context and genre in judicial argumentation 179

the starting point for further theoretical elaboration as well as practical application to different contexts (Golden & Pilotta, 1986; Haarscher, 1993). Also within the pragma-dialectical framework, which has played a fundamental role in the development of argumentation theory, legal argumentation has been devoted special attention (Feteris, 1999; Dahlman & Feteris, 2012). Despite the purely theoretical approach which initially characterized the reconstruction of a critical discussion, the field of law has been one of the first actual contexts to be analysed with a view to emphasising the possible application of ideas developed in argumentation theory. Feteris (2001) gives a very useful survey of previous research, starting from a rhetorical approach based on the acceptability of arguments and on their effectiveness for the audience to which they are addressed, and then describing the “dialogical approach”, in which argumentation is considered from the perspective of a discussion procedure, as “a form of rational communication for reaching a rational consensus by means of discussion” (Feteris, 2001, p. 206). According to the author, in a research program of legal argumentation, different components should be taken into consideration, namely the philosophical, the theoretical, the analytical, the empirical and the practical components. This implies that, beyond the normative foundation of a theory of legal argumentation (philosophical component), the structure of arguments, criteria for their acceptability and fallacies should be investigated (theoretical component). Moreover, the analytical component shows how to reconstruct legal argumentation, emphasising a dialogical approach and focusing on analogy and e contrario in the first place. In the field of law, however, analyses based on theoretical assumptions and models are integrated by empirical research, which investigates actual legal practice and, focusing on case studies, shows how argumentation procedures in real life correspond to or conflict with theoretical standpoints. Research both in theoretical and empirical aspects is the prerequisite for a practical approach, which offers recommendations to improve the argumentative skills in legal education. These observations confirm that in the pragma-dialectical framework legal argumentation has been a clear example of the crucial importance of context: the abstract model of a critical discussion in itself can be insufficient to understand (and produce) texts, and research in the field of law has certainly increased the awareness of contextual factors, thus contributing to the evolution of the original model. It is therefore crucial to examine how context has been incorporated in argumentation studies, in order to explore the possibility of applying current models to judicial genres and texts.

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2.2

Contextual levels and genres

The study of context has traditionally played no role in a purely formal approach to argumentation, and has been given limited importance whenever the analysis of arguments has been strongly focused on theoretical models. Even in pragmadialectics – which from its origin explicitly aimed to incorporate the pragmatic aspects of argumentative texts into dialectical analysis – the role played by context has been systematically investigated only in recent years. The title of a paper published by van Eemeren in 2011 (In Context. Giving Contextualization its Rightful Place in the Study of Argumentation) is a clear example of this new course: it emphasizes that in argumentation studies any reconstructive process can include various sources beyond the text – context in the first place. Van Eemeren (2011, p. 144) distinguishes four different levels of contextual analysis: the micro-context (or linguistic context); the meso-context (or situation); the macro-context (or “communicative activity type” of the speech event) and the intertextual or interdiscursive context. A refined analysis of different contextual levels is certainly useful to single out crucial elements that influence both the production and the reception of argumentative discourse. However, a rigid distinction between the different levels can generate difficulties in the application of the model to actual circumstances. In my opinion, it is necessary to emphasize that it is impossible to draw a sharp line between different levels, as the elements considered in making a distinction can play different roles in different circumstances. For instance, the border between linguistic and situational levels can be blurred, as the textual instances considered for the analysis of the former necessarily occur in the context of the latter, and, on the other hand, in some cases the situation is basically the result of a process of textual production. Moreover, when considering the crucial role of the macro-context in institutionalized communication, van Eemeren (2011, pp. 148–151) focuses on “communicative activity types” as expression of different “genres of communicative activity” (i.e. adjudication, deliberation, mediation, negotiation, etc.). In this perspective, the notion of genre echoes the Aristotelian distinction, and singles out “the institutional point” of the communicative practice (van Eemeren, 2011, p. 148). This use of the word genre differs significantly from the notion usually adopted for the analysis of contextual factors not only in linguistics and literature but also in text and discourse analysis (cf., among others: Friedman & Medway, 1994; Maingueneau, 2007). In these disciplines, genres are not described in mere terms of wide categories of text or discourse organization with special aims, as they are always linked to actual historical contexts and are characterized by the adoption of communicative, textual and linguistic norms. The analysis of the argumentative aspects of texts belonging to a certain genre could contribute to the identification of argumentative norms



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typical of that genre, in the actual circumstances of production, which include all the levels of context – texts, situation, institutional activity, interdiscourse. These observations are specially relevant when considering argumentation in the judicial context. Not only is the law based on texts, actually it is made of texts, and all legal activities consist in the production and interpretation of texts. In trials, facts become relevant only when the parties bring them to the attention of the Court through the production of documents, the words of witnesses as well as the opinions of experts have to be transformed into written records, and even when cases are discussed orally, both the claimant and the defendant base their speeches on written briefs which have to be deposited in advance. Arguments in the judicial context are put forth in the micro-context of a text which belongs to a genre produced in the wider context (or meso-context) of a trial. The trial develops according to the law and norms of procedure in force in the relevant legal system, which obviously vary according to place and time. This is the macro-context of the institutional activity, which profoundly influences the choice of arguments, their presentation and even the language structures used. In this respect the interdiscursive dimension is also relevant: a text can be compared with similar texts belonging to the same genre, or with different texts produced within the same situation or institutional context. In this way the special value (in semiotic-structural sense) of a text can be determined. Thus, the fourth level of context analysis takes us back to the first, proving that the textual level can be fully understood only against the background of the whole context in which it was produced. Our attention will now focus on judgements, which are certainly the most interesting text genre produced in a trial, both for their practical judicial function and for their textual and argumentative structure, focusing in particular on this genre within the Italian legal system. 2.3

Judgements in the Italian judicial tradition

In the Italian context – as noted by Mantovani (2008) – legal texts have been initially analysed in the dimension of language variation, as instances of a specialized variety with its own distinctive features, which obviously concern the lexicon but are also crucial at the syntactical and textual levels (among others: Fiorelli, 1994; Cortelazzo, 1997). The pragmatic point of view – prerequisite for a more genuinely argumentative investigation – has been later adopted, with a sharp focus on situational text production and analysis of the most representative genres (Mortara Garavelli, 2001; Bellucci, 2002). Judgments have attracted special attention, as they are considered the textual “climax” of a trial, the end to which all judicial activity is directed. In

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this respect, research has been carried out also in the diachronic perspective, in intercultural contexts and with a cross-generic approach (Santulli, 2008; Mazzi, 2007, 2008; Preite, 2008; Antelmi & Santulli, 2012; Sala, 2012). In Italy, the judicial activity is based on a civil law system, and a judgment is the final text in which the judge summarizes the facts ascertained by the Court (the history of the case, or fatto) and illustrates the arguments for the applications of norms to the case (a section usually described as diritto or ‘law foundations’) before pronouncing the decision. As decisions must be motivated with reference to legislation, the argumentative section cannot be omitted and is crucial to illustrate the reasons for the decision, which in their turn must be taken into consideration in case of appeal. The principle of motivation, which – according to Perelman (1976) – is the starting point of the modern approach to the problem of equity, has therefore direct consequences on the nature and structure of judgments as texts. This principle is clearly affirmed in the Italian Constitution (art. 111), which provides for the necessity of explicit motivation in all judicial decisions. More concretely, the general dispositions that precede the Civil Code of Procedure include an article (art. 118, disposizioni attutative c.p.c.) that prescribes the basic structure of a judgment as described above: facts, reasons and decision. 1 Argumentation is obviously meant for the audience (Perelman & OlbrechtsTyteca, 1958): judgments are written for the parties in the first place, but they are also addressed to the judicial community as a whole. Besides its institutional function, argumentation in judgements has also a practical aim, as in case of appeal the reasoning must stand to scrutiny, and convince the higher Court. Under this perspective, the basic relationship with the audience opens up a dialogic perspective, which emphasises the discursive character of argumentation (Grize, 1990, p. 41). Furthermore, dialogism is crucial in judgements as they are the final step in the sequence of acts making up a trial. The judge often makes explicit reference both to legislation and to the opinions of the parties, establishing a dialogue with his/her co-enunciators (interlocutive dialogism) or with other enunciations in the interdiscourse (interdiscursive dialogism; cf. Bres & Nowakowska, 2005). 1. Legislation regulates also other textual aspects of a judgement, which include identification of the parties and of the judge, date, signature. Moreover, a judgement is pronounced “on behalf of the Italian people”, and the lack of this formula can compromise its legal value, as explicitly affirmed in art. 132 of the code of procedure for civil cases and art. 125 of the code of procedure for criminal cases. These peri-textual aspects are of the utmost importance for the formal validity of a judgment, yet they are not particularly interesting in the linguistic and argumentative perspective, as they are reproduced verbatim and leave no room for variation. However, they have generic relevance and make a text immediately recognisable as a judgement, functioning as stereotyped formulas.



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In the following section, the argumentative structure of a judgment will be analysed as a case study, with special attention for its contextual and dialogical implications. The investigation aims to verify how arguments are organised, and how far the decision of the judge stems from previous judicial documents. In particular, it will consider the arguments and counter-arguments put forth by the parties in their conclusive written declarations, trying to highlight their role in the decisional process and their contribution to the final formulation of the judge. This case study will show how far the micro-contextual argumentative organization primarily depends on the meso-context of the trial, besides being deeply influenced by the macro-context of legislative and judicial norms. Thus, it will shed light on context and generic norms on the one side, while allowing on the other detailed analysis of argumentative structures and language choices typical of judgements in Italian juridical discourse.

3. A case study 3.1

Background, texts and analytical approach

The case selected for the analysis has triggered a heated debate in Italy, far outside the courtroom where it was discussed. Actually, the judicial action came after a rather long period of discussion in institutional as well as in public contexts. Here are the main facts. In December 2012 the Academic Senate of the Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi) approved a 3-year strategic plan based on internationalization, and implying – among other things – that starting from 2014 all MA programmes and PhD courses would be taught in English. The decision gave rise to sharp reactions on behalf of language scholars and societies, animating a public debate which involved not only institutions (universities, the Ministry for Education, etc.) and experts of Italian philology but also columnists and laypeople (Maraschio & De Martino, 2012). Within PoliMi itself the decision turned out to be controversial, so that in May 2012 a group of professors and researchers submitted a petition to the governance, asking for a revision of the strategic plan to cancel the imposition of English. The petition was officially discussed during a meeting of the PoliMi Academic Senate, which however confirmed the original decision with a majority vote. A group of 100 professors contested the decision and summoned the University before the Local Administrative Court (TAR). One year later the Court ruled in favour of the claimants.

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The analysis will focus on the judgement, which was officially published on May 23rd 2013. 2 However, in order to highlight how the judge came to the conclusions illustrated in the text, the main documents produced by the parties will be taken into consideration, i.e. both the claim which was initially presented by the plaintiff and the final statement of defence presented by PoliMi. Preliminarily, a quantitative analysis has been carried out using Wordsmith Tools (Scott 2008). Separate frequency lists and search for keywords make it possible to highlight similarities and differences among the texts. Concordance lines, on the other hand, are useful for investigating the special use of crucial words or expressions. Quantitative analysis is obviously insufficient to study argumentation – and may even be considered totally useless. However, research on small but highly specialised corpora has shown that the integration of Corpus Linguistics into a discursive perspective can give interesting results (among others: Bonnafous and Tourier, 1995; Hardt-Mautner, 1995; Partington et al., 2004; Reed, 2006; Degano, 2008). Frequency lists and other quantitative tools can be useful for an initial approach to argumentative analysis, to single out special structures and schemes, such as dissociation, presupposition or concession (Degano, 2007); they have been applied to the study of legal texts, also with the aim of investigating argumentative lexicon and structures (Mazzi, 2007; Santulli, 2008; Degano, 2010). The choice and organization of arguments can however be studied in depth only through qualitative analysis, which does not neglect global textual aspects as well as minute linguistic features. In this respect, among the contemporary approaches to argumentation – which range from the formal to the informal perspective as well as rhetoric-oriented studies – pragma-dialectics presents significant affinity with discourse analysis, insofar as it applies theory to actual use of arguments trying to reconcile the purely logic component with persuasive aims (Degano, 2012, p. 28). 3 In the French tradition, on the other hand, the study of argumentation has been extended from the perspective of langue-based analysis to discourse (Amossy, 2006), thus shifting the focus from theoretical schemes to actual use in context. In this section, the analysis of the texts will try to integrate the argumentative perspective into a discourse analytical framework, prompted by the conviction that the study of linguistic structures and pragmatic devices associated with argumentation can shed light both on the intentions of the arguer and on the possible reactions of the addressees. In particular, the textual presentation of arguments in 2. Full text available at the following address (quotations are my translation): https://www. giustizia-amministrativa.it/cdsintra/cdsintra/AmministrazionePortale/DocumentViewer/index. html?ddocname=5MDFHZECNHN4RR7YUFJQPYH5KQ&q= (accessed 18.1.2017) 3. The effort to be effectively persuasive without abandoning reasonableness has been described as “strategic maneuvering” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2006).



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the judgement and their dialogic positioning in the macro-context of the trial is considered to be an essential component of their effectiveness in a wider, inter-discursive and genre-oriented perspective. 3.2

Quantitative data

Frequency lists have been produced for the three texts, 4 which are not homogeneous in length. However, the type/token ratio, which is an index of lexical variation, is very similar for the three texts: 20.55 for the judgement (J), 21.65 for the plaintiff ’s claim (P), 20.80 for the defendant’s statement (D). A different value, i.e. 14.14, is obtained when considering the three texts together, thus indicating that among them variation is more represented. However, when considering the keyness index – which singles out words occurring with significantly different frequency in each single text when compared with the whole corpus – there is only one item which qualifies as a “key word” for J, namely the adjective italiana, which has 0.91% frequency in J, 0.23% in P, 0.30% in D. In P and D, the adjective co-occurs almost exclusively with the noun lingua (in the phrase lingua italiana ‘Italian language’) 5: there is only one exception in P (‘Italian Republic’) and one in D (‘Italian University’). On the contrary, in J there are 9 different collocations (3 with università ‘University’, 3 with didattica ‘didactics’ and 3 with cultura ‘culture’), thus revealing that the judge mentions other aspects linked to the use of the Italian language. The expression didattica italiana (‘Italian teaching methods’) is particularly interesting, as it refers to a special approach to teaching that is considered to be typical of the Italian academic contexts (the judge mentions la specificità della didattica italiana). No key words are indicated for P and D. The frequency lists have been compared manually, and it has been noted that the most frequent lexical word is always lingua (‘language’), though with a slightly different percentage in J (1.92%, compared with 1.13% in P and 1.11% in D). As for the 10 most frequent lexical items, there are similarities among the three texts: inglese ‘English’ and corsi ‘courses’ are in the top group in the three lists, and there are also other words with similar meaning referring to the academic context (docenti, insegnamento, professori, etc). However, it is interesting to note that in P the 5th frequent 4. Before starting quantitative analysis, the portion of each text containing reference to the parties and other peri-textual information has been eliminated, in order to avoid any influence on the results, as the list of the claimants and their personal data (which were not equally reproduced in the three examined documents) represented a non-negligible share of text. 5. The number of actual occurrences of the phrase lingua italiana has to be added to the co-­ occurrences with the demonstrative pronoun quella, which has the same reference (in phrases like: “la lingua inglese e quella italiana”, ‘the English language and the Italian’).

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word is costituzionale (‘consitutional’) and the 7th Costituzione (‘Consitution’), indicating that the claimants often refer to the Italian Consitution and to the fundamental principles and rights it guarantees, as confirmed by the frequent use of violazione (‘violation’) and libertà (’freedom’), ranking 9th and 10th respectively. On the other hand, the connector perché (‘as / because’) has 32 occurrences in J, corresponding to 0.40% (as compared to 0.03% in both P and D), thus ranking among the most frequent words. This indicates that the judge often gives reasons for his statements, as confirmed by a close examination of the concordance lines. On the contrary, no single item of meta-argumentative lexicon – chosen among the most frequent in Italian judgements (Strati, 2002; Santulli, 2008) – displays a significant number of occurrences in J, with a dispersion that is an index of variation in the language used in the text. Actually, the most frequent of the considered items is the root *fond* (occurring in (in)fondato/a, fondamento, (in)fondatezza – adjectives and abstracts nouns indicating the ‘foundation’ of an argument), with 9 occurrences (or 0.11%). The judge takes a stand in a dialogical perspective, stating the validity of the arguments put forth by the parties. Words belonging to this lemma are much rarer in P (0.04%), while they are even more frequent in D (0.16%), confirming that the defendant systematically examines and refutes the arguments of the plaintiff (considering them non fondati/infondati). The results offered by this general quantitative analysis will now be compared with data emerging from qualitative investigation. From the methodological point of view, however, it is worth remembering that the results emerging from the latter may raise new questions to be answered against the background of further measurements, and in particular through the analysis of concordance lines. 3.3

Structure and main arguments in the judgement

As usual in the Italian tradition, the judgement is divided into three main parts: narrative (Fatto), legal foundation (Diritto) and pronouncement (introduced by the acronym P.Q.M. standing for per questi motivi ‘for these reasons’). The first part has its own title (Fatto), but it is very short, and merely refers to the main documents produced during the trial. The narrative actually extends into the second part (title: Diritto), in which the first paragraph summarizes the sequence of events as well as the main elements of the petition initially presented by the claimants to PoliMi’s Senate (the meso-context). 6 6. It is worth mentioning that the first paragraph of the Diritto section starts with a sub-heading: “1) sul piano fattuale va osservato che:”, or ‘considering facts, the following points have to be mentioned:’.



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The argumentative section proper starts with the second paragraph: it is devoted to procedural questions, which had been raised by the defendant and are rejected by the Court. The actual motivation of the decision is contained in the third, longer paragraph, which is divided into two sub-sections marking the different steps in the argumentation line. The discussion opens with explicit reference to the motives indicated by the plaintiff. As a matter of fact, in P the arguments were subsumed under different headings, with reference to the norms that had allegedly been violated. In J, the writer affirms that they can be discussed together, as they can be subsumed under the concept of a contrast between the compulsory use of English in teaching imposed by PoliMi and the principle of “supremacy” of the Italian language, with the consequences deriving from the imposition of the English language both for teachers and students. Both in 3.1 (aiming to establish whether the exclusive use of English is legitimate) and in 3.2 (focused on the measures adopted by PoliMi to enhance internationalization and their legitimacy), the judge makes continuous, and often explicit reference to the observations of the parties, accepting or refuting them. In 3.1, the line of reasoning starts from a preliminary point: it is necessary to establish which is the role of the Italian language in the context of Italian legislation. (1) È pacifico che le norme della Costituzione non contengono una diretta affermazione dell’ufficialità della lingua italiana, tuttavia tale carattere è chiaramente percepibile in via indiretta dall’art. 6 Cost., che prevede la tutela della minoranze linguistiche [It is well known that the Constitution does not explicitly state the official character of the Italian Language. However, this official character indirectly emerges in art. 6 of the Constitution itself, which provides for the protection of minority languages].

Although the Constitution does not explicitly mention its supremacy, Italian indirectly qualifies as “official language” because of the constitutional norms providing for the protection of minority languages. This argument had been put forth (and amply discussed) in P, with reference to both national and local legislation. The judge makes use of this argument without mentioning the source, but explicitly refutes a counter-argument of the defendant, adopting a concessive pattern: as put forth in D, the protection of minority languages is linked to special historical and cultural situation, but the need for protection itself stems from the supremacy of the Italian language, which could be detrimental to preserving local differences. In this way, the preeminent role of Italian is recognised as a condition pre-supposed by actual legislation. Furthermore, the judge quotes some decisions taken by the Constitutional Court, which emphasise the role of Italian in relation to minority languages, mentioned also in P, concluding with an analogy: if the Constitutional

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Court aims to guarantee that the Italian language does not play a marginal role in relation to minority languages, the more so this principle applies in relation to a foreign languages which is not protected by Italian legislation. (2) A maggior ragione, una volta chiarito che il principio del primato della lingua italiana ha portata generale, come precisato dalla Corte Costitutionale, sussiste la necessità di garantire che la lingua italiana non subisca trattamenti deteriori anche quando il rapporto non sia con lingue minoritarie tutelate, ma con lingue straniere rispetto alle quali non sussistano specifiche norme di tutela [Once it has been made clear that the supremacy of the Italian language is a general principle, as stated by the Constitutional Court, it is necessary to guarantee that the Italian language is not penalized also when it relates not with a protected minority language but with a foreign language which is not the object of special protection norms].

This argument had been put forth in P. The position of the judges on this point emerges in a dialogical perspective which takes into account the legislative and judicial macro-context as well as the claims and counter-claims put forth in the meso-context of the trial by the parties. The role of the Italian language has then to be examined in the context of internationalization policies, which have become a priority for academic institutions and are encouraged in recent legislation. In D, the emphasis is on a contradiction between two sets of norms, which leads the defendant to argue that the more recent provisions concerning internationalization implicitly abrogate previous norms concerning the role of the Italian language. The judge explicitly refutes this argumentation (“La tesi, pur se diffusamente argomentata, non può essere condivisa” [The thesis, though supported by ample argumentation, cannot be accepted]), affirming that there is no incompatibility, as internationalization can (and should be) pursued while respecting the supremacy of the Italian language. In other words, the use of a foreign language in teaching is legitimate if it occurs beside the use of Italian, while, on the other hand, the process of internationalization cannot be reduced to the adoption of a foreign language, but implies different forms of action, as for example the promotion of exchange programmes. This is actually the core of the whole argumentation, which extends into paragraph 3.2, aimed to establish: (3) se le modalità con le quali il Politecnico ha valorizzato l’uso delle lingue straniere nell’ottica dell’internazionalizzazione sia coerente con il quadro normativo appena esaminato [whether the measures adopted by PoliMi to enhance the use of foreign languages in view of internationalization comply with legislative provisions, as described and interpreted in the previous paragraph].



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In this respect, the controversy focuses on the concept of “exclusive” use of the English language, which implies exclusion of Italian from some areas of teaching. In P, the emphasis is on this point: insofar as all MA and PhD courses are taught in English, the Italian language is excluded from a large share of academic education, irrespective of the subjects involved, with detrimental consequences for both professors and students, who are limited in their freedom of choice. D offers a different interpretation, highlighting that English is not meant to replace Italian in all courses, but the two languages would stand “side by side”. Under this perspective, the right of professors to continue teaching in Italian is saved, as they could “move” their courses to the BA level. In this way, the defendant tries to boil down the whole question to marginal and negligible problems concerning the distribution of courses and explicitly affirms: (4) Come è ovvio, le delibere adottate dal Politecnico di Milano non intendono affatto smentire il primato della lingua italiana come lingua ufficiale della Repubblica. Né si comprende come e perché un Ateneo prestigioso come il Politecnico, che da sempre opera al servizio e nell’interesse del Paese e dei suoi studenti, avrebbe mai potuto (o dovuto) intraprendere un cammino a tal punto insensato” [obviously, the measures adopted by PoliMi do not aim to deny the supremacy of the Italian language as official language of the Republic. Nor is it possible to understand why PoliMi, which is a prestigious university working in the interest of the country and of its students, could (or should) take such an illogic stance].

However, in D there are no arguments to prove this (and similar) statements. In the context of these opposite positions, the judge accepts the argument of the plaintiff, and refutes the interpretation of affiancamento (‘standing side by side’) put forth in D, repeatedly emphasising the concept of “exclusive” use (in MA and PhD courses). In this respect, concordance lines for esclusiv* show 14 occurrences (or 0.17%) in J, while both in P and D there are only 4 occurrences. 7 The acceptance of the main argument of the plaintiff extends to the point that the judge uses various observations, including some general statements, contained in P, namely the cultural role of language as a vehicle of identity, as well as the necessity to avoid that internationalization is interpreted as Anglicization. On the other hand, refutation of the counter-arguments put forth in D is divided into different points, and refers also to the interpretation of legislation concerning the organization of courses in state universities. According to the judge, the argument in D is unacceptable, because it does not consider the whole scope of the norm, which allows the institution of courses in a foreign language only if they are 7. exclusiv* selects both the adjective (esclusivo/a) and the noun (esclusività).

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parallel to courses in Italian. 8 In this case, the judge is not making an exception to a legal rule (Feteris, 2009), but is nevertheless taking the burden to prove that the norm mentioned in D does not apply, not at least in the way indicated by PoliMi. The final considerations concern the argument of “proportionality of the measures adopted to the ends to be pursued”, which subsumes the main thesis of the plaintiff. In his discussion, the judge makes use of the points put forth in P, and accepts the confutation of the pragmatic argument on which PoliMi founds its whole language policy, namely the idea that the exclusive use of English will favour internationalization and lead to a wider diffusion of PoliMi cultural heritage (in terms of knowledge, research, teaching methods etc.). Accepting the plaintiff ’s point of view, the judge affirms that this relation is by no means actually proved; rather, Anglicization is an obstacle to the creation of an authentically multicultural environment, so a ‘useless’ measure, which is also detrimental to the freedom and the interests of both professors and students. In synthesis: (5) Le scelte compiute dal Senato accademico con le delibere impugnate si rivelano sproporzionate, sia perché non favoriscono l’internazionalizzazione dell’Ateneo, ma ne indirizzano la didattica verso una particolare lingua e verso i valori culturali di cui quella lingua è portratrice, sia perché comprimono in modo non necessario le libertà, costitutionalmente riconosciute, di cui sono portatori tanto i docenti quanto gli studenti [The measures adopted by the Academic Senate through the contested resolutions are excessive, as on the one hand they do not favour internationalization of the University but merely lead to the adoption of one single language and the cultural values transmitted in that language, while, on the other, they unnecessarily limit the constitutionally acknowledged freedom of both teachers and students].

The close inspection of J, parallel to the analysis of P and D, makes it immediately evident how the judge takes a stand in the interlocutive dimension. As hinted by quantitative data, he expresses a form of evaluation, stating whether an argument is valid or not (in Italian, (in)fondato). He actually does not put forth new arguments: rather, he examines the initial claims and the means used by the defendant to contrast them. In this process, however, he displays a different attitude towards P and D. He refers explicitly to P in the narrative part of the text, but then he hardly mentions the claimants, and presents most of their statements as his own. Obviously, in his 8. “La norma consente in via derogatoria la istituzione di nuovi corsi in lingua straniera, ma a condizione che corrispondano a dei corsi già esistenti in lingua italiana” [The norm does allow the institution of courses in a foreign language, but only if they correspond to existing courses taught in Italian”].



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exposition the judge emphasises some points: the Italian culture, for example, is explicitly mentioned as well as the special character of Italian teaching methods, as shown in concordance lines. On the other hand, reference to constitutional provisions and rights is less frequent than in P., as the judge more technically refers to norms, avoiding emphasis on fundamental rights that have a more emotional impact. On the contrary, the judge explicitly refers to the (counter)arguments in D, reporting them and marking their evaluation with an argumentative formula, as typical in Italian judgements (Santulli, 2013) (e.g.: the argument is not persuasive, the deduction is not acceptable, etc.); in this context he uses also the word (in) fondato (e.g.: the argument is not founded/unfounded) mentioned above (3.2). In other words, it seems necessary to rebut clearly and systematically the arguments that are not accepted, while in case of acceptance a general reference is sufficient, and the judge can speak with his own voice.

4. Conclusion In light of the above discussion and of the findings that have emerged in the case study, it can be confirmed that genre is an essential component of context and influences argumentative choices. In judicial argumentation, in particular, legal procedures, traditions and routines play a crucial role, and the institutional macro-context is closely intertwined with discursive and textual norms. In particular, here the focus has been on the Italian judicial context, where tradition, shared behaviour as well as legislation highly contribute to determine the organisation of texts, the choice of structures and even the wording, encouraging the use of formulaic expressions. The analysis has shown that generic norms extend to the argumentative aspects of judicial documents, judgements in the first place, and this confirms their character as highly argumentative texts, with a special dialogic organization. The case study has involved the analysis of a judgement (in which the court ruled in favour of the plaintiff), in close connection with the main documents produced by the parties. It has shown that the judgment displays a canonical ­macro-structure, while the argumentative line develops in steps corresponding to the claims put forth by the plaintiff and – within this scheme – examines the (counter)arguments of the defendant. In a dialogical discourse analytical perspective, the voice of the plaintiff is not shown (but accepted), while the voice of the defendant is reported (and rejected). In the judgement there are no new arguments, but the judge examines and evaluates previous arguments, in a sort of second-level argumentation, thus producing a meta-argumentative text.

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This attitude is rather common for Italian judgements, as confirmed by the use of argumentative formulas, used to synthesise the position of the judge on individual claims and counterclaims of the parties. Reading a few texts is sufficient to identify this basic mechanism, reinforced by the obligation of the judge to stick to the points brought to his/her attention by the parties. Further research is necessary to verify how the scheme can be developed, to shed light on the discursive strategies adopted by a judge to motivate his/her decision – through acceptance and rejection of previously produced argumentation. The position of the judge as a ‘referee’ has fundamental theoretical implications, concerning the role of inquiry in the search for judicial truth (Haack, 2004; Tuzet, 2013). These questions lie outside the scope of my research. It is worth pointing out, however, that the effort to provide a justification for a decision on the basis of elements and arguments debated in the trial is a reasonable way to test the logic governing the application of the law and the single steps taken to move from premises to conclusions – in other words, a reasonable way to pursue justice.

References Amossy, R. (2006). L’argumentation dans le discours. Paris: Colin. Amossy, R. (2009). The New Rhetoric’s Inheritance. Argumentation and Discourse Analysis. Argumentation, 23 (3), 313–324.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-009-9154-y Antelmi, D., & Santulli, F. (2012). Arbitration Awards in Italy: Some Argumentative Features in the Discourse Analytical Perspective. In V. Bhatia, G. Garzone, & C. Degano (Eds), Arbitration Awards. Generic Features and Textual Realisations (pp. 91–108). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Bellucci, P. (2002). A onor del vero. Torino: UTET. Bonnafous, S., & Tourier, M. (1995). Analyse du discours, lexicometrie, communication et politique. Langage, 117, 68–81. Bres, J., & Nowakowska A. (2005). Dis-moi avec qui tu ‘dialogues’, je te dirai qui tu es… De la pertinence de la notion de dialogisme pour l’analyse du discours. Margeslinguistiques 9, http://www.marges-linguistiques.com, last accessed 20 October 2016. Cortelazzo, M. (1997). Lingua e diritto in Italia. Il punto di vista dei linguisti. In Leo Schena (Ed.), La lingua del diritto (pp. 35–50). Roma: Cisu. Dahlman, C., & Feteris, E. (Eds) (2012). Legal Argumentation Theory: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, Dordrecht: Springer. Degano, C. (2007). Presupposition and dissociation in discourse: a corpus study. Argumentation, 21, 361–378.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-007-9058-7 Degano, C. (2008). Discorsi di guerra. Milano: Led edizioni universitarie. Degano, C. (2010). Indicators of argumentation in arbitration awards: a diachronic perspective. In V. Bhatia, C. Candlin, & M. Gotti (Eds), The Discourses of Dispute Resolution (pp. 189–205). Bern: Peter Lang.



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Degano, C. (2012). Discourse Analysis, Argumentation Theory and Corpora: An Integrated Approach. Milano: Arcipelago Edizioni. Eemeren, F. H. van (2001). In context. Argumentation, 25, 141–161.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-011-9211-1 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2006). Strategic maneuvering. A synthetic recapitulation. Argumentation, 20, 381–392.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-007-9037-z Feteris, E. (1999). Fundamentals of Legal Argumentation: A Survey of Theories on the Justification of Legal Decisions. Dordrecht: Kluwer.  doi: 10.1007/978-94-015-9219-2 Feteris, E. (2001). Argumentation in the field of law. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Crucial Concepts in Argumentation Theory (pp. 201–225). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Feteris, E. (2009). Strategic maneuvering in the justification of judicial decisions. In F. van Eemeren (Ed.) Examining Argumentation in Context (pp. 93–114). Amsterdam: Benjamins, doi: 10.1075/aic.1.07fet Fiorelli, P. (1994). La lingua del diritto e dell’amministrazione. In L. Serianni, & P. Trifone (Eds), Storia della lingua italiana II (pp. 553–597). Torino: Einaudi. Freedman, A., & Medway, P. (1994). Genres and the New Rhetoric. London: Taylor & Francis. Golden, J., & Pilotta, J. (Eds) (1986). Practical Reasoning in Human Affairs: Studies in Honor of Chaim Perelman. Dordrecht: Reidel.  doi: 10.1007/978-94-009-4674-3 Grize, J-B. (1990). Logique et langage. Paris: Ophrys. Haack, S. (2004). Truth and Justice, Inquiry and Advocacy, Science and Law. Ratio juris, 17, 15–26.  doi: 10.1111/j.0952-1917.2004.00252.x Haarscher, G. (Ed.) (1993). Chaim Perelman et la pensée contemporaine. Bruxelles: Bruylant. Hardt-Mautner, G. (1995). Only connect. Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics. Lancaster: Technical Papers. Maingueneau, D. (2007). Analyser les textes de communication. Paris: Colin. Mantovani, D. (2008). Lingua e diritto. Prospettive di ricerca tra sociolinguistica e pragmatica. In G. Garzone & F. Santulli (Eds). Il linguaggio giuridico. Prospettive interdisciplinari (pp. 17–56). Milano: Giuffrè. Maraschio, N., & De Martino, D. (Eds) (2012). Fuori l’italiano dall’università? Inglese, internazionalizzazione, politica linguistica. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Mazzi, D. (2007). The Linguistic Study of Judicial Argumentation: Theoretical Perspectives Analytical Insights. Modena: Edizioni Il Fiorino. Mazzi, D. (2008). La sentenza come genere argomentativo: una riflessione linguistica. In G. Garzone, & F. Santulli (Eds). Il linguaggio giuridico. Prospettive interdisciplinari (pp. 239–262). Milano: Giuffrè. Mortara Garavelli, B. (2001). Le parole e la giustizia. Torino: Einaudi. Partington, A., Morley, J., & Haarman, L. (Eds) (2004). Corpora and Discourse. Bern: Peter Lang. Perelman, C. (1976). Logique juridique. Nouvelle rhétorique. Paris: Dalloz. Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1958). Traité de l’argumentation. La Nouvelle Réthorique. Bruxelles: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Plantin, C. (1996). L’argumentation. Paris: Seuil. Preite, C. (2008). La sentenza della Corte di Giustizia delle Comunità Europee: eterogeneità sequenziale ed enunciativa. In G. Garzone & F. Santulli (Eds). Il linguaggio giuridico. Prospettive interdisciplinari (pp. 263–283). Milano: Giuffrè. Reed, C. (2006). Preliminary results from an argument corpus. In: E. Bermúdez & L. Miyares (Eds), Linguistics in the Twenty-first Century (pp. 185–196). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Sala, M. (2012). Linguistic and Textual Features in Italian Commercial Arbitration. In V. Bhatia, G. Garzone, & C. Degano (Eds). Arbitration Awards. Generic Features and Textual Realisations (pp. 152–170). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Santulli, F. (2008). La sentenza come genere testuale: narrazione, argomentazione, performatività. In G. Garzone & F. Santulli (Eds). Il linguaggio giuridico. Prospettive interdisciplinari (pp. 207–238). Milano: Giuffrè. Santulli, F. (2013). Modality in Italian judgements. In F. Poppi & W. Cheng (Eds), The Three Waves of Globalization (pp. 123–141). Cambridge Scholars Publishers. Scott, M. (2008). Wordsmith Tools version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software Ltd. Stati, S. (2002). Principi di analisi argomentativa. Bologna: Pàtron. Tuzet, G. (2013). Conflict or Dialogue? Legal Argumentation and the Search for Truth. In D. Pirazzini & A. Schiemann, Dialogizität in der Argumentation (pp. 107–130), Bern: Peter Lang.

Section IV

Argumentation practices in debates on societal and family issues

Chapter 9

Caught between profitability and responsibility Arguing legitimacy in the pharmaceutical industry Paola Catenaccio

Università degli Studi di Milano

This study investigates the discursive strategies of self-legitimation enacted by pharmaceutical companies during the 1998 drug-access crisis debate in South Africa, framing them within the context of the then emerging discourse of corporate social responsibility. The crisis erupted when thirty-nine pharmaceutical companies sued the South African government for passing a law that permitted the production of generic drugs to fight the AIDS epidemics, in open defiance of international patent laws. Working from a pragmadialectic perspective embedded in a broader discourse analytical framework, the study reconstructs the arguments brought forth by the two parties in the debate on the basis of a close reading of legal and media documents produced in the course of the case. The difference of opinion at the heart of the debate – whether commercial rights of companies could be overridden in the name of higher-level human rights – was eventually resolved in favour of the human rights approach through voluntary withdrawal of the case on the part of the pharmaceutical companies. However, the clash of ideologies it unveiled has remained largely unresolved, and attempts to negotiate a position that may grant the pharmaceutical sector a license to operate while preserving its commercial mission continue to feature extensively in the CSR communication of the pharmaceutical industry. The analysis of the unfolding of the debate and the evaluation of the arguments brought forth in its course and of the underlying assumptions from which they descended highlight a number of crucibles which continue to be central to today’s CSR discourse, and suggest that argumentation theory has an important role to play in the public understanding of social and economic developments.

1. Introduction This chapter investigates the rhetorical and argumentative strategies deployed by pharmaceutical corporations in defense of their own conduct in the wake of the HIV/AIDS drug access crisis which shook the pharmaceutical industry at the close of the twentieth century. The crisis originated in the decision of the South African doi 10.1075/aic.10.10cat © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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government, in 1997, to issue licenses for the production of generics to tackle the spreading of the AIDS epidemics, in clear defiance of patent law. The ensuing controversy was widely reported in the international press, giving rise to a broader debate on business ethics which never truly quietened, and which reverberates to this day in the self-legitimizing discourse of pharmaceutical companies. The study adopts an argumentation theory approach to the investigation of the discursive resources mobilized by pharmaceutical corporations during the crisis, setting them against the backdrop of the contextual socio-political and discourse-rhetorical coordinates within which the crisis occurred, and comparing them with more recent examples of self-legitimizing discourse produced by pharmaceutical companies in response to reputation-damaging challenges. It is an undisputed fact that in the course of the last two decades the pharmaceutical industry has faced a sustained legitimacy crisis. The sector has been the object of increasing scrutiny on the part of both regulatory bodies and of the general public, often coming under attack because of a generalized perception that it is dominated by greed. This charge has been the more damning by reason of the intrinsically valuable nature of the sector’s activities, which are aimed at such an absolute – and unquestionable – goal as saving people’s lives. The key contribution of the pharma sector to the well-being of society has been in general readily acknowledged by the public, who has been willing to accept the industry’s high levels of profits and its virtual exemption from price controls in exchange for the benefits ensuing from its activities. At times of crisis, however, the conflict between business orientation and social vocation surfaces, raising doubts as to legitimacy of the business itself (Hasbani & Bréton, 2013). It is probably no exaggeration to say that the reputation of the pharmaceutical sector is currently at an all-time low. Many factors have contributed to this state of affairs – not least, among them, the AIDS/HIV drug access crisis which took place in South Africa in 1997–1998. Under pressure from an unprecedented civil society mobilization, in 1997 the South African government had passed a law allowing the licensing of generics to meet the demand for affordable medicines to face the AIDS/HIV pandemic. The South African law disregarded international patent legislation, maintaining that under exceptional circumstances compulsory licensing could be granted to face crisis-level needs. In 1998, thirty-nine pharmaceutical companies, including global players such as Bayer, Glaxo Wellcome, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Roche, Schering-Plough, Zeneca and Smithkline (to name but a few of the best known ones) sued the South African government, claiming that the law infringed their internationally sanctioned patent rights. 1 The 1. Pharmaceutical Company Lawsuit against the Government of South Africa, Case No. 4183/98 of 18 February 1998, available at: http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/sa/pharmasuit.html.



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move, initially ­supported by the U.S. Government, soon turned out to be a “public relations disaster” (Faulk & Usunier, 2009, p. 167; Kennedy et al, 2004, p. 131) for the sector, triggering “an avalanche of negative publicity” (Barnard, 2002, p. 159) which eventually led the pharma coalition to withdraw the case in 2001. The case sparked a debate hinging on a profit vs right to health dichotomy which is still raging today, and which has been fuelled, in more recent years, by a spate of scandals involving virtually all major pharmaceutical companies worldwide (often referred to as “Big Pharma”). In all these scandals, pharmaceutical companies were charged with misconduct or fraud, and were publicly denounced for putting profit before safety, playing with people’s lives in order to increase their revenues. In the majority of cases corporations have been found guilty, or reached out-of-court settlements which, in the eye of the public, basically amount to an admission of guilt. This chapter takes its move from the recognition of the centrality of the 1997– 98 controversy to the development of a broader debate on the role and responsibilities of the pharmaceutical industry in society. The study analyzes the discursive representations of the 1997–98 events produced by the various parties involved in the debate, with special attention paid to the way in which the pharmaceutical industry mobilized multiple discourses in order to negotiate its legitimacy both as a business enterprise and as a social actor. The approach selected for the analysis is centred in argumentation theory, based on the assumption that self-legimizing and image restoration strategies are essentially argumentative and dialogic in nature, in that they aim to respond to implicit or explicit charges, or to offset criticism. Beside reconstructing the critical discussion involving the pro-generics campaigners and their pharma-industry opponents, the study will also investigate the discursive articulation of the pharmaceutical industry’s communication in the years following the drug access debate, with a view to unearthing the key tenets and assumptions upon which self-legitimizing arguments are built and to identifying the nodes around which differences of opinion with real or implied opponents crystallize. The study is organized in four sections. After a brief outline of the scope of the research and of its methodological background (Section 1), Section 2 is devoted to a short critical overview of contemporary discursive representations of the role of business in society. In particular, the section focuses on the rise of the Corporate Social Responsibility paradigm, which has been instrumental in bringing about changes in public perceptions of the role of business in society. Such changes have become established in contemporary business discourse through a process of discursive normalization. However, especially in early examples of CSR discourse, it is common to find traces of a discourse involving conflicting views of the relationship between business enterprises and civil society. A critical account of this discursive struggle and of its rhetorical articulation is provided, with a view to offering a

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suitable backdrop against which to investigate the drug access debate and the ensuing self-legitimizing rhetorical efforts deployed by the pharmaceutical industry. The events which led to the pharmaceutical industry’s legitimacy crisis are briefly recounted in Section 3, which also offers a critical reconstruction of the arguments brought forth by pharmaceutical corporations on the one hand, and by their detractors on the other, to support their respective positions (Ilie, 2009). Finally, in Section 4, an analysis of samples of discourse produced by the pharmaceutical industry in the years following the crisis and up to the time of writing is carried out with a view to identifying recurrent self-legitimizing arguments, tracing them back, wherever possible, to the drug access crisis dispute, and interpreting them in the light of the broader argumentative debate on CSR. 1.1

Scope and method

The study on the argumentative articulation of the drug access debate was conducted on an ad-hoc corpus compiled from existing repertoires of historical documents, 2 comprising press releases, reports, news articles, court documents and other forms of public communication; additional texts were retrieved through the Lexis-Nexis database, and previous reconstructions of the debate (most notably Owen 2013, 2014) were used as reference materials. A more thorough description of these materials is provided in Section 3.2. For the analysis of self-legitimizing claims in post-drug crisis discourse generated within the pharma sector, a corpus of CSR reports issued by pharmaceutical corporations was compiled. The corpus gathers 32 reports issued by five pharmaceutical corporations – Abbot, Astra-Zeneca, Bayer, Roche and Novartis – between 2001 and 2012, for a total of around 1.8 million words. The companies selected for analysis are major players in the field. All of them were involved in the South Africa lawsuit, either directly (albeit through their local subsidiaries) or as members of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association of South Africa (which had initiated the lawsuit). Over the two decades since the 1997–2001 events, they have all devoted considerable attention to CSR-related issues, as testified by their inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability index for 2012, a fact which bears witness to their commitment to CSR and warrants the assumption that they engage in self-reflection on the nature and scope of their CSR involvement. Because of this, they have been deemed to be likely to be representative of 2. The starting point for the research were the documents gathered at the following URL: http:// www.cptech.org/ip/health/sa/pharma-v-sa.html. The site was last accessed on June 3, 2013; some of the links no longer worked, but references were clear enough for most of the materials to be found and retrieved through further searches.



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the sector’s approach to CSR and social engagement, and therefore, suitable sources for examples of sector-specific CSR discourse. Although the corpus is amenable to computer assisted analysis, the investigation maintains throughout a purely qualitative focus: corpus analysis software (Wordsmith Tools 4.0) was used only for the purpose of isolating and retrieving passages featuring lexical items which were deemed to be pivotal elements in the debate (for instance “access”; see Sections 3.3 and 4 below). For what concerns the method, the study combines argumentation theory and discourse analysis. Following the pragma-dialectic tradition, argumentation is here conceived of as a “verbal, social, and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint by putting forward a constellation of one or more propositions to justify the standpoint” (van Eemeren, Grootendorst & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. xii). In this approach, argumentation is not considered in its purely logical structure (such as it would be in informal logics), but is rather seen as a context-bound, socially-embedded and rhetorically-driven activity. The pragma-dialectic model normatively postulates a set of “rules” which determine admissible moves in a critical discussion, and in accordance with which arguments must be assessed (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992, pp. 208–209; 2004, pp. 190–196). At any stage in the discussion, the soundness of argumentation can be tested by asking “critical questions” aimed at verifying the reasonableness and rationality of the arguments. However, it is not only the intrinsic rationality of an argument which determines its success, but also the way in which it is put forth. Thus, a dialectical concern (related to upholding a rational argument) is combined with a rhetorical one (aimed at resolving a difference of opinion in one’s favour), in pursuit of which arguers will make use of “strategic maneuvering” (van Eemeren, 2010), which can be defined as the combined deployment of strategic selection of topical potential, adaptation to audience demand, and use of specific presentational devices with the aim of reconciling rhetorical effectiveness with reasonableness. A recognition of the key role played by contextual, and, more generally, broader social factors in argumentative discussions is one of the characterizing aspects of the pragma-dialectic approach. As van Eemeren, Houtlosser and Snoeck Henkemans (2007, p. 3) put it, pragma-dialectics […] acknowledges explicitly that argumentative discourse is part of a communicative activity. That is why the argumentation that is advanced is always analyzed in relation to the way in which the verbal interaction between the participants in the communication process proceeds. Bringing forward standpoints and argumentation and responding to the (real or assumed) standpoints and argumentation of others are viewed as socially motivated moves in a collective process of conflict management.(emphasis added)

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The acknowledgement of the centrality of the social dimension in argumentative discourse is a crucial point here, because it represents a key point of contact with the methodological tradition of discourse analysis, among the key tenets of which is a view of discourse as social action which produces, reflects, confirms and contests social reality. This view rests on a constructivist conception of language and discourse which sees discourse and social reality as mutually interdependent and, indeed, mutually constitutive (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999). According to this perspective, discourse plays a major role in creating social constructions, as language is not a mere medium which mirrors reality, but rather a powerful tool which shapes our view of the world, “provid[ing] us with a way of structuring our experience of the world and of ourselves” (Burr, 2003, p. 49). Analyzing specific instantiations of discourse (texts, talk, and in the case at hand, complex argumentative discussions), therefore, entails considering them against the backdrop of social practices and, more importantly for the purpose of this research, broader cultural and ideological assumptions. In combining argumentation theory with discourse analysis, this study follows in the steps of a growing body of research taking a similar approach. While the relationship between these theoretical traditions has sometimes been contested, recent studies have demonstrated that they can be used synergically, yielding extremely significant results (cf. Degano, 2012 for a discussion of this topic). In particular, the integration of pragmadialectics with critical discourse analysis has been successfully argued for (Ihnen & Richardson, 2011; see also Iețcu-Fairclough, 2008), their combined use having been shown to provide mutually reinforcing evidence in the service of greater explanatory efficacy. In this study, argumentation theory is used within an overarching discourse-analytical approach to explore conflicting discursive constructions of the drug access crisis, pitting them against the backdrop of the emerging (at the time) CSR debate and especially of the discursive struggle on the role of business in society foregrounded in it. Argumentation theory is especially suited to this task because it can help unearth implicit and explicit assumptions underlying the opposing parties’ standpoints and claims. In so far as such standpoints reflect diverging views of the mandate of business in society, critical investigation of the ensuing argumentative discussion may contribute to shedding light not only on the crucibles exposed by the drug access crisis but, more generally, on the difficult balancing act at the heart of the CSR paradigm.



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2. Background: The emergence of CSR discourse and the pharmaceutical industry The AIDS-HIV drug access crisis briefly outlined in the introductory section was in many ways a watershed in the pharmaceutical industry’s legitimacy discourse, and its importance can hardly be underestimated. It disrupted one of the sector’s key legitimizing narratives, which aimed at downplaying the profit motive subsuming it under a broader social beneficence agenda. Additionally, on a different, but related plane, the crisis contributed to exposing the discursive conflict at the core of the emerging social responsibility paradigm, which was just beginning to reach mainstream status around the same time as the crisis erupted. The overlap between the drugs crisis debate and CSR discourse is considerable; as a result, before going in deeper detail into the analysis of the discursive articulation of the medicine access crisis, and more specifically of the argumentative strategies deployed by the parties involved, an overview of the salient aspects of the discourse of CSR is in place. Corporate Social Responsibility as a theoretical concept and a business practice began to emerge around the 1950s, and by the turn of the twenty-first century had risen to hegemonic position. Its ascent, which has since been unstoppable, entailed a “paradigm shift” from a widely shared view of business as essentially and almost exclusively profit-oriented to one in which social concerns play an increasingly important role. CSR postulates the integration and mutual reinforcement of social and business goals in a way which marks a sharp departure from the past, and especially from the maximization of profit paradigm which had dominated business culture over the previous decades. While the view that businesses have a moral duty to “give back” to society has a long history (philanthropy and maecenatism being often cited as the first instances of CSR), contemporary corporate social responsibility departs from an exclusively charitable approach, adopting instead a view of businesses as not only economic but also social actors exerting their influence on the surrounding communities and the environment: This role entails specific duties and responsibilities which are not purely philanthropic, but in fact part and parcel of businesses’ license to operate. In this contemporary form CSR has been around at least since the beginning of the 20th century (Owen & O’Dwyer, 2008), but its first full modern theoretical conceptualization is typically attributed to Bowen’s seminal work on the Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (1953), where such responsibilities are identified with “the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society” (Bowen, 1953, p. 6). The heyday of its theoretical development were the 1960s and 1970s (Carroll 1999): the most innovative contributions to the definition of CSR can be traced to these decades,

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including Carroll’s much quoted one, which describes CSR as “encompass[ing] the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time” (Carroll, 1979, p. 500). The history of contemporary CSR is characterized by intense theoretical inquiry and by the development of several models for its definition, operationalization and measurement. This notwithstanding, to this day CSR remains in many ways an underdetermined concept, subject to multiple conceptualizations and interpretations. A key aspect of the debate concerns the motives underpinning CSR engagement. Broadly speaking, two main lines of reasoning have been pursued (Gond, Palazzo & Basu, 2009), which can be respectively defined as the instrumental and the ethical approach to CSR. The instrumental approach, which has been termed “enlightened” self-interest, basically argues that businesses embrace CSR because it is instrumental to increasing a company’s value. According to this approach, the fundamental mandate of business is to increase shareholder value, and CSR should be embraced only in so far as it is profitable to do so. The second line of reasoning argues that the social responsiveness of business is a moral imperative – in other words, being responsible is “the right thing to do” on the basis of ethical or social contract principles. More often, though, arguments in support of CSR fall somewhat in between these two positions. This is made possible by the fact that strategic stances based on self-interest and ethics-based perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor are they explicitly posited as such in the literature (cf. Blindheim, 2010, p. 20). 3 Indeed, the instrumental perspective on CSR, tempered with an ethical drive, underpins the ‘win-win’ approach (often termed “the business case for CSR”) that is frequently mentioned in support of the adoption of CSR (Barner, 2007; Grayson & Hodges, 2004). The claim is that it is possible to “do well by doing good”, and typically involves a long term perspective, particularly with reference to sustainable development.

3. Indeed, justifications for CSR grounded in social contract (i.e., ethics-based) theory (Donaldson, 1984; Donaldson & Dunfee, 1994) are often combined with instrumentally-­oriented positions based on stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984): according to the former, a company’s license to operate is not only grounded in its formal act of incorporation, but involves a duty to meet a wider range of (not necessary explicit) societal expectations; stakeholder theory helps define these expectations by identifying the various groups or interests that affect (or are affected by) a business. In stakeholder theory, management choice is seen as a function of stakeholder influence; thus, CSR is pursued as a way to address a set of stakeholder expectations. The more salient (Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997) social responsibility-related expectations are, the more inclined a company will be to meet them, as doing so is likely to translate in heightened reputation and hence, it is argued, financial success.



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While the theoretical approaches described above differ slightly in emphasis, they all share the common dilemma of having to reconcile two apparent contradictory aspects of business: on the one hand, business must continue to pursue its intrinsic aim, i.e. profit; on the other, it must integrate social solidarity among its ends. The perceived tension between these two paradigms involves a discursive struggle which must be rhetorically resolved for CSR discourse to become ideologically viable. More importantly, in so far as businesses are accountable to multiple stakeholders for their operating choices, it is crucial that such discursive resolution be accepted by all of them (investors, local communities, interest groups) despite their potentially diverging agendas. In particular, the profit motive may be perceived as conflicting with social solidarity; attempts at the latter may be seen as exclusively strategic; and a real integration of the two may be deemed impossible. Given these premises, it should come as no surprise that the rise of the CSR paradigm to hegemonic importance has required a sustained rhetorical effort on the part of companies to persuade their multiple stakeholders, on the one hand, of their continued financial focus and, on the other, of their sincerity and candor. Such effort has been deployed in both internal and external communication, but it is the latter that is here of particular interest, as it represents a form of public discourse aimed at changing widely shared assumptions and beliefs fighting over the contested turf of the role of business in society. 2.1

The rhetorical articulation of CSR: Managing conflict in discourse

The rhetorical effort needed to foster consensus around CSR engagement is embedded in a plethora of genres, from mission statements, to corporate advertising, to CSR reporting. There is, of course, huge variation in their articulation, but a number of recurring structures is recognizable. These structures constitute the shared rhetorical scaffolding of CSR discourse, and belie, even while attempting to assuage it, the extent of the underlying discursive struggle. In a previous study (Catenaccio, 2012) I have investigated the characterizing features of CSR discourse, identifying multiple discursive articulations of the business-society relationship which position themselves on a cline from discursively constructed compatibility to professed integration. The construction of compatibility vis-à-vis a skeptical interlocutor requires dialogic engagement with an assumed opponent maintaining the standpoint that successful business is not compatible with social orientation. The argumentation follows a symptomatic argument scheme such as the one below:

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  Y is true of X Because: Z is true of X And: Z is symptomatic of Y,

which results in the following articulation:   Successful business (X) is not compatible with social orientation (Y) Because: successful business (X) pursues self-interested profit (Z) And: being self-interested (Z) is symptomatic of not being socially oriented (Y)

Much of CSR discourse engages, in various forms, with the postulated incompatibility highlighted above, using a plethora of rhetorical devices to foster the conviction that businesses can indeed be successful AND oriented to society. Recurring structures dialogically engage with envisaged skepticism regarding the possibility for businesses to profess and practice CSR without forfeiting their profit orientation by explicitly positing the need for a coexistence of the profit motives and social solidarity goals. A typical example of this is the one featured in (1), where multiple CSR-related claims are followed by a climatic reassertion of the continuing validity of the economic motive, with the adverbial of certainty of course emphasizing the common ground nature of the closing assertion: (1) (..) when Bayer has a new idea for a product, it makes a thorough examination of which criteria it satisfies: The product must have a high benefit for the user and it must be accepted by society. It must not constitute any appreciable risk for humankind, the animal world or the environment throughout its life. Its production should consume as few resources as possible and cause a minimum of emissions. It should be largely recyclable, or at least be readily disposable. And, of course, it should be relatively economical to manufacture and yield a maximum return.  (Bayer, 2004)

Overcoming the potential conflict between sustainability propositions and profit motive occasionally entails a redefinition of key concepts such as “value”. In the passage below the argumentative technique of dissociation (van Rees, 2009) is used to re-define “value” to mean something that goes beyond conventional notions of commercial value. The value pursued is of a radically different nature than the one traditionally associated with business endeavours: (2) On the path towards sustainability the challenge is to find ways to deliver more value  – socially, environmentally and economically  – than the value of the resources we use to make and sell our products.  (NovoNordisk, 2005)

Other structures still point to a more tenuously phrased intimation of incompatibility, providing discursive means to effect the transition from incongruity to



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convergence. In Example (3) below the use of the connector “at the same time” suggests a degree of unexpectedness in the co-occurrence of the two stated goals of business 4 which is, however, quickly glossed over; a similar perspective is conveyed through the use of strengthening additive connectors such as “not only…but also”, featured in Example (4), where the additive meaning overshadows (but does not cancel) that element of potential contrast. (3) Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, nutrition and high-tech materials. Our products and services are designed to benefit people and improve their quality of life. At the same time we want to create value through innovation, growth and high earning power.  (Bayer, 2009) (4) Roche is committed to incorporating sustainable business practices in all areas of its supply chain to not only improve processes but also as a means of ensuring patient safety and product quality.  (Roche, 2011)

Other instances of CSR discourse attempt to erase all signs of struggle through the rhetorical deployment of metaphors of integration which effectively neutralize all types of discursive resistance to the CSR paradigm. The phrase “at the heart of ” is especially suited to this purpose, as are expressions involving the lexicalization of integration and/or incorporation:

4. “At the same time” is used as a discourse marker indicating – besides the feature of simultaneity and/or concomitance conveyed by its literal meaning – also a degree of perceived contrast between the two propositions. In fact, “at the same time”, together with “while”, is a particularly interesting discourse marker, specifically because of the multiple – and sometimes ambiguous – meanings it can convey. A fairly recent study by Oates (2001) mentions at the same time as discourse marker having particularly “ambiguous cueing relations” (Oates, 2001, p. 153). Oates provides examples which show that the phrase “can be used as a discourse marker to cue contrast and as a temporal adverb to cue simultaneity, but in some cases it may be difficult to distinguish its role”. As an example of the latter she quotes the sentence “work is hard, and at the same time interesting and worthwhile”, pointing out that different coders found it difficult to identify the specific meaning of at the same time, or rather the specific meaning cued by at the same time as to the relationship between the two different sets of adjectives attributed to work. “‘At the same time’? is [a] multi-meaning linking adverbial that often expresses an underlying message that differs from its surface meaning” (Liu 2008, p. 507; emphasis added). Liu insists on its concessive/contrastive nature, highlighting that “when expressing concession or contrast, the adverbial on appearance does indicate a simultaneous/sequential relationship but in reality it expresses incongruity […]. The concessive use of at the same time is typically found in the discussion of complex issues that involve opposing perspectives. It allows the speaker/writer to cover both sides by providing a good transition from one perspective to another.”

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(5) We believe that, for commercial success to be sustainable, we must conduct ourselves and our business activities responsibly. Therefore, citizenship issues lie at the heart of our corporate strategy.  (Abbott, 2008) (6) Corporate social responsibility (csr) is an integral part of Bayer’s corporate philosophy and has a history at the company dating back over 100 years. Our primary objective is to reconcile economic success with environmental protection, conservation of natural resources and social concerns.  (Bayer, 2008) (7) We are now developing a green procurement policy to formalize our approach. This policy will provide guidance on incorporating sustainable sourcing principles into the purchasing process.  (Abbott, 2008) (8) In 2002, we have put particular attention on the integration of social responsibility and human rights issues in the core business processes.  (Novo Nordisk, 2002)

In these examples the compatibility of business objectives and social commitment is presented as a given, something which is in no need of explanation, an objective truth which the reader is expected to accept without questioning. The excerpts briefly discussed above testify to the broad range of positions on the discursive negotiation needed to accommodate business and social values featured in CSR discourse. If the first set of examples suggests that in CSR discourse the compatibility of profit and solidarity is in constant need of redefinition and negotiation, the last few passages seem to indicate that no tension exists between them, and that seamless integration is not only possible, but already effectively viable. While Examples (1)–(4) engage dialogically with a discursively constructed, at least partly skeptical “other” in need of both explanation and persuasion as to the very concept of CSR, Examples (5)–(8) offer definitions of CSR which shun dialectic engagement in favour of monoglossic affirmation. The examples above suggest that multiple framings of CSR exist even within the pharmaceutical industry. However, over the years the sector has gradually converged towards the adoption of a common stance that emphasizes its intrinsically responsible nature. Because of the obvious social beneficence of the pharmaceutical business, the CSR paradigm has provided drug corporations with an ideal self-legitimation discourse which they can rely on to promote their cause. Thus, ever since the early days of CSR they have been quick to seize the opportunity to jump onto the CSR bandwagon (Lee & Kohler, 2010, pp. 651–652; Dhanarajan, 2005, p. 535), typically adopting an extreme formulation of the full integration position outlined above. The following excerpt, taken from a 2015 document issued by Novartis, exemplifies this point:



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(9) Through our business, we make an important contribution to society: We discover and develop innovative healthcare products, targeting unmet medical needs. Novartis makes medicines and vaccines that reach more than 1 billion people each year. But the world is home to more than 7 billion people – all of whom have health needs. We apply our expertise in science and innovation to society’s biggest health challenges. Responsibility is a core part of our business strategy and underscores our mission of caring and curing.  (Novartis, 2015)

By adopting this stance, pharmaceutical corporations discursively rearticulate the relationship between profit and social engagement in favour of the latter, appropriating discursive resources typical of other fields – most notably those of social solidarity and scientific research (cf. Libenau, 1987) – in a process which effectively hijacks CSR discourse for self-serving purposes, exposing the sector to charges of opportunism which it has been often unable to withstand. This discursive appropriation played a key role in the drug access crisis. The debate around the crisis represented both an arena for operationalizing competing conceptualizations of the business-society relationship, and a testing field for the effectiveness of argumentations based on the emerging CSR paradigm. In the next section the argumentative discussion on drug access and generics licensing will be reconstructed, and the arguments advanced by the parties involved linked to the overarching debate on CSR outlined above.

3. The drug access debate: Reconstructing the critical discussion The AIDS pandemia at the end of the twentieth century was the trigger for the pharmaceutical industry’s legitimacy crisis, putting a sudden end to the sector’s seemingly unstoppable momentum. Indeed, the record profits registered by pharmaceutical corporations over the century contributed to the crisis (Hasbani & Bréton, 2013), fostering increasing aversion towards them. Thus, if the pharmaceutical industry had thrived in the second half of the twentieth century thanks to a “grand bargain” based on “a complex, implicit social contract” whereby “the industry prospered immensely” while society received in exchange “a bountiful array of life-saving and life-enhancing drugs” (Santoro, 2005, p. 2), this implicit contract came to an abrupt end at the end of the century. The AIDS crisis in underdeveloped countries prompted a debate over the right to health vis-à-vis the unaffordable cost of life-saving medication which was to prove extremely damaging to the industry’s reputation in years to come.

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3.1

The facts

In 1998 thirty-nine pharmaceutical companies (often referred to in the press as “Big Pharma”) filed a lawsuit against the South African government, which had passed a law in favour of the compulsory licensing of generic medicines for the treatment of AIDS/HIV. The case was the direct consequence of the “Access to Medicines” campaign brought forth by a number of civil society organizations in support of recourse to generics to mitigate the effects of the strong patent protection policy promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma of course contested the campaign, arguing that patents were vital to fund research and development activities and equating generics to piracy threatening the survival of the pharmaceutical sector. In fact, pharmaceutical companies had been extremely active, in the 1980s and 1990s, in establishing such a strong patent protection policy. Their argument in support of such a policy had revolved specifically around the issue of generics, which they had depicted as downright theft, hence morally wrong, and a threat to the future availability of quality medicines. Such depiction was strategically motivated to position the debate on moral grounds, thereby situating generic medicines in the zone of “deviance” as opposed to the zone of “legitimate controversy” (Owen, 2013, p. 264). 5 When the AIDS medicine access crisis erupted, therefore, rather than consenting to the licensing of generics, pharmaceutical companies promoted a charitable approach which would make drugs available at discount prices while maintaining the rights to patents (Owen, 2013, p. 272). Thus, the two opposing sides mobilized different discourses in their responses to the medicine access crisis: while the difficulty in accessing essential medicines was acknowledged by both pharmaceutical companies and the campaigners, they differed on the interpretation of its causes, with the campaigners claiming that patent protection was to blame, while Big Pharma maintained that the real culprit was poverty. A highly complex

5. This polarization in moralized terms made it impossible to negotiate intermediate solutions which might otherwise have been viable, leading to an either-or type of fallacy. As Halbert (2002, p. 268) points out, “throughout the debate, pharmaceutical companies have attempted to shift the focus away from compulsory licensing and parallel importation, and on to their claim that these actions will destroy the intellectual property system. They have attempted to shift the focus away from a middle path by continually asserting the debate is about the protection or destruction of intellectual property. They create a dichotomy in which the only positions are for or against the protection of patents. However, it is crucial to understand the South African government did not void international patent law with the Medicines Act. Instead, the South African government argues that the government should be allowed to produce the needed drugs domestically for an affordable price through a licensing system: the drug companies will profit under compulsory licensing. The very volume of drugs necessary to treat the AIDS crisis in Africa will produce a substantial profit, even at the cheapest price.”



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discussion ensued, with the primary difference of opinion in respect of the causes of the crisis giving rise to subordinate differences of opinion which were in turn the object of heated controversy. 3.2

The argumentative articulation of the AIDS/HIV medicine access controversy

In this section a reconstruction of the main lines of the debate is offered, and their argumentative articulation is analyzed critically. The reconstruction is based on multiple sources, both primary and secondary. Among the primary sources are several court documents, namely the texts of the lawsuit brought by the pharmaceutical companies against the government of South Africa (case number 4183/98 of 18th February 1998, High Court of South Africa, Transvaal Division), and of a number of affidavits filed by both applicants and respondents in the case, the most complete being the replying affidavit of Theodora Steele on behalf of the Treatment Action Campaign, an activist organization that had been admitted to the court case as amicus curiae (affidavit filed on April 10th, 2001). All documents were retrieved from a dedicated section 6 on the website of the Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech), a U.S.-based organization focusing on “issues concerning the production of and access to knowledge, including medical inventions” (http://www.cptech.org/ about.html). The website is no longer active, but archived materials are still available. Further materials have been retrieved from the Treatment Action Campaign website, which also features a dedicated section. 7 Secondary sources include news stories and corporate releases, also retrieved from the CPTech website and from the LexisNexis database. Additionally, the contents of a radio programme aired just before the start of the court case (NPR Broadcast Show “All Things Considered”; January 12th, 1998) 8 were also included. The case received extensive coverage throughout the world, and several academic studies were devoted to it. Further information on it could therefore be gathered from academic sources, most notably Owen (2013, 2014), Fisher & Rigamonti (2005), and Hoen (2009). As the court case was eventually withdrawn, there are no court decisions that can be relied on, nor official documents that sum up all the points brought forth by the discussants. The arguments upon which this study is based have been reconstructed from the sources available: as a result, the discussion will not reference

6. http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/sa/pharma-v-sa.html. 7. http://www.tac.org.za/Documents/MedicineActCourtCase/MedicineActCourtCase.htm. 8. Available as audio stream at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/ story.php?storyId=1036870.

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specific texts but will rely on key points either explicitly stated or deducible through inference from the materials considered. The debate about the causes of the drug access crisis involved discussion on two main separate standpoints. It was therefore structured, in pragmadialectic terms, as a mixed difference of opinion involving the advancing of separate standpoints and argumentations by the two parties, each giving rise to multiple substandpoints and further arguments. As mentioned above, the goal of the campaigners was to make cheap generics available, which required the stringent protection granted by the law to patented drugs to be sidestepped. To achieve this goal, they had to discredit patent law, which they proceeded to do by advancing the standpoint that patents were to blame for the drugs crisis. The pharmaceutical companies rejected this standpoint, advancing instead the position that poverty was to blame, drugs pricing being but one secondary factor in the plight of AIDS sufferers. The structure of the argumentation put forward by the campaigners can be schematically represented as follows: 1. patents are to blame for the medicine access crisis 1.1 patents increase the price of drugs 1.1.1 high prices limit access to drugs (1.1.1′) (and access to drugs should not be limited because the right to health is a human right)

The argumentation is based on a causal relation of the type   Y is true of X Because: Z is true of X And: Z leads to Y,

as shown below:   patents (X) are to blame for the medicine access crisis (Y) because: patents (X) increase the price of drugs (Z) and: high prices (Z) lead to limited access to drugs (Y)

The campaigners’ argument relies for its validity on the implicit premise highlighted in (1.1.1′), i.e. that health rights take priority over any other concerns, first and foremost economic ones. The underlying frame (Goffman, 1974) was human-rights based – a fact which rendered the argument especially compelling, as human rights represent a powerful object of agreement (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969) which no discussant would be willing to explicitly challenge. This framing put Big Pharma at great disadvantage in designing their refutation. Granted that human rights could hardly be denied or limited, they had to



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find an equally compelling argument which would withstand and overrule the single argument put forth by the campaigners. As a first step, they tried to reframe the problem, selecting a standpoint which implied a much broader perspective and downgraded the medicine access issue to an ancillary aspect of a higher level concern, namely, the causes underlying the failure to contain the AIDS/HIV pandemic. This was a strategic move aimed at making the issue more easily amenable to successful argumentative engagement on the part of the pharmaceutical companies, as it involved a shifting (or at least sharing) of responsibility for the AIDS/HIV crisis from corporate actors to a de-personalized (and vaguely defined) “poverty”. It can therefore be seen as an instance of strategic maneuvering involving the use of “presentation devices to call attention to particular facets of the matter at issue and simultaneously to direct attention away from other facets” (van Eemeren, 2010, p. 126, citing Kahneman & Tversky, 2000), thereby “[rhetorically] creating a context by verbal means in which what is put forward makes sense to the audience in a way that is in agreement with the speaker’s or writer’s intention” (van Eemeren, 2010, p. 126). Essentially, Big Pharma argued that forfeiting patent rights would not solve the problem of AIDS/HIV treatment in developing countries, because the drug access crisis was only a part of a more generally structural problem involving the availability of infrastructures and proper health education, which would continue to be inadequate; at the same time, depriving pharmaceutical corporations of legitimate profits would jeopardize the development of new drugs, ultimately proving detrimental to the exercise of that right to health which the campaigners were trying to prioritize. The problem, thus, was no longer drug access, but rather treatment access, with drug access being put aside as only one component of the crisis. The standpoint put forth by the pharmaceutical companies can be phrased as follows: Poverty is to blame for the AIDS/HIV crisis

Multiple arguments – each independently valid 9 – were put forward in support of this standpoint, following the causal argument schemes as outlined below:   Poverty (X) is to blame for the AIDS/HIV crisis (Y) Because: poverty (X) implies the lack of adequate infrastructures (Z) And: lack of adequate infrastructures (Z) leads to inability to/ ineffectiveness in face/ing medical emergencies (Y)

9. Similar strategies were found to be applied in later crises involving the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies. Novartis (analyzed in Catenaccio & Degano, 2011) is a case in point.

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  Poverty (X) is to blame for the AIDS/HIV crisis (Y) Because: poverty (X) results in poor health education (Z) And: poor health education (Z) leads to inability to/ineffectiveness in face/ing medical emergencies (Y)

The multiple structuring of the argumentation is instrumental to increasing its validity, as each argument supports the standpoint independently, so that should one fail, the other would stand. This frame shifting strategy was, however, inadequate to address the problem of the conflict between right to health and patent protection that the activists were foregrounding. Indeed, the pharmaceutical companies’ attempt to divert attention away from the patent issue on to the poverty problem proved damaging to their cause, because – however reasonable it may have been – it was perceived as an attempt to dodge the real question at the heart of the matter. The campaigners were willing to concede that a comprehensive effort was needed to tackle the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, but – in a further step in the evolving argumentation stage – maintained that this was not a substitute for the limitation of patent rights. Their line of reasoning strategically topicalized the human rights frame in order to command maximum consensus, so as to maximize effectiveness by connecting the argumentation “with the views and preferences” of the general public whose support was being called for, so that it would agree with the public’s frame of reference and be “optimally acceptable” (van Eemeren, 2010, p. 108). The campaigners’ standpoint therefore explicitly linked patent law with the infringement of human rights, its defense involving a subordinative argumentation which highlighted the frame clash between the discourse of human rights and that of business: 1. patent law is detrimental to the exercise of human rights 1.1 it prevents people in developing countries from receiving life-saving medical treatment (1.1′) (and life-saving medical treatment is a human right) 1.1.1 life-saving medical treatment is withheld because the interest of corporation is given priority over the right to health (1.1.1′) (and the right to health is a human right which should not be second to anything)

The underlying scheme of the argumentation is symptomatic, and can be represented as follows:   patent law (X) is detrimental to the exercise of human rights (Y) Because: patent law (X) prevents people in developing countries from receiving life-saving medical treatment (Z) And: preventing people from receiving life-saving medical treatment (Z) is symptomatic of human right infringement (Y)



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Pharmaceutical companies were hard pressed for a response that squarely tackled the problem, lest they should be accused of dodging it again. They also needed to put forth an alternative solution to the drug access crisis which could be acceptable to the campaigners. In their refutation, they displayed a full understanding of their opponents’ argument “at every level of its definitional meaning and logical implications” (Ilie, 2009, p. 38). The refutation consisted of a rejection of the campaigners’ standpoint accompanied by the advancement of a new one. The two standpoints and their attendant arguments are outlined below: 1. patent law is conducive to the 1. discounts are a suitable remedy in the enjoyment of human rights fight against AIDS 1.1 it provides companies with 1.1a discounts safeguard the prerevenue rogatives of drugs corporations 1.1.1 companies use this reve 1.1.a.1 scientific research can nue to develop new drugs be pursued 1.1.1.1 drugs are 1.1.b discounts enable people in essential to a full undeveloped countries to have enjoyment of the access to life-saving drugs right to health 1.1.b.1 this safeguards the right to health

The campaigners’ claim that “patent law is detrimental to human rights” is confuted by advancing an alternative standpoint stating that patent law is conducive to a full enjoyment of the right to health. To support this standpoint, the pharmaceutical companies leverage on the very nature of their business, claiming that for it to fulfil its mission patent-generated revenue is needed. Parallel to this defense of patent protection, an alternative solution to the drug access crisis is offered in the form of discounts. The suitability of this solution is claimed through recourse to a coordinative argumentation showing that discounts guarantee the safeguard of the right to help in a double way – by enabling pharmaceutical corporations to continue research and produce life-saving drugs, while at the same time providing patients in undeveloped countries with the medicines they need. Laden with the burden of proving that their behavior did not infringe human rights, pharmaceutical companies tried to meet the challenge by adopting the same frame as their opponents’, thereby “tuning the argumentative moves […] to audience demand” (van Eemeren 2010, p. 109), in an attempt to establish shared common ground conducive to argumentative success. This choice involved downgrading profit to an accessory – if featured at all – motive, favouring instead a representation of the industry as both intrinsically socially beneficial and charitably minded, willing to engage in philanthropic activities for the benefit of the needy. This approach was also instrumental in addressing a further (indeed, overarching)

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charge that the campaigners had been levelling at the pharmaceutical companies, i.e. that their reason for not agreeing to waiving their patent rights was greed. By showing that patent protection was being sought not for self-serving purposes, but rather for motives which were ultimately beneficial to society, the pharmaceutical companies tried to disprove the commonly held assumption that business pursuits are not aligned with social needs, thereby tapping into the broader debate over the role of business in society which was emerging at the time. 3.3

The drug access debate and assumptions about the role of business in society

The conflicting framing of the drug access debate on the part of campaigners and pharmaceutical companies highlights a clash in their views of the nature and role of business in society. When accusing pharmaceutical companies of greed, pro-generics campaigners relied on the assumption that it is in the nature of businesses to pursue profit, and that since corporations are businesses, pursue profit they will. This assumption is not necessarily grounded in incontrovertible facts, but is rather warranted by accepted views about the purpose of businesses. As an article which appeared during the controversy puts it, It’s difficult to fault the drug companies for behaving according to corporate logic, which is based, above all else, on the profit motive. […] [L]et’s be very clear about this – it’s not the drug companies that are at fault here. They’re behaving as corporations behave. If they behaved like nonprofit organizations then they wouldn’t be corporations. (Karon, 2001)

But the campaigners also equated the pursuit of profit with greed, based on the (again, unwarranted by facts, though commonly shared) assumption that the pursuit of profit must by necessity override ethical concerns. Within their argumentation the word profit functioned as a cultural keyword – i.e. a word capable of summoning a major premise in a quasi-syllogistic argument which is then applied to the case at issue (Rigotti & Rocci, 2005, p. 131). A keyword, according to Rigotti and Rocci (2005, p. 133), is “a predicate that plays a decisive role in the enthymematic structure of the argument, not simply as a predicate but because it is bound to an endoxon, which is a proposition”. In the case at hand, the endoxon relied on is that the pursuit of profit is intrinsically self-interested and motivated by greed (and therefore conceptually incompatible with other-orientation). The underlying argumentative structure can be described as follows: Major premise: entities which pursue profit are greedy. Minor premise: pharmaceutical companies pursue profit. Conclusion: pharmaceutical companies are greedy



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The nodal point here is the (implicit) major premise, on which the entire argument hinges; successfully challenging it, i.e. decoupling profit from purely selfish motives, would have resulted in proving the fallaciousness of the reasoning. However, this was an extremely difficult task to attempt by virtue of the endoxical status of the proposition, which endowed it with “a persuasive power of [its] own […] without any need of further motivating [the] value judgement [expressed]” (Rigotti & Rocci 2005, p. 132). The pharmaceutical companies’ counter-argumentation did not directly challenge this premise, but rather involved characterizing corporate goals as something different from profit as it was commonly understood, so that the predication of greed would not apply to them. This involved the deployment of a form of dissociation (van Rees, 2009; see the discussion in Section 2 Example 2 above): the notion of “profit” was split into two different concepts – one (the “old” one) as self-interested accumulation of wealth, and another one (which was presented as being specific to the pharmaceutical companies) in which profit was reframed as revenue available for reinvestment in research and development. In this way, the quasi-syllogistic argumentation above could continue to hold for the “old” notion of profit (in a concession to commonly held belief), but did not apply to the new notion as put forward by the pharma industry. This strategy, however, proved ineffective. Its reframing of the notion of profit was confined to the specific instance of the pharmaceutical industry, and failed to convincingly address the perceived incompatibility between business goals and social targets on a more systemic level. The pharmaceutical companies did not attempt an explicit negotiation between profit orientation and social responsiveness, but relied for their discursive self-legitimation on an emphatic departure from traditional, exclusively profit-oriented business discourse accompanied by a parallel deployment of rhetorical resources drawn from the discursive field of social responsiveness. This highlighted the intrinsically socially-oriented nature of pharmaceutical corporations but downplayed the profit motive to the extent that they ran the risk of forfeiting their legitimate entitlement to financial viability. Their opponents were only too eager to spot the contradiction, exploiting it to strengthen their dichotomic reading of the debate. Yet, it was precisely such a dichotomic reading that the pharmaceutical companies were trying to overcome – much along the same lines as contemporary CSR discourse was attempting to establish and normalize the concept of responsible business in the face of skeptical objections. In the end, the clash between Big Pharma and the pro-generic campaigners was resolved with the victory of the latter. The pharmaceutical companies lost the rhetorical battle on generics; they unconditionally withdrew the case, and devoted their energies to restoring their tainted reputation and devise more systemic means to steer public opinion in their favour.

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4. Negotiating legitimacy in the discourse of pharmaceutical corporations The defeat suffered in the 1997–2001 debate forced pharmaceutical companies to renegotiate their role in society in order to regain their license to operate. While such renegotiation obviously entailed the implementation of socially oriented practices, heightened attention was also devoted to strategic communication. Placed under public scrutiny, drugs corporations not only were encouraged to operate more responsibly, but were also forced to engage in extensive discursive action aimed at providing suitable evidence for their self-constructed socially responsible identity (Deegan, 2002; Deegan et al., 2002; Hooghiemstra, 2000; O’Dwyer, 2003), carrying out “acts of communication that strive[d] to shape public opinion” (Edgar, 2013, p. 296). Of course, discursive display is not an adequate substitute for action; but rhetorical engagement can play a crucial role in fostering social acceptance, and pharmaceutical companies have proved over the years to be fully aware of this. In much self-legitimizing discourse they continue to frame themselves as essentially social actors, claiming an identity which could be defined as “morally hybrid” (Illingworth, 2012). The difficult task of balancing profit and responsibility is almost invariably resolved in favour of social beneficence (a common trend in contemporary corporate discourse, though pharmaceutical corporation bring it to an extreme). The profit motive, which had proven so difficult to deal with in the course of the drug access debate, is indeed more consistently featured and not as systematically obfuscated as it was in the debate; with few exceptions it is referred to only indirectly, and in a somewhat subdued manner. This is clearly shown in the excerpts below, which have been taken from the homepages of some of the major players in the field, where they occur under the heading “Our Mission” or “Who we are/What we do”. (10) Doing now what patients need next We believe it’s urgent to deliver medical solutions right now – even as we develop innovations for the future. We are passionate about transforming patients’ lives. We are courageous in both decision and action. And we believe that good business means a better world. That is why we come to work each day. We commit ourselves to scientific rigour, unassailable ethics, and access to medical innovations for all. We do this today to build a better tomorrow. We are proud of who we are, what we do, and how we do it. We are many, working as one across functions, across companies, and across the world. We are Roche.  http://www.roche.com/about/our_purpose.htm



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(11) We are a global innovation-driven biopharmaceutical company specialising in the discovery, development, manufacturing and marketing of prescription medicines that make a meaningful difference in healthcare. http://www.astrazeneca.com/About-Us (12) We’re dedicated to fulfilling the promise of human potential, in all places, in all aspects and stages of life. We believe that health is the key to that promise. Because at our healthiest, we’re capable of achieving anything. And that’s why our pursuit of helping people achieve their best health at every life stage will never end. This is how we put that belief into practice each and every day. OUR PROMISE We are here for the people we serve in their pursuit of healthy lives. This has been the way of Abbott for more than a century – passionately and thoughtfully translating science into lasting contributions to health. Our products encircle life, from newborns to aging adults, from nutrition and diagnostics through medical care and pharmaceutical therapy. Caring is central to the work we do and defines our responsibility to those we serve. – We advance leading-edge science and technologies that hold the potential for significant improvements to health and to the practice of healthcare. – We value our diversity – that of our products, technologies, markets and people – and believe that diverse perspectives combined with shared goals inspire new ideas and better ways of addressing changing health needs. – We focus on exceptional performance  – a hallmark of Abbott people worldwide – demanding of ourselves and each other because our work impacts people’s lives. – We strive to earn the trust of those we serve by committing to the highest standards of quality, excellence in personal relationships, and behavior characterized by honesty, fairness and integrity. – We sustain success – for our business and the people we serve – by staying true to key tenets upon which our company was founded over a century ago: innovative care and a desire to make a meaningful difference in all that we do. The promise of our company is in the promise that our work holds for health and life.  http://www.abbott.com/about-abbott/who-we-are.html (13) Our mission is to care and cure. We want to discover, develop and successfully market innovative products to prevent and cure diseases, to ease suffering and to enhance the quality of life. We also want to provide a shareholder return that reflects outstanding performance and to adequately reward those who invest their money, their time and their ideas in our company.  http://www.novartis.com/about-novartis/index.shtml

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With the exception of Novartis (Example 13), which explicitly mentions shareholder return as a legitimate aim, all other companies adopt much more indirect strategies, all of them requiring inferential reconstruction, to refer to their profit orientation. Roche simply says that “good business means a better world”, while Abbot states that they aim to “sustain success … for their business and the people [they] serve”, while Astra Zeneca simply includes “marketing” among its activities. If the latter phrasing simply evokes profit by implication, in the case of Roche and Abbot the inferential process is more complex and requires the activation of frames which are expected to be shared by the participants in the communication activity. In particular, “business success” is assumed to imply profit, as does “good business”, with evaluative expressions acting as carrier of ideological implications (Thompson & Hunston, 2000, p. 5). In both instances, at any rate, the profit motive is phrased in a way which connects it with the social motive, so as to discursively construct the alignment of the two. Novartis is alone in choosing a different route: it introduces the profit motive explicitly, using an additive connector (also) which places it on a hierarchically lower level, but constructs it as self-standing. This, however, is an exception, the norm being represented by implicit evocation. The other nodal point in the debate was the drug access controversy, which has left a lasting trace in pharmaceutical companies’ communication. This has indeed been the topic of much debate in recent years. Despite widespread recognition that enhancing access to medicines is a shared responsibility involving multiple actors, and while states are obviously primarily responsible for this, pharmaceutical companies have a crucial role to play, even though their specific responsibilities are often left underdetermined (Lee & Hunt 2012, pp. 220–221). For instance, one of the targets of Goal 8 of the Millenium Development Goals is to provide, “in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, […] access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries.” Often, though, these are little more than aspirational claims, and although “broad inspirational language may be used to describe respect for human rights” (Human Rights Council 2008, par. 60), not enough is being done to provide policy guidelines to achieve these aims. In this scenario, pharmaceutical companies have continued to pursue their own agendas, which have partly converged with those of institutional bodies, and partly maintained a more defensive approach. If a search for the lemma access in the pharma industry CSR report corpus used for the analysis shows that its most frequent left collocates are lexical verbs such as improve, expand, provide, ensure, increase, and its right collocates are words such as system, program, strategy and solution (suggesting that pharmaceutical companies have increased their commitment to ensuring access to medicines), retrieval of the passages within which the lemma occurs clarifies that while drug companies have indeed set up medicine access programs, their position in respect of the drug access debate has remained



Chapter 9.  Caught between profitability and responsibility 221

the same, with poverty being blamed for lack of medicine access, and other players (most notably governments) being called upon not only to share, but in fact to bear the brunt of responsibility in health care provision: (14) [C]orporate citizenship […] calls for a strong sense of reality, and this means rejecting overblown expectations of some stakeholders. We cannot assume the responsibilities of governments. Well-functioning access-to-medicine programs require governments to create the appropriate infrastructure and distribution networks, provide legal certainty and a safe environment – all of which we cannot provide. This can only be achieved through the collaboration of all involved stakeholders. It is imperative that pharmaceutical companies, governments, international organizations and NGOs work together to ensure that patients in need receive proper care. We must overcome a culture of blaming each other; the precarious situation in many developing countries is far too serious for symbolic posturing. We are seeking an open dialogue with all stakeholder groups, one based on mutual trust and tolerance with the aim of long-term success – not only in access-to medicine initiatives but also in day-to-day business activities.  (Novartis, 2006) (15) Access to medicines is just one of several factors which need to be integrated in order to ensure sustainable health care. It is therefore not something that can be provided by the manufacturers of the medicines alone. The necessary infrastructure, such as roads passable by vehicles and the vehicles themselves, must exist. A health care infrastructure also needs to be available in the country concerned. This means hospitals or treatment centers and sufficient medical staff – doctors and nurses – without which patients cannot be treated successfully. And finally, patients have to be taught how to handle the medicines, how to use them correctly and how long treatment needs to last. Governments, international bodies, aid organizations and possibly even other sectors of industry need to work together in public-private partnerships (ppps) if the associated challenges are to be addressed efficiently.  (Bayer, 2007) (16) Access remains a systemic cause of healthcare inequality that requires the cooperation of governments, healthcare providers, the media, patient groups, companies and non-governmental organisations. Roche is committed to making a contribution to this effort by working with stakeholders in enable and improve access to healthcare and associated services globally. We seek sustainable, effective ways to expand access to medicines and diagnostics. We also tackle wider problems, such as lack of disease awareness, low use of diagnostics and limited healthcare infrastructure and budgets in order to improve health conditions generally.  (Roche, 2011)

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The debate on patent protection has also remained topical, and arguments in support of the pharmaceutical industry’s protectionist standpoint have remained consistent: (17) As a research-based company, we therefore rigorously defend our legitimate intellectual property rights because they allow us time to generate the revenue we need to continue our investment in providing medicines for important areas of healthcare.  (Astra Zeneca, 2006) (18) The granting of compulsory licenses alone […] cannot solve the problems facing the Indian health system. Instead, the decision [to grant compulsory licencing for the production of generics] is harmful to the international patent system and thus threatens pharmaceutical research in the long term. After all, investment in the research and development of both innovative drug products and future therapies can only be financed through patent rights. (Bayer, 2011)

Even when patent rights are occasionally waived, as declared in the excerpt below, the waiver is preceded by a statement reiterating their importance, with the decision not to file for patents in undeveloped countries being framed as a concession prompted by ethical considerations: (19) Patents are a fundamental requirement of our business model of investing in the complex, expensive and risky process of innovation. However, we are aware that patents can present one of many barriers to providing basic medical care in the world’s poorest countries. For this reason, Roche does not file for new patents or enforce existing patents on any Roche medicines, for any disease, in LDCs, as defined by the United Nations, or in low-income countries, as defined by the World Bank. Nor do we file or enforce patents for antiretroviral HIV medicines in the hard-hit sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Consequently, generic versions of any Roche medicine can be produced and distributed in these countries without applying for a license.  (Roche, 2011)

While these examples are limited in number, they are indeed representative of the pharmaceutical industry’s discourse of responsibility. If the strategies of self-representation deployed in their mission statements and corporate descriptions draw extensively on the discourse of social beneficence to legitimize the industry’s operations, the validity of the very same discourse is subjected to considerable constraints when the company’s profit is threatened. Of course, pharmaceutical companies cannot be expected to act like non-profit organizations. Nonetheless, the dissonance between the strategies deployed in mission statements and those used in the context of the drug access and patent protection debates suggests a lack of consistency in their discursive self-representation, and constitutes a hurdle in their sustained effort at image restoration.



Chapter 9.  Caught between profitability and responsibility 223

5. Conclusions This study has provided an account of the argumentation strategies deployed by pharmaceutical companies and drug access campaigners in the course of the AIDS/ HIV medicine access dispute at the turn of the twenty-first century, pitting them against the debate around the corporate responsibility of companies which was the subject of an emerging discursive formation at the time. The issues at stake in the drug access debate were essentially the same as the ones that were being negotiated in the nascent discourse of CSR – the role of business in society, the compatibility of profit and social solidarity motives, the limits of the latter, and the manner of their integration. The confrontational and very public nature of the discussion exacerbated the conflict, forcing the parties to openly argue their positions in a way which was unprecedented in the CSR debate, whose focus was on the renegotiation of the business-society relationship in view of their mutual integration. As a result, the drug access dispute brought to the fore some of the crucibles at the heart of the business-in-society paradigm, exposing the risks of discourse appropriation, and highlighting the need for discursive means of conflict negotiation capable of reconciling conflicting assumptions and expectations. Argumentation theory has provided an ideal framework for the analysis, as it has made it possible to reconstruct and assess not only the arguments brought forward by the discussants, but also their underlying premises and assumptions, and the effectiveness of the rhetorical choices made by them especially in respect of audience adaptation. Vying for public opinion, both parties made extensive use of strategic maneuvering, attempting to establish common ground with their audience by appealing to universally accepted discourses such as human rights protection and the value of scientific advancement. At the same time, the analysis has put the argumentation theory model to the test by applying it to highly complex and multifarious forms of discourse, with arguments being dispersed across different actors and texts. Their reconstruction demonstrated the heuristic value of the model. Thanks to the analytic frame provided by the pragmadialectical approach, it has been possible to appreciate strengths and weaknesses of the debaters’ arguments. More specifically, it has been shown that even while meeting reasonableness criteria, the pharmaceutical companies’ arguments failed to convince because they proved incapable of addressing the conceptual conflict between social orientation and profit motive. By contrast, the campaigners’ reasoning proved effective thanks to their common ground selection, which struck the right chords with public opinion and enabled them to gain the upper hand. Interestingly enough, the campaigners’ argumentation rested on a somewhat fallacious premise (the equation of the pursuit of profit with greed, which the pharmaceutical companies unsuccessfully tried to challenge), but this did not

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prevent them from winning the dispute, if only temporarily. Equally significant is also the fact that the legitimate profit-orientation of businesses for the purposes of wealth accumulation remained almost unspoken in the defense strategy of the pharmaceutical industry, even though it is among the tenets of a free-market economy. That such orientation should not be held as a valid argument against them was indeed recognized in some departments, but such recognition was entirely overruled in the debate. The pharmaceutical companies’ choice not to leverage on this premise can be seen as an example of strategic maneuvering, validating the extended version of pragmadialectics: in aiming for rhetorical effectiveness, they chose to face the campaigners on their own ground – that of social solidarity and human rights protection, within the framework of which their argumentation was mostly sound, albeit ultimately ineffective. If, on the one hand, the outcome of the controversy proves therefore the crucial importance of the rhetorical aspects of argumentation, on the other hand it begs the question of the role of argumentation theory in society, where forces other than concerns of reasonableness are at stake. The latter point is brought home even more poignantly by a retrospective overview of the controversy. Longitudinal analyses have shown that the mobilization of public opinion effected by the pro-generic campaigners was successful at the beginning (Little & Grieco, 2010), forcing pharmaceutical companies to a reluctant surrender on the issue of generics. Yet, the persistence of the drug access and patent protection debate in pharmaceutical companies’ communication shows that such solution was not fully effective, nor permanent. To fully appreciate this it is necessary to broaden the scope of the review to include its outcomes and long-term effects. Prior to the medicine access crisis the market had been dominated by a strong patent protection agenda initiated by Big Pharma (built “upon the discursive linking of patent protection to general economic prosperity, and the identification of an immoral threat” identified with generic ‘piracy’), and initially sanctioned by the WTO through policies that strengthened the power of the pharmaceutical industry and excluded generic competition from the market (Owen, 2014, p ‫ ‏‬. 299). The 1998–2001 court case and the ensuing debate amounted to “a counter-hegemonic challenge” which was temporarily successful in “publicly ruptur[ing] the strong patent regime, highlighting the negative impact of patents on medicine access, and elevating generics as a legitimate solution to the crisis.” This led to the official legitimation of generics and a competitive global marketplace for HIV-AIDS drugs which drastically reduced their pricing. More recently, however, as shown in Section 4, “the counter-hegemonic critique has been gentrified, neutralized and absorbed back into the strong patent protection hegemony, with patent moderation conflated with price discounts, and generics further delegitimized as a charitable exception to official patent rules” (Owen, 2014, p. 299).



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In other words, the policy outcomes of the debate have not consisted in a lasting reduction of industry prerogatives, but in the voluntary (and occasional) forfeiting of some of them in the name of socially responsible business. The difference of opinion at the heart of the drug access debate, therefore, has remained largely unsolved. Reconciling the competing discourses of social solidarity and business profit has proved more slippery than might have been expected within the framework of CSR discourse. Certainly, postulating a more responsible role for corporations is a clear advance in the pursuit of a fairer society. Much of contemporary CSR discourse tends to provide a smooth narrative of CSR engagement – but a true reconciliation of profit and solidarity motives is not easy to achieve. In disrupting this narrative, the drug access crisis was an opportunity for critically questioning the CSR paradigm and setting the boundaries for further debate and negotiation.

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Chapter 10

Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type Yeliz Demir

Hacettepe University, Ankara

Television debates are a tool of public deliberation through which ordinary citizens can get involved in deliberative democracy. They are argumentative events in which standpoints about a controversial issue are raised, defended, and criticized. By adopting the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2005; van Eemeren, 2010), this paper aims to characterize a multi-participant TV debate (MPTD) as an argumentative activity type. Argumentative characterization of an MPTD involves, first of all, providing a detailed description of the institutional constraints imposed on the argumentative practices in this activity type, and next, distinguishing in MPTD the empirical counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion. For illustration, the paper draws its examples from Siyaset Meydanı, an MPTD that had a long broadcasting history in Turkey. As a result of the characterization achieved in this paper, it is concluded that an MPTD is a moderately-conventionalized deliberative activity type preconditioned by both implicit and explicit norms governing the conduct of argumentation.

1. Introduction Television debate programs create an opportunity for individuals to attain knowledge on what is going on around the world that surrounds them, build viewpoints on world affairs and compare and contrast their own ideological tendencies, standards of judgment, and prospects with those of others who are not in their own line of thinking. They are a form of public debate in which ordinary citizens can participate in deliberative democracy. Habermas (1996 [1992]) draws attention to the fact that the existence of general public spheres in which wide variety of communicative exchanges take place among ordinary citizens is an important advantage to the establishment of democracy. In this view, the availability of media which encourage free exchange of opinions among citizens is important and serves

doi 10.1075/aic.10.11dem © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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as a contribution to deliberative democracy. A TV debate can be regarded as one such medium that serves this objective since it provides an opportunity for ordinary citizens to discuss matters that are of political, social, and cultural concern. The participants of a TV debate voice their opinions about these matters and try to present as strong arguments as possible to convince the other parties of the acceptability of their standpoints. TV debate programs are inherently argumentative. That is, putting forward a standpoint, presenting arguments in support of that standpoint, and criticizing or casting doubt on a standpoint can only be fulfilled by argumentation. Although argumentation is an integral feature of debate programs, interest in the discourse of these programs has mostly been concentrated on the structural and interactional features of the language used in the debates such as turn-taking (Guillot, 2008; Mondada, 2013) and interruption strategies of the discussants (Luginbühl, 2007), as well as linguistic representations of ideological and gender differences of the debaters (Proctor & I-Wen Su, 2011; Fracchiolla, 2011). In recent years, however, argumentation has begun to be conceived as a fundamental feature of debating discourse, and more studies have flourished addressing the argumentative aspects of this discourse (cf. Benoit, Henson, & Sudbrock, 2011; Emmertsen, 2007). One notable point about these studies is that they focus mostly on face-to-face debates, which are marked by a high degree of interactivity between the participants. This remarkable interactivity between the participants of a faceto-face debate makes it relatively easier to study from an argumentative aspect since activities such as putting forward a standpoint and defending or criticizing a standpoint are easier to detect in this sort of debate compared to a multi-participant debate. However, a multi-participant debate also provides a certain ground to produce argumentation in support or against a standpoint; in this respect, it is another fruitful medium to study argumentation in context. The aim of this paper is to characterize a multi-participant TV debate (MPTD) as an argumentative activity type (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2005; van Eemeren 2010), which will provide an opportunity to study argumentation systematically in the relevant context. I adopt the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1982, 1984, 1992, 2004; van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2005; van Eemeren, 2010) as a theoretical and methodological framework. In pragma-dialectics, characterizing a communicative activity type argumentatively involves, in the first place, identifying the genre of communication and the institutional context that affects and constrains the activity type in question, and next, distinguishing in the activity type the empirical counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion. In order to illustrate the argumentative characterization of an MPTD, I will draw some examples from an episode of the MPTD Siyaset Meydanı (Political



Chapter 10.  Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type 231

Arena), which used to be one of the leading examples of its type in Turkey with 19 years of broadcasting history. Moderated by Ali Kırca, a Turkish journalist and author, the program hosted a few expert guest speakers each time along with a large group of public representatives to discuss topics of concern for the country from political, social, and cultural aspects. Siyaset Meydanı long offered an important opportunity for ordinary citizens in Turkey to get involved in deliberative democracy. The program is no longer in progress. The episode this paper draws its data from is titled “Budget of the Citizens”, broadcast on 17 December, 2010.

2. Argumentative activity types in pragma-dialectics and MPTD as an argumentative activity type Argumentation is a practice of individuals in various contexts of communication which require persuasion. Since different communicative settings impose different constraints on argumentation, the context in which argumentative practices are situated should be carefully studied. Context-dependence in argumentation is a well-recognized phenomenon in several approaches in argumentation theory. For instance, Walton’s (1998) dialogue profiles specify the conditions for evaluating the reasonability of dialectical moves. Key to this evaluation is taking the dialogical context into consideration, the components of which are the communicative setting and the goals of the participants in engaging in the relavant communicative event. Toulmin (1958), on the other hand, emphasizes the field-dependency in argumentation. In his view, arguments should be evaluated and assessed by reference to the fields in which they are produced (i.e., legal, medical, religious fields, etc.); therefore, the traditional formal logical considerations of validity of arguments do not account for real-life argumentative practices. The pragma-dialectical approach emphasizes the importance of studying argumentation in the context in which it occurs since every context imposes certain institutional constraints on argumentative discourse. Institutional constraints play an important role in the conventionalization of discourse in a given context. The pragma-dialectical notion of “communicative activity types” has been introduced to emphasize precisely this aspect of communicative events. They are “conventionalized practices whose conventionalization serves, through the implementation of certain “genres” of communicative activity, the institutional needs prevailing in a certain domain of communicative activity” (van Eemeren, 2010, p.139). Depending on the force of the institutional constraints, an activity type can be strongly or weakly conventionalized. A communicative activity type that is inherently argumentative is called an “argumentative activity type”. In characterizing an activity type argumentatively,

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it is essential to determine what normative standards the activity type imposes on argumentation as these standards constrain the reasonable argumentation for the activity type in question (van Eemeren, 2010). The goal every arguer pursues in putting forward a standpoint and presenting argumentation in support of that standpoint is to convince the other party of the acceptability of his/her standpoint and resolving the difference of opinion on the merits. In order to achieve this aim, arguers have to be reasonable. In pragma-dialectics, reasonable argumentation is one which conforms to the rules of a critical discussion. The approach not only imposes normative standards of reasonableness on argumentation but it also regards argumentation as an actual practice carried out by actual persons; for this reason, the rules of a critical discussion are stated in speech act terms, defining the rights and obligations of arguers in actual practices of argumentation (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004). Carrying out reasonable argumentation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to resolve a difference of opinion on the merits. Equally important is the effectiveness of the arguments used to defend a standpoint. This indicates the dual goal pursued in argumentation: the dialectical goal of maintaining reasonableness and the rhetorical goal of being effective. According to the pragma-dialectical approach (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 1997, 2002; van Eemeren, 2010), arguers resort to “strategic maneuvers” in order to diminish the tension between these two goals. Since strategic maneuvers are context-bound argumentative moves (i.e., an argumentative move that is regarded reasonable in one activity type may not be reasonable in another) and are affected by the institutional constraints prevailing for an activity type, they have to be evaluated in the context in which they are produced. In this respect, characterizing MPTD as an argumentative activity type is reckoned as an essential first step to analyze and evaluate the argumentative moves in this activity type in accordance with the institutional goal it has to serve. Besides, it will be a point of reference to understand the conventions of other moderated public debates in which societal issues are discussed. In what follows, I will provide an argumentative characterization of an MPTD by making use of the four parameters proposed by van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005; van Eemeren, 2010) which correspond to the four stages of a critical discussion (i.e., confrontation stage, opening stage, argumentative stage, and concluding stage): the initial situation, procedural and material starting points, argumentative means, and possible outcome. The characterization will be made by reference to the format of Siyaset Meydanı, in particular to the episode “Budget of the Citizens”.



2.1

Chapter 10.  Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type 233

Initial situation

An MPTD is a deliberative activity that aims at opinion-formation 1 on controversial topics by bringing together multiple participants with different perspectives. It is conducted by a moderator who undertakes the responsibility to obtain different points of view on the topic being discussed in a democratic way, poses questions to the participants with an impartial perspective, gives explanations where needed, and controls the speaking turns. Edwards (2002) sees the moderator as a democratic agent whose job is to increase the quality of debates (i.e., in his case, web-based debates) by serving deliberative democracy. Being an example of MPTD, Siyaset Meydanı is a moderated debate, and it is carried out among the representatives of the public (a fixed group of participants who represent different ideologies, statuses, and professions in the society) and guest speakers (experts on the topic being discussed). Both the representatives of the public and the guest speakers are selected from among individuals with opposing viewpoints. All the participants have an equal right to voice opinions related to the topic being discussed; however, as the guest speakers are invited to each program individually with an expert status, they are allotted more time to speak. There is also more room for their interaction with each other than there is for the crowded representatives of the public. In accordance with the institutional goal “deliberation aimed at opinion-formation”, the program does not aim at announcing a winner or a loser in the end or resolving the difference of opinion. Instead, it encourages the free and democratic communication of viewpoints. Participants in the program are expected to present evidence for the standpoints they defend, and they aim at being convincing for the other participants. As is the case with other activity types that make use of deliberation as a genre of communication (cf. Andone, 2010 on political interviews), the indirect aim of the participants of an MPTD is to be convincing for the TV-watching audience. By taking the opinions of the representatives of the public and providing the participants with a ground to justify their opinions with relevant argumentation, the program also serves as a medium for building or shaping opinions in the societal level and indirectly informs decision-makers about public opinion on topics that are of concern for the society. The participants of the program also represent the group or profession they are associated with (e.g. teacher, farmer, engineer, etc.); therefore, when they present argumentation in support of their viewpoint, they also serve the interests of the group they are representing. 1. For another deliberative activity type that aims at opinion-formation, see also Lewiński (2010) on internet political discussion forums.

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The topics chosen for discussion are open to controversy depending on different political, ideological, and sociological stances. Political topics dominate the discussions at most times, but as long as other topics are brought into the country’s agenda, they are also adopted for discussion (e.g. “Euthanasia”, “Language, Science, Darwin” – 19.02.2009, “Being a Woman” – 10.03.2011). Participants assume certain roles with respect to the discussion topics. In order to understand these roles better, it is functional to identify the type of difference of opinion. According to the pragma-dialectical program, two types of difference of opinion can be realized in the confrontation stage of a critical discussion: nonmixed and mixed difference of opinion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2004). In a non-mixed difference of opinion, a party raises a standpoint and the opponent party casts doubt on that standpoint or expresses criticism with regard to the arguments raised for that standpoint. A mixed difference of opinion arises, on the other hand, when a party claims just the opposite of a standpoint already advanced by another party. In an MPTD, the type of difference of opinion is mainly mixed as two opposing views dominate the discussion. However, during the ongoing discussion, there may also be cases when a party merely critizes or casts doubt on a standpoint expressed by another party without putting forward an opposing standpoint. In this case, a non-mixed difference of opinion can also be observed in an MPTD. In a mixed difference of opinion, participants act as the protagonists of two opposing standpoints. In an MPTD, the proposition underlying the discussion (p) and the positive and negative stances taken with respect to this proposition can be represented as follows: 1. protagonists of p 2. protagonists of ~p In addition to the roles stated above, there is also a group of participants that approach both standpoints in a balanced way without necessarily adopting one. These participants support some aspects of p and some aspects of ~p when different criteria of evaluation are taken into consideration; therefore, these participants can be said to agree with p′ (p-prime), indicating that they agree with a variant of the proposition under discussion. The last category of participants includes the ones who do not defend any standpoint and just stay neutral. This category is typically exemplified by the moderator as he/she is expected to stay at an equal distance from both standpoints and exhibit no clear attachment to any of them. These last two categories of participants can be represented as follows: 3. Participants who agree with p′ 4. Neutral stand



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In the episode “Budget of the Citizens” the moderator opens the discussion with the following words announcing the topic: (1) M: Türkiye’nin bütçesini denkleştirmeye çalışıyor meclis, ama vatandaşın bütçesi denk mi? Geliri giderine denk mi? Siz vatandaşın bütçesini nasıl görüyorsunuz? [M: The Turkish Parliament is trying the fix the budget of the country, but what about the budget of the citizens? Is it balanced? Is there a balance between the income and the expenses? How would you evaluate the budget of the citizens? 2]

Two basic standpoints manifest themselves in relation to this discussion topic. The realization of the above formulated standpoints (p and ~p) in the relevant episode is as follows: the budget of the citizens is in a good state (p); the budget of the citizens is in a bad state (~p). The roles taken with respect to these two standpoints are: 1. The protagonists of the standpoint ‘The budget of the citizens is in a good state.’ 2. The protagonists of the standpoint ‘The budget of the citizens is in a bad state.’ The role taken by the third category of participants who agree with p′ can be formulated as follows: 3. The protagonists of the standpoint ‘There are both positive and negative indicators for the budget of the citizens’ Lastly, as the moderator is institutionally obliged to be neutral, his role can be stated in the following way: 4. Neutral stand: not defending any of the standpoints above Though a mixed difference of opinion dominates an MPTD, there are also instances of non-mixed difference of opinion, in which an antagonist raises criticism or doubt against the arguments used by a protagonist and challenges him/her to defend his/ her standpoint. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004) note that “the role of antagonist of a standpoint may coincide with that of protagonist of a different (opposite) standpoint, but this is not necessarily the case: entertaining doubt with regard to a standpoint does not automatically imply adopting a standpoint of one’s own. As soon as the discussion partner adopts the opposite standpoint, the difference of opinion becomes mixed” (p. 60). 2. The abbreviations for the debate participants are as follows: Public representative (PR), guest speaker (GS), student participant (SP), and moderator (M). Different speakers were distinguished by assigning numbers to them, which are indicated next to the abbreviations. Examples are translated from Turkish to English by the author.

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In the following example, we can observe that SP4 develops arguments with an antagonist role against the standpoint “The budget of the citizens is in a bad state” raised by the earlier participants, SP1 and SP2. (2) SP1: Cari açık, işsizlik, kayıt dışı ekonomi, yoksulluk ve ulusal güvensizlik sorunlarımız sürerken, istikrarsızlık sürerken acaba tüm bu övgüler ve kredi notlarımızın yükselmesi insanlarımız için ne ifade ediyor ben bilemiyorum. [SP1:  I can’t understand what all these compliments mean to people or the claim that our credit rating is good when the problems with current deficit, unemployment, underground economy, poverty, and national security keep going.] SP2: Bugün öğrencilerin bütçesini tartışıyoruz, halkın bütçesini tartışıyoruz. Bir de öğrencilerin bütçelerine bakalım. Şimdi bir öğrencinin en temel ihtiyaçlarını göz önünde bulundurduğunuzda yemek masrafı, kira masrafı, doğalgaz, eğitim masraflarını ortaya koyduğunuzda zaten asgari ücretten daha fazla bir miktar ortaya çıkıyor. [SP2:  Today we’re discussing the budget of the citizens. Let’s now look into the budget of students, in particular. When you consider the most basic needs of a student, the expenses for food, rent, heating, and education, you immediately come up with a price higher than the amount of the minimum wage.] SP4: Türkiye kurulduğundan [2002] yılına kadar her şey güllük gülistanlıktı, bir elimizde yağ bir elimizde bal yaşıyorduk da 2002’den sonra mı bir elimizdeki yağ bir elimizdeki balı aldılar? Yani buna öncelikle bakmamız gerekiyor. Belli bir kesimin şundan kurtulması gerekiyor. 2002’den sonra “AK Parti ne yaptıysa yanlıştır” zihniyetinden artık belli bir kesimin kurtulması lazım. [SP4:  Is it that we’ve been living in luxury or prosperity since the foundation of Turkey till [2002]? It is reflected as if we have lost all our prosperity since 2002 [The year AK Party took charge of the government]. We have to consider this first. A certain part of the society should get rid of the idea that whatever AK Party [the governing party in Turkey] did after 2002 was wrong.]

In the example given above, SP4 does not raise an opposing standpoint against SP1 and SP2’s standpoint that “The budget of the citizens is in a bad state”. Rather, he opposes the causal argument used to defend this standpoint: “The budget of the citizens is in a bad state because the present government cannot handle the economy in a good way”. SP4 emphasizes that this causal argument is groundless. The moderator of the debate is the only neutral participant of the debate. He is neutral in the sense that he does not adopt a stand himself; rather he directs other



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participants to take their stances in relation to the topic of the debate, as is evident in (1). As part of his institutional responsibilities, the moderator is the warrantor of impartiality; therefore, he stays at an equal distance from different viewpoints by paying regard to democratic rights and freedom of speech. The fact that he does not explicitly reveal his stand eliminates the risk of dominating other possible opposing viewpoints. In this respect, a moderator is not a direct protagonist or antagonist of a standpoint. However, the institutional constraints on a moderator’s impartiality do not make him a passive agent assigned only the duty of giving the debate participants the turn to speak. On the contrary, as Thomas (2012) stresses, moderators have the responsibility to pursue public interest and reveal “the truth” [emphasis added]. For this purpose, they seize the opportunities that are available to attain the ultimate goal of illumination of facts. As Lawrence (2012) puts it, this goal can be achieved by adopting an active vision that requires flexibility, sharp-elbowed questions, and dogged follow-ups. In the example given below, we see that the moderator finds the arguments PR2 (a protagonist of the standpoint “The budget of the citizens is in a bad state”) presents in opposition to another participant (Mustafa) insufficient and challenges PR2 to develop more relevant arguments to direct grounded criticism: (3) M: Tamam da, Mustafa Bey diyor ki devlet bir sürü yardım yapıyor diyor. [M: OK, but Mustafa Bey [“Bey” is a formal title for males in Turkish] says the government provides a lot of economic aids.] PR2: Bir dakika ben onu söyleyeceğim Ali Abi. [PR2: Just a moment Ali abi. [“Abi” is an informal way of addressing older males in Turkish] … I’ll explain that.]

In this example, by starting with the expression “OK but …” the moderator implies that the arguments PR2 presents are acceptable to some extent, but they are not sufficient to refute the opponent participant’s claim that the government is providing a lot of economic aids to support the budget of the citizens. In this way the moderator not only paraphrases the claims of the opponent, but also adopts the role of a critic by challenging PR2 to defend his standpoint with more explicit and relevant argumentation. This challenge is apparently understood and accepted by PR2, since he requests some more time indicating that he will come to the point that the moderator wants him to make. In a different example, the moderator acts like a spokesperson for the group of citizens that hold the standpoint “The budget of the citizens is in a bad state”, and by providing arguments in support of this standpoint, he adopts, as it were, the role of an antagonist of the standpoint “The budget of the citizens is in a good state”.

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(4) M: Türkiye’de bu işsizlik istatistikleri hatta enflasyonla ilgili oranlar, istatistikler konuşulduğunda vatandaş der ki “Kâğıt üzerinde öyle görünüyor ama sokakta öyle değil. Sokağın enflasyonu başka”. Aynı şekilde “işsizlik rakamları düşüyor görünüyor denir ama sokakta öyle değil. Nereye gitseniz bir işsize dokunursunuz” gibi bir takım söylemler var. Oradan devam edelim. [M: When some positive inflation rates or positive statistical findings about unemployment in Turkey are mentioned, citizens will normally reply, “On paper, there can be such statistics, but when you go out to see what the real situation is, you’ll see that the inflation the citizens experience is quite different.” Similarly, they say “The unemployment rate seems to have fallen, but this is not the case in reality. Wherever you go, you come across an unemployed person.” There’s such a perception among the citizens. Now, we can continue our discussion from this point.]

In this example, the moderator does not express the critical arguments from his own point of view, which would otherwise be contradictory to his responsibility about keeping an impartial attitude towards opposing standpoints. Rather, he presents them from the viewpoint of the public depending on his institutional obligation to pursue public interest. By reflecting on the observations he has attained from the public, he directs the next speaker to develop his/her argumentation within this given scope. In both examples (3–4) we notice that in order to serve deliberative democracy, the moderator observes the principle of impartiality by taking equal distance to two opposing standpoints, and when public interest is at issue, he can even exhibit relevant antagonism to both standpoints. In this sense, we can conclude that the moderator is more an active leader of the debate undertaking the role of a critic in necessary cases than a passive executer of the discussion. 2.2

Starting points

An MPTD is a moderately conventionalized 3 activity type. It is preconditioned by institutional constraints which are to a large extent implicit and derivable from the 3. A related concept with moderately conventionalized discourse is Ilie’s (2001) “semi-institutional” discourse, which she uses to characterize the discourse of TV talk show interviews. Ilie notes that a talk show interview is a semi-institutional discourse which not only exhibits well-established conventions and certain participant configurations, but also involves, at times, spontaneous interventions and unexpected consequences. Though there are remarkable similarities between a multi-participant TV debate and a TV talk show interview with regard to the degree of conventionalization, the present study does not address MPTD as a semi-institutional discourse, for in pragma-dialectical terms, every discourse is “institutionalized” in one way or another. The term “institution” marks the context in which a discourse is produced. Depending



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activity itself. Although an MPTD does not impose strict norms on the discourse, and the framework of communication is not strictly drawn as typical of highly conventionalized activity types, we can still talk about certain conventions that MPTD discourse exhibits. In an MPTD, the rights and obligations of the individuals are determined by a set of explicit and implicit conventions. Once the participants of an MPTD enter the discussion, they are assumed to have accepted the institutional constraints this activity type imposes on argumentation. These institutional constraints, which have an effect on the procedural and material starting points for the discussion, enable participants to develop their argumentation based on a common ground. According to van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004), establishing common starting points in a discussion is an essential condition to resolve a difference of opinion as they have the function of defining and narrowing down the disagreement space. Starting points are rarely expressed overtly in a discussion. They remain rather implicit, and the discussants are reckoned to take these starting points as a basis when they are constructing their argumentative discourse. 4 Starting points can be of two kinds: procedural and material. Procedural starting points are implicit or explicit points of departure accepted by the participants of the debate concerning the rules of the debate and the distribution of burden of proof. Material starting points, on the other hand, are related with the propositions that discussants can use in argumentation (van Eemeren, 2010). 2.2.1 Procedural starting points Although there are no formal rules or specifications in Turkey that determine the rights and obligations of the participants of an MPTD in particular, we can still talk about two kinds of procedural starting points that serve as points of reference for the practice of such programs. The first one is the broadcasting principles determined by the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK), which constitute the explicit starting points in an MPTD. The second is the implicit procedural starting points that can be inferred from the inner dynamics of the program. on the strength of the institutional constraints prevailing in a context, the discourse can be highly or weakly conventionalized. In that respect, I will address an MPTD as an institutionalized activity in which the discourse is moderately conventionalized. 4. In order to draw attention to the importance of establishing a common starting point in a discussion, van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004) state that “There is no point in venturing to resolve a difference of opinion through an argumentative exchange of views if there is no mutual commitment to a common starting point” (p. 60). Apart from the institutional constraints on starting points, however, as Ilie (2001) observes in the TV talk show interviews, participants of an MPTD are definitely free to resort to their own conversational style and personal argumentation strategies.

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In Turkey, radio and TV broadcasting is monitored by RTUK and governed by the Law on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and Their Media Services (April, 2012). In the first item of the Law, the objective is laid as: “to regulate and supervise radio and television broadcasting services and on-demand media services; to ensure the freedom of expression and information; to determine the procedures and principles in relation to the administrative, financial and technical structures and obligations of media service providers and the establishment, organization, duties, competences and responsibilities of the Radio and Television Supreme Council”. The aforementioned “freedom of expression and information” is relevant not only to any program that has an expressive and informative content but also to an MPTD. RTUK has no special settled rules for the conduct of debate programs. However, it specifies the principles of broadcasting and draws a general framework to which an MPTD can also be related. Article 8 in RTUK Law No. 6112 on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and Their Media Services lists the provisions that specify the rights and obligations of media/broadcasting services. Some of these provisions are as follows: Broadcasting services, (c) shall not be contrary to the rule of law, the principle of justice and impartiality. (ç) shall not be contrary to human dignity and the principle of respect to privacy, shall not include disgracing, degrading or defamatory expressions against persons or organizations beyond the limits of criticism. (e) shall not include or promote broadcasts which make discrimination on the basis of race, colour, language, religion, nationality, sex, disablement, political and philosophical opinion, sect and any such considerations and degrade individuals. (ı) shall be predicated on the principles of impartiality, truthfulness and accuracy and shall not impede the free formation of opinions within the society; the news that can be investigated within the framework of journalistic code of ethics shall not be broadcast without having been investigated and assured of its accuracy… (k) shall not be biased towards or favoring political parties and democratic groups. (o) shall respect the right of reply and rectification of the individuals or institutions. Although the provisions given above point to general broadcasting principles, they contain expressions that are directly relevant to the structure of MPTD and that constrain participants’ argumentation. For instance, the provisions given in articles (c), (ı) and (k) support the impartiality principle adopted by the program. Granting individuals the opportunity to form opinions as part of their democratic rights overlaps with this principle, while giving weight to a certain viewpoint and



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suppressing or ignoring opposing viewpoints will contradict it. For this reason, in an MPTD giving dominance to a certain viewpoint is particularly avoided, and taking an equal distance to opposing viewpoints is ensured. The principle of impartiality is observed in the warranty of the moderator. Articles (ç) and (e), on the other hand, include constraints that have implications on argumentation. For example, ad hominem (attacking an opponent’s character rather than answering his argument) and ad baculum attacks (attacks that prevent freedom of expression by appealing to threat) are inhibited. The right of reply and rectification expressed in article (o) can be associated with burden of proof in argumentative exchanges. When a party’s arguments meet criticism, that party reserves the right to reply and submit evidence. In the following example, while PR2 is making his speech, he notices that an opponent participant has taken the microphone, which he perceives as a threat to his speaking turn and an intervention to his expression of his viewpoints in a free way. Therefore, PR2 warns him not to interrupt his speech. The moderator, on the other hand, states that this behavior should not be taken as an interruption or prevention of the freedom of speech. But in any case, it is clear that individuals acknowledge the “free expression of opinions”, emphasized in (ı), as an elementary right. (5) PR2:  Mandalinanın maliyeti 35 kuruş. Şu anda Mersin’de dalında 40 kuruşa satamıyoruz… Yo ben senin sözünü kesmedim bir dur! [PR2: The cost of mandarin is 35 kurus. At the moment we are not even able to sell it for 40 kurus in Mersin, the place where it is grown… Just a moment! No! Stop! I didn’t interrupt you!] M: Bir şey kestiği yok. Mikrofonu aldı, bir şey dedi mi? Tamam. [M: He doesn’t interrupt you. He just took the microphone. Did he say something? OK.] PR2: Orada bir şeyler yapıyor da Ali abi. [PR2: Well…he is doing something there Ali abi. That’s why.]

In an MPTD, the moderator functions as the distributor of the burden of proof. He undertakes the duty of executing the principle of right of reply and rectification. In the following example, before anyone else can take the turn to speak, the moderator gives the speaking turn to PR4 again, whose earlier claim was critized by PR7, a conduct that is in line with the right to reply and rectify a claim: (6) PR4: Siz asgari ücretliden vergi alacaksınız, iş patronlarından almayacaksınız. [PR4: You charge the minimum-waged citizens taxes, but you don’t charge the businessmen any taxes.] …

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PR7:  Aslında arkadaşımız yanlış bir bilgilendirme de yaptı. Asgari ücretten herhangi bir vergi alınmıyor. Bayan arkadaşımız asgari ücretten vergi alındığını söyledi. Onu düzeltelim, daha önceydi o. [PR7: Actually, my friend made a wrong evaluation. Minimum-waged people do not pay any taxes at present. She said minimum-waged are charged taxes. I have to correct this first; such a practice was much earlier.] M:  Bir dakika asgari ücretten vergi alınıp alınmama hususunda PR4’ün sözlerine itiraz etmişti. Bir cümle cevap versin. [M: Just a minute. There was an objection to PR4’s words on whether minimum-waged have to pay taxes. Let her reply in one sentence.] PR4:  Ekmeğe, suya siz %8 vergi ödüyor musunuz? Asgari ücretli bunlarla yaşıyor biliyorsunuz. [PR4: Do you pay 8% tax on water and bread? You know that the minimum-waged people do.]

Once a party raises a standpoint, he holds the burden of proof to defend this standpoint if he is asked to do so. In the example given above the moderator ensures that the participant whose arguments get challenged takes the turn to speak again in accordance with the third rule of a critical discussion concerning ‘burden of proof ’: The discussant who is challenged by the other discussant to defend the standpoint that he has put forward in the confrontation stage is always obliged to accept this challenge, unless the other discussant is not prepared to accept any shared premises and discussion rules; the discussant remains obliged to defend the standpoint as long as he does not retract it and as long as he has not successfully defended it against the other discussant on the basis of the agreed premises and discussion rules. (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004, p. 139)

Debate programs are exposed to certain restrictions by RTUK regarding topic selection too. For example, with Article (b): “Media services shall not incite the society to hatred and hostility by making discrimination on the grounds of race, language, religion, sex, class, region and sect or shall not constitute any feelings of hatred in the society” and Article (n): “Media services shall not be obscene”, RTUK makes sure that topics that encourage discrimination at various levels and topics including obscene content should be avoided. When selecting topics for debate, public interest is pursued, and topics that contribute to social, political, and cultural awareness are given priority. More importance is attributed to topics that are of significance for the society in general rather than individual problems or experiences. In the following examples (7–8), we see that the moderator reacts to the participants who



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talk about personal and specific cases when they are expected to give a remark on the budget of the citizens in general. (7) PR1:  Bir yere gidiyorsun. Eğer yatırımlar yapılmışsa, yollar yapılmışsa, fabrikalar kurulmuşsa, insanlar biraz huzur ve güven içinde yaşıyorsa, görülüyor ki bütçe harcanıyor. yani benim verdiğim vergi yerine gidiyor. Ben bu sene Adıyaman’daydım. Adıyaman içine baktığım zaman gerçekten şahane. Belediye başkanımız gerçekten bütçe üzerinden daha fazla para harcıyor… [PR1: Now, you visit a city. If investments are made on this city, if roads and factories are founded, or if the citizens are living in peace and safety, then you can see that the budget [of the country] is being spent. That is, the tax I pay is properly used. I was in Adıyaman this year. When you look inside Adıyaman, it’s magnificent. Our mayor spends more money from the budget of the country…] M: Peki işler yolunda mı? Vatandaşın işleri yolunda mı bugünlerde? [M: Alright, but is everything fine with the citizens these days?] PR1:  Vatandaş son derece dinamik ve dinçtir. İri ve diridir. Şunu samimi söylüyorum. Şimdi Sayın Kırca… Gittim mesela ben vilayeti gezdim. Keşke gerçekten bizim Adıyaman valimiz de belediye başkanımız kadar özverili olsa. [PR1: The citizens are extremely dynamic and fit. They are tough and strong. I mean it. Now Mr. Kırca… I went to the city [Adıyaman] for instance. I wish the governor [of Adıyaman] was as self-sacrificing as our mayor.] M:  Benim anladığım kadarıyla Adıyaman’da mı işler yolunda, Türkiye’de mi işler? Türkiye’de işler yolunda deyip Adıyaman’ı anlatıyorsun. [M: As far as I understand… Is everything in order in Adıyaman or in Turkey? You say everything’s going well in Turkey but you constantly talk about Adıyaman.]

In Example (7), PR1 constantly emphasizes the fact that there are remarkable investments made in Adıyaman, which, in his view, indicates that the budget of the country and the taxes he pays are spent for the benefit of the citizens. However, the moderator warns him that he has been giving specific instances from Adıyaman while he maintains that the budget of the citizens in general is in a good state. Similarly, in the following example, seeing that the next speaker also reduced the topic to mandarin production in Mersin, the moderator has to repeat the topic again to bring the subsequent speakers to the point he wants them to make.

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(8) PR2:  Bak bu mandalina… Ben çiftçiyim ben üretiyorum bunu. Bunun…kaça maliyeti bize biliyor musun? … Bu mandalinanın maliyeti 35 kuruş, şu anda Mersin’de dalında 40 kuruşa satamıyoruz. [PR2: Look! This is a mandarin… I am farmer myself. I am the one who produces it. Do you know what the production cost of this is? It is 35 kuruş and we can’t sell it for 40 kuruş in Mersin, the place where we produce it.] … M:  Şimdi… Vatandaşın Bütçesi. Sorumuz belli. Yani bu çerçeveden gidiyoruz. Gerçi böyle Adıyaman, Mersin özeli ya da mandalina çerçevesinde oldu ama. Vatandaşı bir konuşalım. [M: Now… The budget of the citizens…This is our topic. We have to continue our discussion from this point, though it’s been reduced to Adıyaman and Mersin, in particular, or mandarin. Let’s talk about the citizens.]

In an MPTD, topics are dynamic, and they can evolve in the course of the program. As long as the participants do not deviate from the core or overpersonalize, the moderator does not intervene in the dynamic transformation of the topic. For instance, while the main topic of the discussion in this very episode is “budget of the citizens”, several subtopics can come about during the discussion such as the economic policy of the government, distribution of services to the citizens, and international finance. In addition to explicit procedural starting points that affect an MPTD, there are also implicit starting points that participants are assumed to have accepted and that can be inferred from the program itself. These implicit starting points concern aspects such as the rules of debate, the norms of turn taking, and the roles adopted by the participants. The moderator is accepted as the leader of the debate. As he is not the direct protagonist of a certain standpoint, he is not obliged to present argumentation and does not hold the burden of proof. Rather, his job is to help enable the deliberative discussion aimed at opinion-formation. The moderator is also the one who distributes the burden of proof and gives the turn to speak. Turns to speak are organized in such a way as to facilitate the confrontation of opposing views. In the following example, while the moderator is giving the turn to GS1 (defending the standpoint that “The budget of the citizens is in a good state”), he reminds him some statistical findings the previous speaker (PR4) has provided in an attempt to draw attention to the economic hardships the citizens are suffering. By doing so, the moderator transfers the burden of proof to GS1 and urges him to develop his argumentation as an answer to the claims of this opponent speaker.



Chapter 10.  Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type 245

(9) PR4:  Emekliyle memuru açlık sınırına dayandıracaksınız, işçiyi üretimden men edeceksiniz, çiftçiyi harap edeceksiniz, işsizi umut fakiri yapacaksınız, atanamayan yüzbinlerce öğretmeni mağdur edeceksiniz, yoksulu da makarna zengini yapacaksınız. Böyle bir ekonomi olabilir mi? Biz bugün benzin fiyatlarından konuşuyoruz, %66’sı vergi. Neden sıcak para akışı için büyük sıcak para sermayedarlarından neden vergi alınmıyor? Şu an devlet tahvilinin faiz oranı %16. Bu kadar müthiş bir rakamla Türkiye’yi bu kadar cazip hale getirip kendi üretiminizi ve kendi vatandaşınızı mahvetmeye ne hakkınız var? [PR4: You will bring the pensioners and civil servants to the starvation line, block the production of laborers, render the condition of the farmers even worse, make the unemployed hopeless, aggrieve the teachers who cannot be appointed to any post, and just deliver a lot of macaroni to the needy people’s homes. Can there be such an economy? Today we talk about the petrol prices 66% of which is tax. Why don’t you charge the hot money investors taxes? Now the interest rate of the state bond is 16%. Where do you get the right to ruin your own production and the condition of your citizens by picturing Turkey attractive with all these outstanding numbers?] M:  GS1’e soralım. Şimdi en son PR4’ün anlattığı, bir takım Türkiye’nin vatandaş tarafından görünen tablosuna ilişkin fotoğraflar var. Rakamlar verdi hatta. Ne diyorsunuz? [M: Let’s ask GS1. Now PR4 depicted how Turkey’s economic state is reflected to the citizens. She even provided some statistical findings. How would you respond to this?] GS1:  Şimdi şöyle; Türkiye’de gelir dağılımı bozuk. Yani nüfusun %20’si toplam gelirin %55’ini alıyor, kalan %80’i %45’ini alıyor. Dolayısıyla adaletli bir gelir dağılımı söz konusu değil. Fakat bunu tabi mukayeseli olarak ele almak gerekiyor. [GS1: Now, first of all, the distribution of the national income in Turkey is problematic. That is, 20% of the population gets 55% of the total income. The rest 80% gets the remaining 45%. Therefore, the distribution of income is not fair. However, we have to approach the case by making comparisons [with earlier economic policies.]

As it is clear from (9), GS1 takes this challenge and admits that there are problems in the distribution of the national income. However, in accordance with the burden of proof rule, he reformulates his standpoint and starts providing arguments which can show that his standpoint holds when different criteria of evaluation are taken into account (i.e. approaching the case by making comparisons with the economic policies of the earlier governments).

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Since the moderator is seen as the leader in an MPTD, the right to reply and rectify a claim is normally used by asking the permission of the moderator. The participants do not just take the microphone and answer criticisms, but conform to the norms of the program. The following example indicates this: (10) PR11: Yani biz burada şekeri karneyle almadık mı? Ben yetişemedim 80’ler dönemine ama biz karneyle ekmek almadık mı bu memlekette? Yazılmıyor muydu? Para geçmiyordu da, bize hep anlatılmaz mıydı? [PR11: Did we not buy sugar with ration cards in this country in the past? I couldn’t experience the 80’s but we were all told, weren’t we? It was written here and there. Money was not in use.] M: O kuyruklar vardı da karneyle ekmek almak biraz daha eski. [M: Well, there were queues then, but buying bread with ration cards was much earlier.] PR2: Savaş dönemindeydi savaş! Ali abi sataşma var! Ben konuşmak istiyorum! [PR2: It was during the War! Ali abi, he challenges me! I want to talk!]

In (10), when PR11 gave an example of the hard times Turkish society experienced in the past, stressing that the situation was much worse than what it is now, PR2 takes these words as a challenge to the claims he advanced earlier regarding the hardships citizens are suffering during the rule of the present government. In order to respond to this challenge, he asks the permission of the moderator, an indication that he complies with the norms of the program about using the right to reply and rectify a claim. In an MPTD, the burden of proof is attributed to all the participants of the debate excluding the moderator. All the participants attend the program having taken their stances with respect to the topic and prepared or thought of arguments that they would present during the discussion. The speakers voice their opinions in the time allotted for them and present arguments in support of their viewpoints. In other words, each speaker is, from the beginning of the program, the protagonist of a certain standpoint. However, in the course of the discussion, participants can find opportunities to criticise or cast doubt on a certain standpoint. In this case they take the role of an antagonist. Once a participant’s arguments meet with criticism, he/she is obliged to defend his/her standpoint by providing more relevant and convincing arguments. For this reason, the distribution of roles in the debate directly affects the burden of proof. 2.2.2 Material starting points Van Eemeren (2010) states that finding a common ground in a discussion is a sine qua non requirement for resolving a difference of opinion. Procedural and material starting points are elementary in this respect, though they are mostly left unexpressed in a



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discussion. Discussants do not state these mutually agreeable starting points explicitly, but they show by their behavior that they recognize them as points of departure. In an MPTD, material starting points include facts, information, and standards of judgment that are used by the parties as a basis of argumentation. These starting points are selected from among less objectionable and socially agreed elements. In an MPTD we can speak of mainly three types of material starting points participants make use of: scientific facts, expert opinion, and social standards of judgment. In the following example, we can observe that GS2 develops his arguments based on material starting points that include historical facts. GS2 uses these starting points to object to the claims made earlier by GS1 that “the government pursues the interests of the public by developing an economic policy that does not depend on a binding financial agreement with IMF.” (11) GS2:  Bir defa IMF vesayetinin ortadan kalkması veya IMF’siz 2 yıl geçirdiğimiz diye bir durum söz konusu değil… Türkiye 1998 yılında IMF ile beraber bir yakın izleme anlaşması imzaladı. Bu yakın izleme anlaşmasından bu yana artık IMF heyetleri Ankara’da bir ofis açtılar. Türkiye’yi sadece bütçe değil özelleştirme programı, hukuki reformları, sağlıktaki dönüşüm programları, enflasyon programı, bağımsız olduğu iddia edilen Merkez Bankası’nın uygulamaları, faiz politikası, her şeyle didik didik ediyorlar ve deyim yerindeyse bir yeşil ışık veya kırmızı ışık sinyali vererek, Türkiye’nin geleceğini uluslararası finans sermayesine ipotek ediyorlar. [GS2: Now…we cannot say such a thing like IMF supervision has totally been abolished or that we have spent 2 years without IMF…Turkey signed a ‘close inspection contract’ with IMF in 1998. Since that date IMF has had an office in Ankara, and they are inspecting everything in detail – not only the budget but also the legal reforms, health program, inflation policies, the practices of the Central Bank, which is claimed to be independent, the interest policy, and many other issues. So to speak, by signaling green or red, they hypothecate Turkey’s future to the international finance market.]

Participants of an MPTD also make frequent use of arguments that appeal to authority. In order to strengthen their stand, parties support their arguments with expert opinions sharing a similar line of thinking with them. In this way, they want to narrow down the disagreement space. In the next example, PR13 refers to the words of the president of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges in Turkey in order to support his claim that Turkey is consciously debited on demand by the imperialist powers.

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(12) PR13: Çünkü bu ülke 1947’den itibaren batı emperyalizminin çıkarları doğrultusunda borçlandırılmış ve bütün kaynakları adeta sömürülmüştür… Bakın ben söylemiyorum, Odalar ve Borsalar Birliği başkanı söylüyor. Ülkeler artık askerlerle değil, şirketlerle işgal ediliyor diyor. [PR13: Since 1947, this country has been debited on demand of the Western imperialism, and its sources are, as it were, exploited… It’s not me who’s saying this. It’s the president of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges in Turkey, who says this. He says countries are no longer invaded by armies; they are invaded by companies.]

In the last example, we see that GS1 draws on a general social opinion and experience as a material starting point: (13) GS1:  Yanımızdaki Yunanistan battı. Yani bunu hepimiz görüyoruz. Bunun ardından İrlanda, Portekiz, İspanya gibi ülkeler Türkiye’den çok kötü durumda. Şimdi bakıyorsunuz borç yükü açısından Türkiye çok iyi bir duruma gelmiş. [GS1: Our neighbor, Greece went bankrupt. Well…we all see this. Following Greece, countries such as Ireland, Portugal and Spain are in a much worse state than Turkey. Now, you see…Turkey has achieved quite good progress in terms of external debt.]

By saying “we all see this”, GS1 tries to support his standpoint with an argument that is based on a socially witnessed and agreed-upon fact. 2.3

Argumentative means

In an MPTD predominantly two main opposing standpoints emerge out of the participants’ discussion: (1) p: The budget of the citizens is in a good state, and (2) ~p: The budget of the citizens is in a bad state. Participants are mostly polarized as to the standpoints they take in the discussion. In this sense, they take the protagonist role in a mixed difference of opinion (i.e., the protagonists of p and the protagonists of ~p). Since they are expected to present argumentation one by one and usually within one single turn allocated to them, more often than not, a well-organized argumentation structure can be observed. They contribute to the deliberative act aimed at opinion-formation by trying to present as strong arguments as possible to prove their rightfulness in taking the stand they do. The protagonists of the two opposing standpoints mentioned construct their argumentation to fulfill the following claims: My words are sufficient to show that p. My words are sufficient to show that ~p.



Chapter 10.  Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type 249

Besides the protagonists of the two opposing standpoints, there is a third category of participants who construct their argumentation in a balanced way to show that they partially agree with these standpoints when they are handled from different perspectives. That is to say, they agree with a variant of the proposition under discussion. The standpoint defended by the participants in this category can be reconstructed as: (3) p′: There are both positive and negative indicators for the budget of the citizens. They put forward arguments to show that: My words are sufficient to show that p′.

The three stands in the discussion can be further clarified by drawing examples from the argumentation carried out by three different participants in the debate titled “Budget of the Citizens”. The following three figures depict the reconstruction of argumentation structures of PR5, PR4, and PR3, who put forward argumentation in support of the standpoints (1), (2), and (3), respectively. 5 Figure 1 shows the hierarchical structure of argumentation presented by PR5 in favour of the standpoint (1) “The budget of the citizens is in a good state”. The participant has one main argument (1.1 The economic policy implemented by the government is positive), which can be related to the reconstructed standpoint of the participant by making explicit the unexpressed premise that (1.1′) well-implemented economic policy is positive for the budget of the citizens. PR5 elaborates this argument further by multiple (1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3) and subordinative argumentation (e.g. 1.1.2, 1.1.2.1, 1.1.2.1.1). 6 Figure 2, on the other hand, shows the argumentation process carried out by PR4 in her attempt to defend the standpoint (2) “The budget of the citizens is in a bad state”. The participant uses a combination of complex argumentation. She defends her standpoint with the main argument that (2.1) the economic policy implemented by the government is negative, which can be connected to the standpoint by revealing the unexpressed premise that (2.1′) poorly-implemented economic policy is negative for the budget of the citizens. The structure of argumentation given in Figure 2 indicates that the participant provides further support for the main argument through multiple (2.1.1 to 2.1.4), subordinative (e.g. 2.1.1, 2.1.1.1), and coordinative argumentation (2.1.1.1.1a, 2.1.1.1.1b, 2.1.1.1.1c).

5. In pragma-dialectics, reconstruction of argumentation is needed in order to arrive at a clearer view of a resolution-oriented discussion. It involves determining which speech acts of the arguers contribute to resolving a difference of opinion. Such a task requires the analyst to make the unexpressed premises in the discussion explicit. For a full description of reconstructing argumentative discourse, see van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson, & Jacobs (1993). 6. Unexpressed steps in the argumentation structure are given in parentheses (see van Eemeren, 2010).

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(1 The budget of the citizens is in a good state)

(1.1 The economic policy implemented by the government is positive.) & (1.1’ Well-implemented economic policy is positive for the budget of the citizens.)

1.1.1 No bank went bankrupt during AK Party government. 1.1.1.1 Banks made profit during AK Party government.

1.1.2 Saving incentive fund was abolished

1.1.3 Housing acquisition fund was abolished.

1.1.2.1 Millions of citizens suffered because of this fund.

1.1.3.1 Very few people became house-owners in this system.

1.1.2.1.1 Their savings in the banks were cut.

Figure 1.  The structure of argumentation presented by PR5 in favour of the standpoint “The budget of the citizens is in a good state” (2 The budget of the citizens is in a bad state.) (2.1 The economic policy implemented by the government is negative) & (2.1’ Poorly-implemented economic policy is negative for the budget of the citizens.)

2.1.1 Free market economy (FME) is pursued.

2.1.2 Export depends on import.

2.1.1.1 FME is good for business enterprises but bad for ordinary citizens.

2.1.1.1.1a FME encourages hot money flow.

2.1.3 Agriculture and stockbreeding came to a halt.

2.1.4 State workers and pensioners are at the starvation line.

2.1.2.1 Consumer products are manufactured via imported input and aimed to be sold to foreign markets.

2.1.1.1.1b FME enables tax reduction for only business enterprises.

2.1.1.1.1c In FME, minimum-waged pay taxes.

Figure 2.  The structure of argumentation presented by PR4 in favour of the standpoint “The budget of the citizens is in a bad state”

Lastly, the following figure depicts the structure of argumentation carried out by PR3, who stands at an equal distance to the two opposing standpoints (1 and 2) and puts forward arguments showing that she agrees with each of them partially. The participant defends, thus, the standpoint that (3) “there are both positive and negative indicators for the budget of the citizens”. She carries out multiple (e.g. 3.1, 3.2) and subordinative argumentation (e.g. 3.1.1, 3.1.1.1) to support this standpoint. The structures of argumentation I have discussed thus far outline the cases in which a participant acts as the protagonist of a standpoint. This is the most prominent role for the participants of an MPTD as they already have a stand before they start the discussion. However, that is not the only discussion role of the participants of an MPTD. They can also raise antagonism to an already pronounced standpoint by expressing criticism or doubt about it. In the following example, PR4 criticizes



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(3 There are both positive and negative indicators for the budget of the citizens.) (3.1 There are positive indicators for the budget of the citizens) 3.1.1 According to TUIK statistics, unemployment rate has decreased in September.

3.1.2 KOSGEB is a successful project.

3.1.1.1 There has been a 3.1.2.1 About five to six decrease in the thousand women number of young people benefit from this. who are unemployed.

(3.2 There are negative indicators for the budget of the citizens)

3.2.1 With the omnibus bill, there will be 20% deduction from the green-card owners.

3.2.2 Medical expenses are cut from the salaries of the pensioners.

3.2.3 Suicide rates went up due to unemployment.

3.2.1.1 This is not fair.

3.2.2.1 Pensioners are old people, and their salaries are low.

3.2.3.1 %23 percent of suicides are due to economic reasons.

Figure 3.  The structure of argumentation presented by PR3 in favour of the standpoint “There are both positive and negative indicators for the budget of the citizens”

an earlier participant who has claimed that the unemployment rate in Turkey is decreasing; therefore, it is positive for the budget of the citizens. PR4 also provides justification for her criticism with an argument from authority. (14) PR4:  Ben kesinlikle işsizliğin sevindirici boyutta düştüğüne inanmıyorum hatta düştüğüne inanmıyorum, çünkü kayıt dışı işsiz sayısının %20’lere yakın olduğu her zaman ekonomi çevrelerinde konuşulan bir şey. [PR4: I absolutely don’t believe that the unemployment rate has decreased to a considerable extent. Or I have to say I don’t believe that it has decreased at all because economists constantly emphasize that unrecorded unemployment is around 20%.]

No matter how they construct their argumentation (i.e., in the role of a protagonist or an antagonist), the participants of an MPTD make wide use of concrete facts in arguing for their standpoints. These concrete facts can sometimes be events or states of affairs, at times personal observations and experiences, and often scientific facts or findings. Also used as material starting points, these elements are exploited in argumentation to make a standpoint more agreeable by a critic and the arguments used to justify that standpoint more reasonable. To illustrate, the three participants, whose argumentation processes were reconstructed above, make wide use of concrete facts and statistical findings while constructing their arguments, which shows that they evidently have a prior planning for the arguments they would use during the debate. Although the participants attend the debate as ordinary citizens, the information they use in their arguments appears to exceed what ordinary people can retrieve on everyday basis. For instance, PR5 makes reference to a number of funds that were abolished by the government, which she sees as a contribution to the budget of the citizens. PR4, on the other hand, focuses on the drawbacks of adopting a free market economy for the budget of the ordinary citizens. Finally,

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PR3 provides a good amount of statistical information accompanying almost every argument she uses in an attempt to show that there are both positive and negative indicators for the budget of the citizens. The participants resort to these arguments to increase the credibility of their standpoints and decrease the possibility that their arguments meet antagonism. This, however, does not totally eliminate the likelihood for an argument that is presented as a “concrete fact” to be criticized. It happens especially when a participant lacks the accurate knowledge while he/she believes that he/she has it. In such a case, the party who provides the most relevant and strongest evidence supporting the factual content of his/her arguments has an advantage in maintaining his/her standpoint. To illustrate, in the following exchange, PR7 criticizes PR4 for giving wrong information that the minimum-waged citizens are charged taxes, and gives an impression that he has concrete evidence to prove that the relevant speaker was wrong: (15) PR4:  Onlar [sıcak para babaları] bu ülkede vergi vermiyorlar ama asgari ücretli, emekli, işçi, memur, çiftçi, eczacı, doktor bu ülkede deliler gibi vergi veriyor, üstelik vergi üzerinden vergi veriyor. [PR4: They [businessmen bringing hot money into the country] don’t pay taxes in this country, but minimum-waged, labourers, government officers, farmers, pharmacists, and doctors pay huge amounts of taxes. They even pay taxes over taxes. … PR7:  Baktığımızda aslında arkadaşımız yanlış bir bilgilendirme de yaptı, asgari ücretten herhangi bir vergi alınmıyor. Bayan arkadaşımız asgari ücretten vergi alındığını söyledi. Onu düzeltelim, daha önceydi o. [PR7: Actually, my friend made a wrong evaluation. Minimum-waged people do not pay any taxes at present. She said minimum-waged are charged taxes… I have to correct this first; such a practice was much earlier.]

By saying that this was an old practice and not in progress any more, he implies that he has knowledge of the present practice or when this practice was abolished by the government. When an antagonist claims that the evidence presented by the protagonist of a standpoint is wrong or groundless, it is a challenge for the protagonist to retract his/her argument. For this reason, strengthening the argumentation with concrete scientific facts increases the chance of maintaining a standpoint and convincing the other party of the acceptability of the argumentation presented in favour of that standpoint.



2.4

Chapter 10.  Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type 253

Possible outcome

An MPTD pursues the institutional aim of deliberation aimed at opinion-­formation. In a deliberative activity aiming at opinion-formation, parties are not urged to resolve their difference of opinion or settle the conclusion of the debate to the advantage of one or the other. That is to say, what matters for the participants of this debate is to voice their opinions in a free way with strong and convincing arguments, without necessarily pursuing the goal of winning over opponents. As a common aim to most deliberative activities, MPTD also targets the TV watching audience in order to help them shape their opinions with regard to the issues that are of concern to their nation or the world in general. In addition, the decision-makers are also informed about public views on these issues and encouraged to take measures when necessary. In accordance with the institutional aim stated above, the debate does not close with the announcement of a winner or loser or with a conclusion that an agreement has been reached regarding a controversial issue. Therefore, at the end of each debate, more often than not, the initial difference of opinion is preserved. The following closing remarks from both the participants of the debate and the moderator show that there is no sign of settlement of the dispute; thus, the debate remains open-ended: (16) PR10: Ekonomi güzel. Neresi güzel? Şimdi soralım [gençlere] gelecekleriyle ilgili ne kadar ümitliler, ne kadar karamsarlar. [PR10: You say Turkish economy is in a good state. How can you claim this? Now let’s ask [young people] how much hope they have about their future or how pessimistic they feel about future.] (17) PR13: Sosyal devlet, gerçek anlamda hayata geçirilmezse bir müddet sonra uluslararası haciz memurları Türkiye’nin geleceği olan bor madenlerine bile el koyabilirler. Teşekkür ediyorum. [PR13: Unless a real social state is put into practice, after a while, international sequestrators may claim our boron reserves. Thank you.] (18) M: Peki çok teşekkür ediyorum. Katılan bütün dostlarımıza, arkadaşlarımıza teşekkür ediyorum. Gelecek hafta 2 çok özel konukla birlikte “Hangi Türkiye” başlıklı programda buluşuncaya dek hepinize mutlu sabahlar, mutlu haftalar diliyorum. [M: Dear participants, thank you all. Next week we’ll be discussing the topic “What should be the direction of Turkey?” with the participation of two special guests. Till then, we wish you a nice week.]

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In the examples given above, PR10 closes his speech with an indirect question which does not require an answer. It is rather a restatement of his position with a rhetorical question. 7 PR13, on the other hand, ends her words with a warning about Turkey’s future economic policy. It is apparent that she keeps her position stable, too, and implies that the State is not social in reality, which has negative implications on the budget of the citizens. And finally, the moderator closes the whole discussion by just thanking the participants who contributed to the debate and announces the topic for the next discussion, which somewhat prepares the participants to adopt their stand for the next discussion. The ideal model of a critical discussion, which this paper takes as a point of reference in characterizing the argumentative features of MPTD, is directed towards the aim of resolving a difference of opinion. However, the model is not a prescription for resolving every actual discussion in this way; rather, it sets out to show how a critical discussion is optimally ended. Therefore, the model of a critical discussion is not a restrictive model for discussions, but a functional analytical and heuristic tool to understand argumentation in its actual context. For this reason, pragma-dialectics emphasizes the importance of studying argumentation in the relevant context in which it is produced and evaluating it in accordance with the institutional preconditions for the given context. The actual context of an MPTD suggests that this activity type serves the institutional goal it aims to fulfill, and no goal is pursued to reach a resolution of difference of opinion at the end of the discussion.

3. Conclusion This paper was designed to address the question of how we can characterize an MPTD argumentatively. This aim could be fulfilled by introducing the institutional context of an MPTD, the knowledge of which is instrumental in systematically analyzing and evaluating the argumentative moves in this activity type. The argumentative characterization of MPTD involved distinguishing in this activity type the empirical counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion: the initial situation, procedural and material starting points, argumentative means, and possible outcome. As a result of the characterization made, which was supported by the examples drawn from one episode (titled “Budget of the Citizens”) of a once very popular MPTD program in Turkey, Siyaset Meydanı, it was argued that an MPTD is a moderately conventionalized activity type preconditioned both by implicit and

7. For an analytical perspective on argumentation with rhetorical questions, see Ilie (1999).



Chapter 10.  Multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type 255

explicit norms governing the process of argumentation. Table 1 below sums up the argumentative characterization of an MPTD achieved in this paper. Examining MPTD argumentatively is also an interesting and illuminating endeavor as argumentation forms exemplified in this activity type are indicative of how different points of view are represented and expressed at the societal level. That is, there are not only strictly polarized and clashing viewpoints in the society about a certain issue but there are also intermediate and more moderate stands towards that issue. These views are well-observed and embodied in the argumentation forms manifested in an MPTD, which is an indicator that this activity type serves its institutional goal of opinion-formation by embracing various views in the society. The conventions of MPTD identified in this study are functional in understanding the dynamics of other moderated public debates and can serve as a point of reference to make comparisons with similar or more different activity types adopting the genre of deliberation aimed at opinion-formation. It can also provide a basis for making cultural comparisons in the way MPTDs are carried out. Table 1.  Characterizing multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type Genre

Initial situation

Procedural and Argumentative material starting means points

Possible outcome

Deliberation aimed at opinionformation

Mixed and non-mixed difference of opinion between the multiple participants in a debate concerning social, political, and cultural issues, open ended discussion, no goal pursued to resolve the difference of opinion.

Moderated TV debate explicit rules governing communication in a deliberative activity type broadcast on TV and implicit rules deducible from the debate itself.

The difference of opinion is often not resolved; return to the initial situation

Argumentative activity type Multiparticipant TV debate

Opinionexpressing statements, argumentation based on facts and evidence

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Acknowledgements This paper is part of the author’s unpublished doctoral dissertation: Demir, Y. (2014). Characterizing multi-participant TV debate as an argumentative activity type: A pragma-dialectical analysis of the argumentative discourse in Siyaset Meydanı. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Hacettepe University, Ankara.

References Andone, C. (2010). Maneuvering Strategically in a Political Interview: Analyzing and Evaluating Responses to an Accusation of Inconsistency. Amsterdam: SicSat. Benoit, W. L., Henson, J. R., & Sudbrock, L. A. (2011). A functional analysis of 2008 American presidential primary debates. Argumentation: Inquiry and Advocacy, 48, 97–110. Edwards, A. R. (2002). The moderator as an emerging democratic intermediary: The role of the moderator in internet discussions about public. Information Polity, 7, 3–20. Eemeren, F. H. van. (2010). Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse: Extending the Pragma-Dialectical Theory of Argumentation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.  doi: 10.1075/aic.2 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1982). The speech act of arguing and convincing in externalized discussions. Journal of Pragmatics, 6, 1–24.  doi: 10.1016/0378-2166(82)90036-4 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1984). Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions: A Theoretical Model for the Analysis of Discussions Directed Towards Solving Conflicts of Opinion. Berlin/Dordrecht: De Gruyter/Foris Publications.  doi: 10.1515/9783110846089 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst, R., Jackson, S., & Jacobs, S. (1993). Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse. Tuscaloosa-London: The University of Alabama Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (1997). Rhetorical rationales for dialectical moves. In J. Klumpp (Ed.), Proceedings of the Tenth NCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation (pp.51–56). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse: Maintaining a delicate balance. In F. H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and Rhetoric: The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis (pp. 131–159). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.  doi: 10.1007/978-94-015-9948-1 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Houtlosser, P. (2005). Theoretical construction and argumentative reality: An analytic model of critical discussion and conventionalised types of argumentative activity. In D. Hitchcock & D. Farr (Eds.). The Uses of Argument: Proceedings of a Conference at McMaster University, 18–21 May 2005 (pp. 75–84). Emmertsen, S. (2007). Interviewers’ challenging questions in British debate interviews. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 570–591.  doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2006.07.011 Fracchiolla, B. (2011). Politeness as a strategy of attack in a gendered political debate – The Royal Sarkozy debate. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 2480–2488.  doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2011.02.006



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Guillot, M. N. (2008). Freedoms and constraints in semi-institutional television discussions: The case of mixed format panel discussions. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 179–204. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2007.07.016 Habermas, J. (1996). Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (W. Rehg, transl.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1992.) Ilie, C. (1999). Question-response argumentation in talk shows. Journal of Pragmatics, 31 (8), 975–999.  doi: 10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00056-9 Ilie, C. (2001). Semi-institutional discourse: The case of talk shows. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 209–254.  doi: 10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00133-2 Lawrence, J. (2012). Why debate moderators matter. National Journal, (Oct. 11, 2012). Retrieved from: http://www.nationaljournal.com.ezp.lib.rochester.edu/njonline/ Lewiński, M. (2010). Internet Political Discussion Forums as an Argumentative Activity Type. Amsterdam: SicSat. Luginbühl, M. (2007). Conversational violence in political TV debates: Forms and functions. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 1371–1387.  doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2007.04.003 Mondada, L. (2013). Embodied and spatial resources for turn-taking in institutional multi-party interactions: Participatory democracy debates. Journal of Pragmatics, 46(1), 39–68. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.03.010 Proctor, K., & I-Wen Su, L. (2011). The 1st person plural in political discourse – American politicians in interviews and in a debate. Journal of Pragmatics, 43 (13), 3251–3266. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2011.06.010 RTUK- The Law No. 6112 on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and Their Media Services. Retrieved from: http://www.rtuk.org.tr/sayfalar/IcerikGoster.aspx?icerikid= 464e2c3d-dfb6-4541-9218-21219c021aa2 on January 26, 2012. Thomas, R. J. (2012). Considering the ethical obligations of presidential debate moderators. Media Ethics, 23(2). Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walton, D. (1998). The New Dialectic: Conversational Contexts of Argument. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Chapter 11

The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization The role of argumentation in family interactions Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Switzerland / Research Department, University of Teacher Education (HEP-BEJUNE), Switzerland / Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Argumentation is often considered as a way to transmit explicit information. However, in daily context-based activities, argumentation practices are embedded in discussions where many norms, beliefs, and values are taken for granted. Our objective is to evaluate the consequences of this daily argumentative processes in terms of socialization. More specifically, we focus on family mealtime conversations and analyze the structure of argumentation thanks to an ideographic methodology based on two models: the pragma-dialectical ideal model of critical discussion (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004) and the Argumentum Model of Topics (Rigotti & Greco Morasso, 2010). The results, based on a corpus of 30 video-recorded separate meals of 10 middle to upper-middle-class Swiss and Italian families, indicate that implicits in argumentation are particularly effective in transmitting what is taken for granted in any given cultural community. This effectiveness derives from the fact that presuppositions, i.e. background information not explicitly indicated as relevant, appear as unquestionable. Children, who are largely dependent on adults for their well-being as well as for their knowledge acquisition, are not in a position to call into question these presuppositions. Moreover, in the absence of the background necessary to understand an argument, children have to figure out (initially vaguely) a certain context that enables them to make sense of the ongoing dialogue. This background will progressively be enriched thanks to other interactions. Therefore the chances that many aspects of what is taken for granted in any given family will be maintained in the next generation are particularly high.

doi 10.1075/aic.10.12bov © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

260 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

The results of this study can contribute to the wider theme of argumentative practices and debates in societal and family issues. Family interactions constitute a favorable discursive arena involving children and adults through different intersubjective positions that are shaped by socio-cultural and interpersonal factors within the contingent context of a discussion. Assuming the perspective of argumentation as cultural activity contributes not only to giving conditions for defining development, but also to framing the context in which the development is supported.



The child learns to believe a host of things, i.e. it learns to act according to these beliefs. Bit by bit there forms a system of what is believed, and in that system some things stand unshakeably fast and some are more or less liable to shift. What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it. Wittgenstein (1969, p. 144)

1. Introduction The family context is recently coming into light as an important context for the study of argumentation. The whys and wherefores of the increasing interest in the study of argumentative interactions among family members lie in the nature of such interactions. Unlike the contexts usually considered by argumentation scholars such as politics (Zarefsky, 2009; Andone, 2013), the media (Burger & Martel, 2005; Walton, 2007), and law (Feteris, 1999; Dahlman & Feteris, 2013), the discussions among family members are characterized by a greater prevalence of interpersonal relationships and by a relative lack of restrictions concerning the issues that can be tackled (Blum-Kulka, 1994; Pan et al., 2000; Ochs & Shohet, 2006; Bova & Arcidiacono, 2014a). Mealtime can be considered a privileged moment to examine how parents and children interact and argue, since it is one of the few activities that can bring all family members together daily (Ochs et al., 1989; Beals, 1993; Blum-Kulka, 1997). It is more than a particular time of day at which to eat. Rather, it is an activity during which the parents can be “consulted” by their children about a broad number of topics and, given the relative freedom of speech, there could be some dissensus about what is the right thing to do or to think (Arcidiacono & Bova, 2015; Bova & Arcidiacono, 2015). Although the degree of conversational freedom at mealtimes can vary from family to family and depends on various contextual and social factors (Beals, 1997; Fiese et al., 2006; Arcidiacono, 2013), a series of earlier studies have indicated that the argumentative interactions between parents and children



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during mealtimes contribute to the socialization of children toward the rules and behavioral models typical of their family and their community (Pontecorvo et al., 2001; Bova & Arcidiacono, 2013a, 2013b, 2014b; Bova, 2015a, 2015b). As everyday life is full of taken for granted assumptions (Schütz, 1953; Garfinkel, 1964; Takata & Curran, 1999), it follows that, in the family context, a part of the children’s socialization is based on implicit aspects in the transmission of normative beliefs. This implication entails a sort of paradox: as taken for granted information is by definition not explicitly formulated and explained, how is it possible for children to share the tacit assumptions of their community? In the present study, we set out to show how the transmission of parental norms and values, which are often taken for granted within family mealtime conversations, can lead parents and children to engage in argumentative discussions. We will focus specifically on conversations where norms, values, or beliefs are implicitly embedded in communicated information. For this reason, we will consider the role of the social setting, of the actors, and of situational effects in contributing meaning to a conversation, with specific attention to the implicit in the transmission of normative beliefs or values. In this endeavor, we opted for an idiographic methodology based on the contemporary argumentation theory. The pragma-dialectical ideal model of critical discussion (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992, 2004) represents the analytical approach used to identify the argumentatively relevant moves. Besides, we decided to integrate this model with the Argumentum Model of Topics (hereafter AMT) (Rigotti & Greco Morasso, 2010) to systematically reconstruct the inferential configuration of arguments. By doing this, we intend to move one step forward beyond the analytical reconstruction of argumentation, to consider how an argument is connected to its standpoint. The AMT model allows distinguishing premises of procedural (logical) nature from contextual (cultural) premises, and it is particularly important in our case to understand the procedural implicit and explicit premises used by parents in their argumentation. The present chapter is structured as follows. In its first part, a concise review of the most relevant literature on implicit language in everyday verbal interactions (§ 2) and on family argumentation at mealtimes (§ 3) will be presented. Subsequently, the data corpus of the research (§ 4) and the analytical approaches adopted for the analyses (§ 5) will be introduced, thus providing the methodological and conceptual framework on which the present study is based. In the last part of the chapter, the results obtained from the analyses (§ 6) will be discussed in terms of the social value attributed to what is taken for granted within family conversations to socialize children (and parents) to engage in argumentative discussions. Some implications of how norms, values, and beliefs are implicitly embedded in communicated information will also be presented in the final part of the chapter (§ 7).

262 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

2. Taken for granted information in ordinary verbal interactions The way human speakers can understand each other has fascinated linguists and philosophers for a very long time. Plato, for instance, was wondering how it is possible to gain any knowledge: either you already know something and you do not have to learn it, or you do not know it and you will not be able to stop your research when the object of knowledge is reached (Plato, 1967, p. 80e). This paradox has its equivalent in communicative processes: either the informee already possesses the communicated information, and s/he is not learning anything, or it is unknown for him/her and how could s/he even start to make sense of it? To solve this paradox, most scholars admit that everyday conversations presuppose a common ground between the speakers. If they talk about football, for instance, and A says: “Italy will win the World Cup”, they do not have to explain that Italy is a country, what a country is, that it has a national football team and that a world event is about to start where the best national teams will compete. This information is taken for granted, the speaker presupposing that all the people involved in the conversation share “common knowledge” about the subject that is discussed (Lewis, 1969). To avoid the communicators getting involved in an endless process of specification (“what is Italy”, “what is football”, “what is winning”, etc.), Searle (1983, 1992) proposed that every act of language happens on a foreground of what he called a background. This background includes biological and cultural capacities, skills, stances, assumptions, and presuppositions that are not explicitly communicated but necessary for the receivers to understand what is communicated. Searle distinguishes between two kinds of background: the deep background refers to the natural human condition, i.e. biological skills and universally human capacities, such as eating, walking, or playing; and the local background that, by contrast, is composed of skills and abilities that are specific to a particular social group or a given culture. For instance, if you hear at a playground a male voice saying: “jump, my little frog,” you do not expect to see a real frog jumping on the ground (Clément & Kaufmann, 2005). You guess, in such a context, that it is a father who fondly encourages his offspring to act courageously. To be able to interpret such statements so quickly and easily, you need to activate a certain number of “natural” expectancies about what could happen, biologically as well as culturally, in such social settings. Nowadays, such descriptions could appear obvious but we think that the existence of a background has some significant – and maybe paradoxical – consequences for the understanding of children’s developmentand socialization. On the one hand, we have seen that communication requires a vast amount of shared knowledge that is not explicitly communicated. On the other hand, much of this taken for granted information remains implicit in daily conversations. Therefore,



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 263

how could children ever understand what is communicated to them if they cannot access such essential parts of linguistic exchanges? Part of the answer probably resides in the deep background. Recent research shows that children seem to possess cognitive skills that enable them to solve specific problems in different kinds of environments (physical, biological, social, etc.) rapidly and effortlessly. Many of these domain-specific information-processing systems have been proposed accordingly to the properties of the environment they are designed to pick out: naïve physics (physical entities – causal law, cf. Baillargeon, 1987; Spelke, 1994), naïve biology (living beings – genetic transmission, cf. Atran, 1998; Keil, 1998), naïve psychology (mental states – intentional attribution, cf. Wellman, 1990; Baron-Cohen et al., 2000), naïve morality (rules of welfare and justice – ethical evaluation, cf. Turiel, 1983; Nucci, 2001), naïve arithmetic (small numbers – quantificational computation, cf. Dehaene et al., 1999; Baillargeon & Carey, 2012) and naïve sociology (social relations and positional rules, cf. Hirschfeld, 1995, 1999; Clément et al., 2011; Kaufmann & Clément, 2014). One can expect that these “natural” abilities enable children to constitute “on their own” what Searle (1983, 1992) calls the deep background: the world is parsed “for them” in a certain way and they do not systematically rely on others to understand the most invariable parts of their natural environments. Things are far less obvious when we try to understand how children can constitute the local background. By observing the cultural habits of their reference group, children can probably infer a certain number of rules and ways of doing things “appropriately”. However, they depend extensively on the testimony of others to constitute the encyclopedic knowledge that is characteristic of any culture. Recently, the importance of testimony in socialization has been highlighted by experimental research (Sabbagh et al., 2003; Clément et al., 2004; Koenig et al., 2004; Koenig & Harris, 2005; Birch et al., 2008). This inquiry, however, is essentially focused on the way explicit information is communicated to children. Now we have seen that not everything, that social members are supposed to know, is explicit nor explicitly transmitted. This aspect has been suggested long ago by social scientists. For Schütz (1954), much of what is “taken for granted” has nothing to do with reflexion or introspection but is “a result of processes of learning or acculturation” (p. 264). This common sense corresponds to the more or less unthinking commitment to the logic and values of one’s “mother” social environment and is embedded in an “illusion”, “the fact of being caught up in and by the game, of believing (…) that the game is worth playing and that the fact of playing is worth pursuing” (Bourdieu, 1992, pp. 76–77). In linguistic terms, the paradox could be formulated in a slightly different form and it refers to presuppositions. In discourse, a presupposition is an implicit

264 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

assumption about the world or about a background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted. According to Ducrot (1969), a presupposition is presented as an unavoidable frame in which the conversation takes place: it involves a sort of collusion between the people who are communicating (see Kaufmann, 2002). In the case of young children, the difficulty is to enable them to share frames that are presupposed in most dialogues. If verbal communication involves hearers interpreting the statements (Sperber & Wilson, 1985), how is it possible for a child to disambiguate a proposition (P) like: “We won’t go on holidays in that country: it has too many mosques”? 1 Most often, adults will not make explicit their prejudices and the young hearer will have to make sense of this proposition by him/herself. Of course, he/she can recruit his/her encyclopedic knowledge about the Muslim’s places of worship; it is possible that s/he has acquired sufficient information on this topic, for example by seeing mosques in books or on television. But understanding (P) involves substantial inferential work to understand the link between mosques and the decision to avoid visiting that country. In a first step, the child could, for instance, imagine a literal meaning: there are so many mosques in that country that you can almost not move around. However, without explicitations, it will take him/her a long time, and many other statements with a similar presupposition (like “oh, no, please do not tell me that s/he will marry a Muslim!”) to eventually figure out that the common ground, in this case, is a poor opinion of the Muslim community and culture. In this paper, we will argue (1) that there are specific situations in daily life that are particularly important for children to acquire their community’s presuppositions: family mealtime conversations; and (2) that there are kinds of verbal exchanges where presuppositions play a major role: argumentations.

3. Argumentation and implicit in family mealtime conversations Over the last two decades, many scholars from different disciplines have devoted increasing attention to the study of argumentative interaction among family members. A milestone in family argumentation studies is the educational and anthropological research carried out by Blum-Kulka (1993, 1997, 2008) within American and Jewish families, by Ochs and her colleagues within American families (Ochs & KremerSadlik, 2013 provide a comprehensive overview of these studies; see also Ochs et al., 1996; Ochs & Shohet, 2006; Ochs & Schieffelin, 2011), and by Pontecorvo and her 1. We would like to thank our colleague Louis de Saussure for this example.



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colleagues within Italian families (Pontecorvo, 1993; Pontecorvo & Fasulo, 1997; Pontecorvo & Sterponi, 2002; Pontecorvo & Arcidiacono, 2007, 2010). These authors have highlighted the relevance of mealtimes as sites to observe how behaviors and points of view of family members are put into doubt, and their studies have shown that argumentative discussions between parents and children at mealtimes are opportunities for children to learn the reasons on which cultural practices, values, and rules are typically based. Recently, several scholars have examined the structure as well as the linguistic elements characterizing the argumentative interactions between parents and young children. For instance, these conversations exhibit some recurrent ways of starting argumentative confrontation, notably of advancing doubts. One such way is the Why-question, often – but not solely – asked by children to their parents. According to Bova and Arcidiacono (2013b), this type of question challenges parents to justify their rules and prescriptions, which frequently remain implicit or based on rules not initially known by or previously made explicit to children. One of the aspects that recent studies on family argumentation have brought to light are the various argumentative strategies used by parents to transmit rules to their children on how to behave at home (e.g., Bova & Arcidiacono, 2014b) as well as in social situations outside the family context (e.g., Sterponi, 2003, 2009; Aronsson & Cekaite, 2011). Although argumentation within the family context is a powerful tool to socialize children to the rules and the norms of everyday life, there are few studies about the implicit ways used by family members to transmit educational messages. In a study by Perregaard (2010), it has been shown how families, when gathering around the dinner table, explicitly or implicitly compare or reconcile the communicative practices of family life with the different institutional settings through which they also move and interact daily. The study concluded that required standards or principles of behavior of family members are negotiated during conversations, and children’s ability to maneuver between different topics is a product of these communicative processes. Other studies have highlighted how parents use language to convey norms and rules governing both linguistic and socio-cultural behavior. For example, De Geer (2004) has shown that this conveyance can be direct or indirect, explicit or implicit and may appear in the form of direct instructions or commands on how to behave or in the use of language. These results imply that rules come in multiple forms within family and are negotiated in different ways, either implicitly or explicitly. In fact, explicit rules are talked about, negotiated, and agreed upon by family members, while implicit rules are not spoken about until they are violated, but are understood by family members (Turner & West, 1998).

266 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

This synthetic (and partial) view of the available literature shows that studies on argumentation in the family context singled out a set of argumentative strategies typically adopted by parents to socialize their children to the values and norms typical of their culture. However, we believe that there is still a lack of knowledge regarding the role played by argumentation in the transmission of normative beliefs. We refer in particular to the transmission of norms and values that are mainly based on implicit aspects, namely, that are often taken for granted within the family mealtime conversations. The present study, which aims to show how the argumentative discussions between parents and children can occur when the children do not respect these “taken for granted” parental norms and values, is mainly a further contribution to this research strand. In the next sections of this chapter, we will present the research design (conceived to observe family discussions at home during mealtimes), as well as the main results of our study.

4. Methodology 4.1

Data corpus

This study is part of a project devoted to the analysis of family argumentation. 2 The research design involves a corpus of thirty video-recorded separate family meals (constituting about twenty hours of video data), constructed from two different sets of data, named sub-corpus 1 and sub-corpus 2. All participants are Italian-speaking. The length of each recording varies from 20 to 40 minutes. Sub-corpus 1 consists of 15 video-recorded meals in five middle to upper-middle-class Italian families in high socio-demographic group 3 living in Rome. The criteria adopted in the selection of the Italian families were the following: the presence of both parents and at least two children, of whom the younger is of preschool age (three to six years). All families in sub-corpus 1 had two children. Sub-corpus 2 consists of 15 video-recorded meals in five middle to upper-middle-class Swiss families in a high socio-demographic group, all residents in the Lugano area. 4 The 2. We are referring to the Research Module “Argumentation as a reasonable alternative to conflict in the family context” (project no. PDFMP1-123093/1) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). 3. Based on the parental answers to questionnaires about socio-economic status (SES) and personal details of family members that participants filled before the video-recordings. 4. Lugano is the largest city in the southernmost canton of Switzerland, the canton of Ticino. Switzerland has four national languages: French, German, Italian and Romansh. The canton of Ticino is the only canton in Switzerland where the sole official language is Italian.



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 267

criteria adopted in the selection of the Swiss families mirror the criteria adopted in the creation of sub-corpus 1. 5 Families had two or three children. Detailed information on family constellations in sub-corpora are presented in Appendix 1. 4.2

Participants’ recruitment and transcription procedures

All participants were approached through an information sheet outlining in clear language the general purpose of the study and providing information about how the video data would be used. Consent letters were written following the Swiss Psychological Society (SPS) and the American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines. As specified in a release letter signed by the researchers and the parents, all family members (both parents and children) gave us permission to video-record their mealtimes, provided the data would be used only for scientific purposes and privacy would be respected. The package also made clear to participants that they could choose to withdraw from the study at any time and that any concerns they had about the ethics of the study could be referred to the researchers for clarification at any time. In a first phase, all family meals were fully transcribed adopting the CHILDES standard transcription system CHAT (MacWhinney, 2000), with some modifications (see the Appendix 2) introduced to enhance readability, and revised by two researchers until a high level of consent (agreement rate = 80%) has been reached. Verbal utterances and nonverbal expressions with a clear communicative function relevant to the meal activity were identified and described in the transcription. Afterward, we reviewed together with the family members the transcriptions. This procedure allows asking the family members to clarify passages that were unclear to researchers on account of low level of recording sound and vague words and constructions. Information on the physical setting of the mealtimes, i.e. a description of the kitchen and the dining table, was also made for each family meal. In the transcription of the conversations, this practice has proved very useful for understanding some passages that, at first sight, appeared unclear. In the present study, data are presented in the original (Italian), using regular font, whereas the English translation is added below using bold font. In all examples, all turns are numbered progressively within the discussion sequence, and family members are identified by role (for adults: father, mother) and by name (for children). To ensure the anonymity of children, the names in this study are pseudonyms. 5. Despite the data corpus is constituted of families of two different nationalities, a cultural comparison aimed at singling out differences and similarities between the two sub-corpora from an argumentative point of view is not a goal of this study.

268 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

4.3

Definition of argumentative situation and identification of the conversational sequences

The analyses we present in this chapter are limited to and focused on the study of analytically relevant argumentative moves, i.e. “those speech acts that (at least potentially) play a role in the process of resolving a difference of opinion” (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004, p. 73). In particular, the discussion is considered as argumentative if the following criteria are satisfied: (I) a difference of opinion among parents and children arises around a certain issue; (II) at least one standpoint advanced by one of the two parents is questioned by one or more children, or vice versa; (III) at least one family member puts forward at least one argument either in favor of or against the standpoint being questioned. For the present study, only the discussions that fulfill the three criteria mentioned above were selected for analysis, while all non-argumentative conversations were excluded. An example of non-argumentative conversation is the following dialogue between a mother and a 6 year-old daughter, Giorgia. Italian family. Participants: father (DAD, 34 years), mother (MOM, 33 years), Giorgia (GIO, 6 years 6 months), Clara (CLA, 3 years 1 month) %act: 1

*MOM:

2

*GIO:

3

*MOM:

4

*MOM: %act:

5

*MOM:

6

*GIO:

GIO gioca con MOM seduta sulle gambe di MOM GIO plays with MOM seated on MOM’s legs Clara è coccolata da tutti a scuola ((scuola materna)) Clara is cuddled by everyone at school ((kindergarten)) perché è coccolata da tutti? why is she cuddled by everyone? perché è piccola [: ridendo] because she is a baby [: laughing] è proprio piccola [: ridendo] she is really a baby [: laughing] MOM e GIO ridono MOM and GIO laugh non è vero? isn’t it? si certo [= sorridendo]. yes sure [: smiling]

This sequence starts with the mother saying to her older daughter Giorgia that her young sister Clara is coddled by everyone at kindergarten. Clara is playing seated on her mother’s legs. The mother’s expression appears to be a way to keep playing with her young daughter. Giorgia replies to her mother by advancing a request of explanation: Why is Clara coddled by everyone at kindergarten? This sequence is an example of non-argumentative conversation because there is no difference of opinion between the mother and her older daughter Giorgia. In fact, by asking a Why-question, Giorgia is not casting doubt on the fact that everyone is cuddling her younger sister at the kindergarden, but she manifests her interest to know why.



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 269

In a first phase, we selected all the argumentative discussions among family members concerning norms and values as topic of discourse that occurred in the corpus of thirty separate meals (N = 77). In this way, we have built a collection of similar argumentative sequences around our topic of interest. Later, for the scope of the present study, we only referred to the argumentative discussions between parents and children (N = 65; 84%).

5. Analytical approach The analytical approach on which this study is based refers to the pragma-dialectical ideal model of critical discussion and the AMT. We decided to integrate these approaches as two steps of the same process of analysis since they cover two relevant and complementary levels of the organization of the argumentative activity: the reconstruction of the structure of the argumentative discussions and the analysis of the procedural implicit and explicit premises used by parents in their argumentation. To reconstruct the structure of the argumentative discussions, in a first phase of the analysis we will refer to the ideal model of a critical discussion. This model does not describe reality, but how argumentative discourse would be structured were such discourse solely aimed at resolving differences of opinion. Confrontation, in which disagreement regarding a certain standpoint externalized in a discursive exchange or anticipated by the speaker, is, therefore, a necessary condition for an argumentative discussion to occur. The pragma-dialectical ideal model of a critical discussion spells out four stages that are necessary for a dialectical resolution of differences of opinion between a protagonist that advances and sustains a standpoint and an antagonist that assesses it critically: at the confrontation stage, it is established that there is a dispute. A standpoint is advanced and questioned; at the opening stage, the decision is made to attempt to resolve the dispute by means of a regulated argumentative discussion. One party takes the role of protagonist, and the other party takes the role of antagonist; at the argumentation stage, the protagonist defends his/her standpoint and the antagonist elicits further argumentation from him/her if s/he has further doubts; at the concluding stage, it is established whether the dispute has been resolved on account of the standpoint or the doubt concerning the standpoint having been retracted. This model is assumed, in the present study, as a grid for the analysis of argumentative discussions in the family context, since it provides the criteria for the identification and reconstruction (heuristic and analytic function) of the argumentative moves by parents and children. To analyze of the procedural implicit and explicit premises used by parents in their argumentation, we will refer to the AMT. This model is particularly important in our case to understand the procedural implicit and explicit premises used by

270 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

parents in their argumentation, since it allows distinguishing premises of procedural (logical) nature from contextual (cultural) premises. As stated by Rigotti and Greco Morasso (2010, p. 490), the AMT is an instrument that serves “to illustrate the structure of reasoning that underlies the connection between a standpoint and its supporting arguments”. In particular, two fundamental components should be distinguished when identifying the inferential relation binding the premises to the conclusion of argumentation. First, an argument identifies a topical component which focuses on the inferential connection activated by the argument corresponding to the abstract reasoning that justifies the passage from the premises (arguments) to the conclusion (standpoint). The inferential connection underlying the argument is named with the traditional term maxim. Maxims are inferential connections generated by a certain semantic ontological domain named locus. Second, an endoxical component, which consists of the implicit or explicit material premises shared by the discussants that combined with the topical component grounds the standpoint. These premises include endoxa, that are general principles, values, and assumptions that typically belong to the specific context, and data, which consist of facts or other information regarding the specific situation at hand and include the part of the argument that is made explicit in the text. Despite its particular concern for the inferential aspects of argumentation, the AMT, de facto, accounts not only for the logical aspects of the argumentative exchange (topical component), but also for its embeddedness in the parties’ relationship (endoxical component), and thus proves to be particularly suited for the argumentative analysis of ordinary conversations such as family mealtime discussions.

6. Results In this section we will present and discuss some excerpts of family dinnertime interactions to show how norms and values are often taken for granted. In particular, the argumentative discussions between parents and children, occurring when the children do not respect taken for granted parental norms and values, have been organized into different sections according to the topics of the participants’ discussions. More specifically, the first excerpt concerns a discussion around societal rules, gender representations, and adults’/children’s attitude toward lifestyle. The second excerpt concerns a context-bound activity, namely the norms at dinner table, and the third excerpt concerns prejudices and cultural-based arguments about foreigners. For each excerpt an analysis of the participants’ discursive moves and an inferential reconstruction of the argument will be provided to build a collection of cases that will be discussed in the final part of the chapter.



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 271

Excerpt 1. Italian family. Participants: father (DAD, 39 years), mother (MOM, 36 years), Manuela (MAN, 9 years, 7 months), Adriano (ADR 5 years, 7 months), aunt (AUNT, 40 years). All family members are seated at the table. DAD sits at the head of the table, MOM sits on the right-hand side of DAD, while MAN, ADR, and AUNT sit on the opposite side. 1.

*MAN:

2.

*AUNT:

3.

*MAN:

4. 5.

%pau: *AUNT:

6.

*MAN:

7.

*DAD:

8. 9.

%pau: *DAD:

→

*DAD:

10. 11.

%pau: *DAD:

12.

*MAN:

quando sarò grande, saró zitella ((non sposata))  when I become an adult, I would like to remain single/spinster ((not married)) zitella? non vuoi un marito? not married? you don’t want a husband? no:: no:: 2.0 perché? why? perché, non mi va. because, I don’t want to. perché, gli uomini non vanno bene, no? no, eh? because, men are no good, right? right, eh? 4.0  perché, gli uomini sono bestie, secondo te? ((MAN scuote la testa orizzontalmente))  because, men are beasts, do you think? ((MAN shakes her head from side to side))  eh, lo vedi. alto concetto questo, eh. eh, you know. this is a big question, eh. 5.0 voi donne, siete il sesso debole, vero? you women, you are the weak sex, right? come ti permetti! how dare you!

In Excerpt 1, Manuela presents a hypothetical future plan, opening a problematization during conversation. The question is about the possibility (or not) for Manuela to remain single (unmarried). The topic of marriage reveals a discrepancy between the adult expectations and the idea of the child. In fact, in her turn 1, Manuela expresses a plan for the future, confirming her actual position (she is not yet adult). The reaction of the aunt seems to be surprised, because Manuela’s future plan relates to an undervalued condition in society (to be an unmarried adult). However, it is important to specify that the term “zitella” corresponds to the English “spinster,” that has a negative connotation. The Why-question asked by the aunt (who is married) in turn 5 is a good cue that the child’s claim has been perceived as culturally unusual. This aspect is central and the father advances a series of arguments to “ridicule” the child and, ironically, to put Manuela under the obligation of finding arguments to defend her initial statement. In fact, in turn 7 the father’s intervention reveals an implicit negative perception of the judgment of

272 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

the male gender in Manuela’s assertion. The father uses the tag question “right” as an “extreme case formulation,” that allows one to defend against challenges to the legitimacy of complaints and accusations (Pomerantz, 1986). In general, speakers tend to use extreme case formulations when they anticipate or expect the interlocutor to undermine their claims and when they are in adversarial situations. Thus, the father’s statement produces an implicit reference to the general male and female positions. During the verbal exchange, Manuela doesn’t provide arguments to reply to the father’s interventions although his claim seems to ask for accounts (such as “Manuela, are you sure of what you are saying?”). Excerpt 1 illustrates how participants can exploit accusations as a discursive resource to build opposite points of view in conversation as expressions of different (implicit and/or explicit) positions. Also, it shows that extreme case formulations are rhetorical devices that disputants can employ in defending against prospected challenges to the legitimacy of complaints. Therefore, as soon as Manuela expressed her choice, she is confronted (1) with the expression of surprise of her aunt and (2) with the irony of her father. It is interesting to notice that the father did not propose an explicit argumentation about the merits of marriage. By his extreme case formulation, he shows that such an idea can only be based on misconceptions; by default, the desirability of marriage is taken for granted. The reconstruction of the argumentative discussion between Manuela and her father is summarized below: Issue

Is Manuela right to not to want marry anyone (when she becomes an adult)? Standpoint(s) (MAN) I am right to not to want marry anyone (when I become an adult)   (DAD) You are wrong to not to want marry anyone (when you become an adult) Argument (MAN) No argument in support of her standpoint   (DAD) Because men are good (they are not beasts)

In the analysis of the selected argumentative discussion, we will focus on the argument put forth by the father: “because men are good (they are not beasts).” The Y-structure (so-called because its form looks like the letter Y) in Figure 1 will be the graphical tool adopted for representing the AMT’s reconstruction. Instances of applications of the AMT’s reconstructions by using the Y-structure can be found in several studies devoted to argumentation in various contexts (see e.g., Greco Morasso, 2012; Palmieri, 2012; Bova & Arcidiacono, 2013a; Bova, 2015c):



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 273

Living with somebody else is a typical choice for people

Locus from termination and setting up

Datum: Marriage is a choice through which a man decides to live with a woman (and vice versa)

the accomplishment of the otherMaxim: If action p is typically done by people, then doing p is desirable

Conclusion – Minor Premise: Marriase is a typical life choice for people not be supported to find a jobFinal Conclusion: It is desirable to set married

Figure 1.  AMT-based reconstruction of Dad’s argument in Excerpt 1.

The father’s argument is based on a maxim that is engendered from the locus from termination and setting up: “If action p is typically done by people, then doing p is desirable.” Greco Morasso (2011, p. 173), provides a precise definition of this locus: The locus from termination and setting up binds the acceptability of a state of affairs to the acceptability of one or more of its implications. For example, if a certain state of affairs is expected to bring positive consequences, one is led to conclude, on the basis of this locus, that it has to be accepted or even welcomed: for example, one might reason the positive value of going on a diet from the expected outcome to get fit, healthier, and so on. Contrariwise, a state of affairs is to be avoided if its consequences are negative.

The reasoning follows with a syllogistic (i.e. inferential) structure, “Marriage is a normal typical life choice for people” (minor premise), which leads to the conclusion that “It is desirable to get married.” However, this is only one part of the argumentation. The fact that “Marriage is a typical life choice for people” needs further justification; unlike the maxim, this is not an inferential rule but a factual statement that must be backed by contextual knowledge. Looking at the endoxical syllogism of the diagram, the endoxon is the following: “Living with somebody else is a typical choice for people.” The datum “Marriage is a choice through which a man decides to live with a woman (and vice versa)” combined with the endoxon lead to the first conclusion that “Marriage is a typical life choice for people.” This example

274 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

illustrates how some social norms or values are so deeply embedded in the social background that they do not necessitate any explanations. In a family, for instance, the fact that it could be preferable to live alone seems almost unthinkable (at least publicly) and belongs to the common ground. The second example is focused not on expectations about family life in general but on the proper ways to behave in social settings. Excerpt 2. Italian family. Participants: father (DAD, 38 years), mother (MOM, 37 years), Ugo (UGO, 9 years, 9 months), Luisa (LUI, 3 years, 10 months). All family members are seated at the table. DAD sits at the head of the table, MOM sits on the right-hand side of DAD, while UGO and LUI sit on the opposite side. 1.

%act:

2.

*MOM:

→

*MOM:

3.

*DAD:

→

*DAD:

4.

*LUI:

5.

*MOM:

6. 7.

%pau: *UGO:

8.

*DAD:

9.

*UGO:

10. 11.

%pau: *MOM:

12.

*UGO:

13.

%pau:

 Ugo tenta di versare l’acqua nel suo bicchiere tenendo la bottiglia dal fondo con una sola mano, simile al modo in cui i camerieri servono il vino al ristorante, rischiando di far cadere la bottiglia sul pavimento.  Ugo tries to pour water into his glass by holding the bottle from the bottom with just one hand, similarly to the way in which waiters serve wine in a restaurant, risking dropping the bottle on the floor. Ugo, versa correttamente l’acqua per favore.  Ugo, pour the water correctly please. ma perché devi fare le cose in questo modo? but why do you have to do it in this way? Ugo! ((cercando di colpire la mano di Ugo))  Ugo! ((trying to strike the hand of Ugo)) mi costringerai a darti uno schiaffo un giorno! you will force me to give you a slap some day!  perché tutta? ((riferendosi a Ugo che prende la bottiglia e versa tutta l’acqua nel suo bicchiere))  why all of it? ((referring to Ugo who takes the bottle and pours all the water into his glass)) metti la bottiglia dietro di te. ((parlando a Ugo)) put the bottle behind you. ((talking to Ugo)) 4.0  che sto facendo? ((parlando con DAD, che lo sta guardando da alcuni secondi))  what am I doing? ((talking to DAD, who has been looking at him for a few seconds)) quello che hai fatto. non quello che stai facendo. what you’ve done. not what you are doing. cosa ho fatto? what have I done? 2.0 non lo sai. cosa hai fatto, Ugo? you don’t know, what have you done, Ugo? no. no. 1.5



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 275

14.

*UGO:

15.

*MOM:

→

*MOM:

→

*MOM:

16.

*DAD:

no: cosa ho fatto? no: what have I done? non lo sai?  you don’t know?  bene, la prossima volta te lo spiegheremo meglio attraverso uno schiaffone, va bene?  well, next time we will explain it better to you through a big slap, right? perché altrimenti non hai capito. because otherwise you have not understood. perché continui a fare lo stupido. because you continue to behave stupidly.

Excerpt 2 concerns a sequence of conversation between the parents and the child around the contingent violation of a norm (how to pour the water correctly). The mother’s intervention in turn 2 focuses attention on the inappropriate way used by Ugo: “why do you have to do it in this way?” implicitly assumes that “this way” is in contrast with another – correct – way to accomplish the action at stake. Immediately after, the father refers to a potential consequence of the inappropriate behavior of Ugo; in fact, the reference to the possibility of “a big slap” is intended as the fact that a punishment is always the effect of a violation of a rule. After the initial statements and requests of the parents (also with the intervention of the daughter in turn 3, “why all of it?”), Ugo replies in turn 7, after a pause, trying to justify himself and asking for more explanations. Then, the adults focus their interventions on the child’s violation of a norm (turn 11, “you don’t know what you have done Ugo?”), while Ugo tries to use the negation as reply to the parents’ threats (“no…no what have I done?”). Finally, the parents close the sequence through a negative evaluation of the child (turn 16, “you continue to behave stupidly”), without providing an explanation of the child’s conduct. This example shows that not only social values can be transmitted implicitly but also behaviors that a social group considers as appropriate to a given situation. Ugo is manifestly making a “mistake” in the process of pouring some drinks but, interestingly, there is no attempt from either of his parents to explain or demonstrate the right way to do it. In other words, the adults take for granted that the young boy already masters the appropriate way to pour a drink from a bottle. Their irritation stems from the fact that Ugo, in their eyes, is doing it wrong not because of his lack of knowledge but because of his wish to act in a different way (probably observed in a restaurant). The reconstruction of this argumentative discussion is summarized below: Issue Standpoint Argument

Did Ugo pour the water correctly (in an acceptable way)? (MOM and DAD) You are not pouring the water correctly (MOM and DAD) You know that you are doing it incorrectly

276 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

We now turn to the analysis of the inferential configuration of the argument put forward by the mother: “You know that you are doing it incorrectly.” The reconstruction of the inferential configuration of this argument is illustrated below, in Figure 2: Endoxon: At the meal table, all family members know how to behave to pour a drink correctly

Locus from termination and setting up

Datum: Ugo is pouring the water into the glass by holding the bottle from the bottom with just one hand

Maxim: If a person knows that doing action p is incorrect, then p should not be done

Whether the rule is known

It is necessary that the rule is explicated

First Conclusion – Minor Premise: Ugo knows that he is performing his action incorrectly Final Conclusion: Ugo should not pour the water into the glass incorrectly

Figure 2.  AMT-based reconstruction of Mom’s argument in Excerpt 2.

On the right of the diagram the maxim on which the mother’s argument is based is specified: “If a person knows that doing action p is incorrect, then p should not be done.” This is another maxim engendered from the locus from termination and setting up. The minor premise of the topical syllogism is that “Ugo knows that he is performing his action incorrectly” which combined with the maxim leads to the following final conclusion: “Ugo should not pour the water into the glass holding the bottle from the bottom with just one hand.” Looking at the endoxical dimension of the diagram, in this argument the endoxon is as follows: “At the meal table, all family members know when their behavior is correct or incorrect, that is, in our case, that they know how to be have to pour a drink correctly.” The minor premise, “Ugo is pouring the water into the glass in the wrong way,” combined with the endoxon, produces the conclusion that “Ugo knows that he is performing his action incorrectly.” This excerpt is interesting notably because it seems to contain a paradox. Indeed, when adults try to teach an appropriate behavior to a child, they usually show or explain the correct use explicitly. In the literature, such learning processes have been described through the concept of scaffolding, i.e. the process of helping children’s learning by controlling the elements of the task that are initially



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 277

beyond the learners’ ability and by giving them the opportunity to concentrate on the elements that are within their range of competence (Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976, p. 90). In our example, such a scaffolding is strongly denied because the parents are convinced that their child is aware of the right way to proceed. In a way, we could speak here of a “negative scaffolding,” with adults insisting on the fact that it is impossible for the child not to know what he was doing wrong. This emphasis shows implicitly how certain sorts of gestures are expected in social settings, like during mealtimes, and how parents take for granted that everyone in the family will submit to this way of behaving. In family settings, it is actually not unusual that important norms are indicated, so to say, by the negative, either by insisting on the fact that it is impossible that someone does not know them already (as in Excerpt 2), or by being extremely vague about an element that is crucial (but that one is not supposed to talk about). This latter example is typically encountered in the case of a subject marked by political correctness, as in the next excerpt. Excerpt 3. Swiss family. Participants: father (DAD, 36 years), mother (MOM, 34 years), Stefano (STE, 8 years, 5 months), Alessandro (ALE, 4 years, 6 months). Except for DAD, who is in the kitchen, all family members are seated at the table in the dining room. MOM and STE sit on the left-hand side of the table, while ALE sits on the opposite side. 1.

*MOM:

→

*MOM:

→

*MOM:

→

*MOM:

2.

*DAD:

3. 4.

%pau: *STE:

5.

*MOM:

→

*MOM:

6.

%pau: *STE:

→

*STE:

 stamattina c’era una discussione al supermercato, sugli Ecuadoriani  this morning there was a discussion at the grocery store, on the Ecuadorians  sembra che occupino quasi la metà dei parcheggi del supermercato  it seems that they took possession of almost half of the grocery store’s parking fanno il bagno nel fiume, poi uccidono i pesci  they wash themselves in the river, then kill the fish fanno il bucato nel fiume they wash clothes in the river si: me l’ha detto anche Marco ((un amico di Papà)) yes: even Marco ((Dad’s friend)) told me about it 1.0 perché fanno il bagno nel fiume? why do they wash themselves in the river? perché sono poveri, e non hanno un lavoro  because they are poor, and don’t have a job se avessero un lavoro, vivrebbero a casa loro if they had a job, they would live in their own home 2.0 e allora: dovrebbero dargli un lavoro  then they should give them a job così non uccidono i pesci! so that they don’t kill the fish!

278 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

7.

*DAD:

8.

*MOM:

9.

*ALE:

10.

*MOM:

è già dura per noi: it is already hard for us: vi piace il minestrone? [=! guardando i bambini] do you like the soup? [=! looking at the children] brucia! It’s burning me! allora aspetta un attimino che si raffredda then wait a moment for it to cool down

Excerpt 3 involves the mother, the father, and their son Stefano. The mother introduces the topic by saying to Dad that at the grocery store there was a discussion about a group of Ecuadorians. In particular, the fact that the Ecuadorians took possession of part of the grocery store’s parking, that they take baths and wash their clothes in the river, and that they are killing the fish, are the elements under discussion. In turn 2, Dad confirms the plausibility of these topics by saying that a friend of his, Marco, already told the same story. At this point, in turn 4, Stefano decides to take part in this discussion and asks his parents why this group of people take baths in the river. The mother replies to her son that the Ecuadorians do this because they are poor and they don’t have a job (turn 5). She also comments on the fact that if they had a job, they would not act in that way. Now, Stefano advances a standpoint, “then they should give them a job,” accompanied by an argument in its support “so that they don’t kill the fish” (turn 6). The father disagrees with his son and puts forth an argument (turn 7) against the standpoint of giving the Ecuadorians a job: “It is already very hard for us.” This discussion is interrupted by an intervention by the mother who switches to a different topic, asking both children if they like the soup (turn 10). This example is a good illustration of how children are not only informed about their environment via explicit testimony but also via what is not said. In this discussion, the father and the mother first depict a situation where strangers, by their behaviors, start to disturb the tranquility of the village. Once the situation is understood, Stefano proposed an apparently good solution: find them a job, so they do not have to adopt these behaviors anymore. The concise answer stated by the father (“it is already very hard for us”) is full of innuendo and is very hard for an 8-yearold to comprehend. The first implicit is that it is hard for everyone to find a job; it refers to an economic situation that belongs to the sociological background. The second implicit is contained in the “us,” that implies a radical difference between people “from here” and the Ecuadorians (Kaufmann, 2002). The boundary of this “us” is, by the way, not obvious: it is most likely not the members of the family but the larger “us” of fellow citizens. The final implicit is that the State should prioritize help to people that really “belong” to the country. This statement is even more implicit than the others because of its political incorrectness. Indeed, we can suspect that the eagerness of the mother to change the topic of the conversation is linked



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 279

to the difficulty in explicitly stating such a position, notably in front of a child who just took a moral perspective about the strangers’ situation. The reconstruction of the argumentative discussion between Stefano and his father is summarized below: Issue Standpoint(s)   Argument(s)  

Should the Ecuadorians be supported to find a job? (STE) Yes, they should (DAD) No, they should not (STE) So that they don’t kill the fish (DAD) It is already very hard for us

In the analysis of this argumentative discussion, we will focus on the argument put forth by the father: “It is already very hard for us.” The reconstruction of its inferential configuration is illustrated below, in Figure 3: Endoxon: In finding a job, citizens must be supported before foreignersEndoxon:

Locus from alternatives

Datum: In Switzerland, the Ecuadorians do not have a job. It is very hard for Swiss to find a job too

Maxim: If two alternatives cannot be both realized at the same time, the accomplishment of one excludes

First Conclusion – Minor Premise: In Switzerland, the Swiss must be supported before the Ecuadorians in finding a jobFirst

Final Conclusion: In Switzerland, Ecuadorians must

Figure 3.  AMT-based reconstruction of Dad’s argument in Excerpt 3.

In this third example, the argument is based on a maxim that is engendered from the locus from alternatives: “If two alternatives cannot both be realized at the same time, the accomplishment of one excludes the accomplishment of the other” (see Greco Morasso, 2011, pp. 127–129). The reasoning follows with a syllogistic (i.e. inferential) structure, “In Switzerland, the Swiss must be supported before the Ecuadorians in finding a job” (minor premise), which leads to the conclusion that “In Switzerland, Ecuadorians must not be supported to find a job.” Looking at the left side of the diagram, the endoxon is as

280 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

follows: “When finding a job, citizens must be supported before foreigners.” The datum, “In Switzerland, the Ecuadorians do not have a job. It is very hard for Swiss to find a job too,” combined with the endoxon leads to the conclusion that “In Switzerland, Swiss must be supported before the Ecuadorians in finding a job.” From the point of view of children’s socialization, this excerpt is particularly illustrative. To accept the father’s conclusion, the endoxon has, by definition, to go “without saying.” According to the parents, their child has to figure somehow out what is so obvious to them in this situation (national preference). However, what is taken for granted by parents is, in this case, apparently not obvious from the child’s perspective. Unlike his father, the child is convinced that the Ecuadorians should be supported to find a job so that they don’t kill the fish. The endoxon on which the father’s argument is based (“When finding a job, citizens must be supported before foreigners”) is, therefore, not entirely shared between the parents and the child. One may ask why this has occurred. To answer this question, we need to look at the datum: “In Switzerland, the Ecuadorians do not have a job. It is very hard for Swiss to find a job too”. We think that only a part of the information included in the datum is known by the child (In Switzerland, the Ecuadorians do not have a job), while he does not know that it is very hard for Swiss to find a job too. This lack of information by the child could be, in our opinion, the reason at the basis of the difference of opinion between the parents and the child.

7. Discussion and conclusion The three excerpts presented above illustrate specific ways in which what is left implicit in argumentative discussions plays a major role in socialization processes. The first excerpt highlights the role of sarcasm and irony in the depiction of a position that does not respect something that belongs to the cultural background (marriage is an essential component of a successful life). The second excerpt shows that parents can communicate implicitly not only certain abstract concepts but also ways of behaving. Lastly, the third excerpt illustrates how implicit communication can convey “pieces” of ideology. In conclusion, it is interesting to make explicit in each case how what is left implicit in argumentation could play an important role in the shaping of common ground between children and parents. The example of Manuela, who declares that she does not want to marry anyone when she becomes an adult, can be metaphorically seen as a reductio ad absurdum. The proposition “it is normal/desirable for a girl to get married” is never explicitly formulated. On the contrary, the father’s argumentative effort aims to show that his daughter’s desire can only be based on a distorted vision of reality. The lifestyle that is valued by the group is therefore indirectly emphasized as the typical life path for a young girl.



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 281

In the case of Ugo, we have seen that the way he is pouring the water is almost outrageous to his parents. By refusing to explicitly state or show what he is supposed to do and by insisting on the fact that he cannot be ignorant of his misbehavior, they indicate how taken for granted the “normal” way to pour water is. The exchange takes place as if the boy were usurping a role, trying to be someone (a waiter) that he is not, especially not in the context of a family meal. The case of Stefano and the Ecuadorians is probably the most complex and exciting from the point of view of socialization processes. The topic is difficult to tackle for the parents, who most likely want their son to behave morally and be charitable to others. However, the father is implicitly implying that not everyone is equal in such circumstances and that privileges should be granted to “people like us.” It is not easy to imagine how children can clarify such presuppositions. What is important to note is that the father’s statement could have a shared meaning only if the notion of “national preference” is activated as background information. At this stage, it is most likely that Stefano will learn from this dialogue much of what Sperber (1985) calls “semi-propositional” representations, i.e. half-understood concepts or ideas that can serve as an intermediary toward a fuller understanding. In our example, Stefano probably notices that there is something special about “them” compared to “us” and that an action that seems reasonable (giving them a job) is not applicable to everyone. These excerpts also have the advantage of demonstrating a significant consequence of the use of implicits in argumentation within socialization processes. Contrary to usual testimonies, children are not able to increase their knowledge via explicitly communicated propositional contents: they have to build the background elements that will give meaning to the ongoing arguments by themselves. This aspect is central once placed within the context of epistemic vigilance (Sperber et al., 2010). If we accept that, to avoid the risk of being manipulated, human beings have a set of cognitive mechanisms to “filter” communicated information, and implicit transmission facilitates the assimilation of what is “taken for granted” in a community. Indeed, as children do not have access to a proposition (like “Swiss citizens must be supported prior to strangers to find a job”), it is very hard to check the reliability of such a conception. Moreover, in trying to figure out the background of the argument, children have to generate certain hypotheses on their own about what others seem to take for granted. As these inferences or assumptions are internally produced, they are even more resistant to epistemic vigilance, whose function is to check information communicated by others. Hopefully, our excerpts illustrate sufficiently how implicits in argumentation are particularly effective in transmitting what is taken for granted in any given cultural community. First of all, they are based on presuppositions, i.e. background information not explicitly indicated as relevant. Information conveyed by presuppositions

282 Antonio Bova, Francesco Arcidiacono and Fabrice Clément

has the property, even if what is presupposed is new and relevant, of appearing as old, given and as not relevant in its own right (de Saussure, 2013). As Ducrot (1969) stated, when an idea is introduced via a presupposition, everything happens as if the hearer cannot do otherwise than to accept it: the interlocutors share a kind of ontological complicity. Moreover, when implicits and presuppositions are used in argumentation with children, such a complicity is even further accentuated. Firstly, children are largely dependent on adults for their well-being as well as for their knowledge acquisition. In such a dependent condition, it is difficult to imagine how children could question what is presupposed by the persons who are taking care of them. Secondly, we have seen that the background necessary to understand an argument is often not present in younger minds. Children have therefore to figure out (initially vaguely) a certain context that enables them to make sense of the ongoing dialogue. This background will progressively be enriched thanks to other interactions. However, as it is “internally produced,” it is very hard for the younger members of any social community to figure out that this common ground is not natural. Finally, we would like to highlight the relevance of paying particular attention to the context-based micro-level discourses that are framing and shaping argumentation as a dialogue-driven and context-specific communication process within family conversations. In fact, field-dependency of argumentative discourse relies primarily on the consideration of the social context (the family as a community, in our case) within which discourse is embedded. To understand how argumentative strategies are related to particular context-based activities about the family as a community of practice and to what extent argumentation practices are shaped by socio-cultural and interpersonal factors have been the objectives of our chapter. For this reason, the results of our investigation can contribute to the wider theme of argumentative practices and debates on societal and family issues: in particular, we have highlighted the interplay between different elements of argumentative practices, such as the social need to provide evidence for a particular assertion and the pragmatic functions of argumentation during a discussion. In this vein, talk and activities are viewed as the relevant units for the analysis of family dinnertime interactions, to shed light on situated frameworks that adults and children co-construct through their strategic maneuvering during everyday exchanges (Pontecorvo & Arcidiacono, 2016). Family interactions constitute a favorable discursive arena involving children and adults through different intersubjective positions that are shaped within the contingent context of discussion. Assuming the perspective highlighted by Rogoff (2003), argumentation as cultural activity contributes not only to giving conditions for defining development, but also to framing the context in which the development is supported.



Chapter 11.  The transmission of what is taken for granted in children’s socialization 283

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Appendix 1.  Length of recordings, family members, average age of participants Family group

Italian

Swiss

Length of recordings in minutes Mean length of recordings in minutes Participants Mothers Fathers Adults, total Son Daughter Children Total participants Average age of participants Mother Father Parents Son Daughter First-born

20–37 32.41

19–42 35.12

 5  5 10  6  4 10 20

 5  5 10  6  7 13 23

36.40 (SD 2.881) 38.40 (SD 3.209) 37.40 (SD 3.062)   7.50 (SD 3.619)   4.00 (SD 1.414)   8.00 (SD 2.00) (4 sons; 1 daughter)   3.20 (SD   .447) (2 sons; 3 daughters)  0

34.80 (SD 1.643) 37.00 (SD 1.581) 35.90 (SD 1.912)   5.83 (SD 1.835)   4.86 (SD 2.268)   7.60 (SD   .894) (3 sons; 2 daughters)   4.40 (SD   .548) (2 sons; 3 daughters)  3    (SD  .000) (1 son; 2 daughters)

Second-born Third-born

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Appendix 2.  Transcription conventions * […] (( )) [=! ] xxx %act: %sit: , . : ? ! → %pau: @End

indicates the speaker’s turn not-transcribed segment of talking segments added by the transcriber in order to clarify some elements of the situation segments added by the transcriber to indicate some paralinguistic features inaudible utterance(s) description of speaker’s actions description of the situation/setting continuing intonation falling intonation prolonging of sounds rising intonation exclamatory intonation maintaining the turn of talking by the speaker pause end of the family meal

Section V

Argumentation practices in multi-modal discourse environments

Chapter 12

Visual arguments in activists’ campaigns A pragmadialectical perspective Chiara Degano

Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”

This chapter contributes to the ongoing debate on the possibility and realizations of visual arguments, focussing on advertisements produced by NGOs as part of their campaigns – image-based messages that are inherently argumentative and whose reach, thanks to the Web, extends well beyond the time and space constraints of the campaigns themselves. One of the nodes of such a debate concerns whether visuals can express at the same time the two parts of an argument (standpoint and supporting argument), and how each of them can be identified. The analysis carried out here heads into this direction, by putting to use categories from Kress and van Leeuwen’s ‘grammar’ of visual design and combining them with the tenets of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation.

1. Introduction In studies of visual communication the claim is often made that the traditional relation between the verbal and the visual component of communication, with the latter occupying an ancillary position, has been reversed in post-modern culture. With the advent of cinema and TV, images have gradually come to occupy a more central position, drawing attention on their role in mass-mediated communication (cf. Delicath & Deluca, 2003; Manovich, 1998), which according to some has gone as far as deeply impacting cognitive styles. As a result, generations grown up under the influence of TV, and even more so those born in the digital era, have become accustomed to a form of meaning making in which verbal literacy and visual literacy (Kress, 2003) are closely knit. In light of the above, the view is here entertained that if visual culture is so pervasive, argumentation as a fundamental human cognitive process must in some way participate in this semiotic turmoil, with a consequent rise (or possibly intensification) of arguments conveyed visually. This paper contributes to the discussion on the viability of visual argumentation, by focusing on a specific type of visual communication, i.e. doi 10.1075/aic.10.13deg © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

292 Chiara Degano

activists’ advertising campaigns. Activist groups’ campaigns are a form of discourse which is explicitly argumentative (cf. Degano, 2013, 2014) and at the same time is the expression of ‘subaltern counterpublics’ (Fraser, 1992), who – unlikely to get access to mainstream media – find in the Web their privileged site of discourse. The object of investigation will be a selection of images deployed by two of the biggest activist groups (Amnesty International and Greenpeace). They will be analysed in light of the different positions taken in the ongoing debate on the possibility of visual argumentation, with a view to establishing whether they qualify as arguments. If this is the case, an attempt will be made to identify analogies and differences with verbal arguments, with special reference to the categories of the critical discussion model, and particularly with its extended version (van Eemeren, 2010), which through the notion of Strategic Manoeuvring (re)integrates rhetoric into a theory of argumentation. Specific research questions concern the status of images in the critical discussion conducted by activists, i.e. do they simply illustrate points made verbally or constitute arguments on their own (full arguments or simply parts of it, like premises, claims, defence, conclusion…)? At the same time the paper tackles a genre of promotional discourse, the activists’ campaign, which, to the best of the author’s knowledge, has not been addressed yet in studies of visual arguments, having received in fact little attention in general.

2. Review of the literature The debate on visual arguments has focused in the first place on the possibility of argumentation resting on modalities other than the verbal. Detractors rule out such an option on the ground of a few recurrent arguments. The main objection is that arguments are made of two parts, a claim (or position, assertion, conclusion, thesis, point, proposition, standpoint, etc.) and its defence (evidence, data, proof, support, reason, etc.), and images cannot convey both parts at once (Fleming, 1996, p. 14). According to the champions of such a position, pictures function as a “simultaneous whole”, lacking “internal differentiation”, whence the impossibility of a reliable distinction between claim and supporting evidence. Johnson (2005) for example, points out that existing theories of visual arguments have failed to account for how a visual argument is “extracted” from images. This view refers to the commonly accepted dichotomy between verbal discourse as linearly arranged along a temporal dimension, and images as spatial in nature – therefore lacking internal sequential arrangement. Of the two, only the former is allegedly suitable to convey arguments with their ‘conceptually-distinct ideas sequentially linked in structures like “X, therefore Y,” “X because of Y,” etc. (Fleming, 1996, p. 13), as suggested by



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definitions of arguments in terms of a “line of reasoning” (Hintikka & Bachman, 1991, p. 8), or a sequence or chain (Andrews, Costello & Clark, 1993). Pictures, on the other hand, are perceived as capable of combining constituents, in so far as their internal components are arranged in relation with each other, but this relation cannot supposedly be syntagmatic, based on the assumption that visual lacks syntax altogether. Along this line of reasoning, pictures are seen as powerful means to stir emotions, but completely unable to make a statement (Gombrich, 1982, p. 138). However, this dichotomical conception of verbal vs visual has been challenged by studies of multimodal discourse (Kress, 2003; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Garzone et al., 2007) which have seen an impetus in the era of Computer-mediated communication. For example, Kress and van Leeuwen, in their grammar of visual design (2006) 1 envisage both a narrative and a conceptual function for images, each characterized by specific structures of representation. Furthermore, studies of arguments on the Web (Degano, 2013, 2014) have shown that argumentation can exist on the web also in the absence of a pre-established linear arrangement. Vis-à-vis the assumed impossibility for pictures to convey both parts of an argument, some scholars have entertained the view that a picture could function as just one part of the argument. Jamieson (1988, p. 240) and Buchanan (1989, p. 108) see the visual and material artefacts respectively as suitable to express standpoints, which are left undefended, privileging assertion over reason-giving, a practice that Jamieson considers the norm in the age of television, and which Buchanan calls “assertoric rhetoric”. Another common argument against the possibility of visual arguments is that images cannot convey a standpoint nor defend it, unless they are ‘translated’ into words (Kneupper, 1978, in Fleming, 1996; Johnson, 2005). That is to say that even if pictures were given a place in argumentation theory, their role would be ancillary to the verbal component, without the mediation of which visual arguments could hardly be decoded. In support of the primacy of words over pictures in argumentation Fleming quotes authoritative scholars in contemporary argumentation theory. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969, p. 8) affirm that an action meant to achieve the audience’s adherence of mind should not be considered argumentation, if “the use of language is lacking in its support or interpretation”. Toulmin, Rieke and Janik (1979, p. 137) maintain that “reasoning could not exist in the absence of language. Both claims and all the considerations used to support them must be expressed by some kind of a linguistic symbol system.” Likewise, Balthrop (1980, pp. 185, 188) has it that an argument is “inherently discursive and linguistic”, and codes other

1. Bowman claimed the existence of a vocabulary and syntax for visual communication already in 1968 (Bowman, 1968, p. 8).

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than the verbal would not be able to give reason for or justify a position. Finally, van Eemeren, Grootendorst and Kruiger (1984) are quoted, making the same point in the following terms: Argumentation requires the use of language. A person engaged in argumentation makes an assertion or statement, assumes or doubts something, denies something, and so on. For the performance of all these activities he must utter words and sentences (whether spoken or written). Besides these verbal means he can, of course – just as in any other verbal activity – employ non-verbal means (e.g., facial expression and gestures). To the extent that these fulfil an argumentative function, they can always be explicitized verbally. (in Fleming, 1996, p. 12)

Furthermore, as Johnson (2005) rightly points out, the role of language in (multi) semiotic objects that are presented as examples of visual argumentation often goes beyond mere mediation between human form and human cognition, as part of the message is in fact conveyed verbally, and without that part the sense would be crippled (Johnson, 2005). Closely related to the language-primacy argument is the assumption that reasonableness is inherently associated with language and not with other forms of expression. In Fleming’s words, To say that something is “reasonable” is to assert that it admits of improvement, is corrigible, refutable, accountable; it is an act or object which can be interrogated, criticized, and elaborated by others (and even invites interrogation, criticism, and elaboration). An argument exists, that is, in a specifiable context of debate, controversy, opposition, or doubt; its position is thus necessarily contestable”.

In the frame of this second argument, it is maintained that a picture cannot be refuted, opposed, or negated reliably, on the twofold ground that pictures are inherently indetermined and cannot refute someone else’s claim. With regard to indetermination, Fleming (1996, p. 16) points out that, it is difficult to access reliably with a picture any message other than the one being pictured. To doubt, question, or criticize that message, we would need to introduce language into the situation, an operation that can be especially difficult (and risky) if the initial message is not linguistically explicit.

As a consequence of indeterminacy, the proposer of a certain visual proposition which has been opposed by another participant may deny that the picture expressed that very position. However, this is also true of certain forms of indirect linguistic expression, such as implicature (Grice, 1975) or presupposition (Levinson, 1983), in which the speaker who gave rise to them may always say “that’s not what I said”, if faced by any challenge.



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As far as visual refutation is concerned, a picture cannot supposedly “provide viewers with access to its opposite” (Fleming, 1996, p. 16), 2 a capability which on the other hand is always assumed for words. In other words, in verbal argumentation disagreement is possible because the truth of a propositions can be logically negated by another proposition. A statement like “it’s hot out here”, for example opens the way, potentially or de facto, to a number of contrasting statements like “no, it’s not, …. I think it’s cold” (Fleming, 1996, p. 16). In fact also in this case those who rule out the possibility of negation for visuals seem to amplify the difference between visual and verbal more than is justified: just as in the case of words, the denial of what is explicitly asserted is simply implied, i.e. it is a mere possibility that translates into practice only if a receiver takes the pain to do so (i.e. the negation is not linguistically codified in the original statement), so also with pictures the burden of challenge lies with the receiver. Possibly a difference exists between visual and verbal in this respect, but it is gradual and not absolute, as a picture “seems to have a closer material relationship with the represented world” (Fleming, 1996, p. 5) and is “therefore less available for opposition than language”. The latter argument, however, is related to a conception of pictures (mainly intended as photography) 3 as an objective slice of time-space, hence not arguable, which is clearly less tenable in a time of digital picture editing, where photographs can be, and often are, admittedly manipulated. Furthermore even in unmodified pictures the photograph can give a slant to the object of representation playing on the selection of subjects and on technical details, such as the light, just to mention the most obvious. Finally, another related point is that images, due to their emotional intensity, may hinder logical thought, eliciting the emotive response intended by its producer, and at the same time make it difficult for the receiver to entertain alternative points 2. Fleming illustrates the point as follows: “What the picture cannot do […] is by picturing a smiling student on a sunny day suggest non-sunny days and non-smiling students. We can’t look at a picture and produce its pictorial opposite without first translating it into a negatable linguistic assertion. To pictorially ‘oppose’ the picture, we would have to treat the original as somehow equivalent to or captioned by the relevant language which our new picture refutes”. 3. Postman’s position in this respect (1985: pp. 72–73) is synthesized by Fleming as follows: “As an ‘objective’ slice of space-time, the photograph testifies that someone was there or something happened. Its testimony is powerful but it offers no opinions – no ‘should-have-beens’ or ‘might-have-beens.’ Photography is pre-eminently a world of fact, not of dispute about facts or of conclusions to be drawn from them …. When applied to a photograph, the question ‘Is it true?’ means only ‘Is this a reproduction of a real slice of space-time?’ If the answer is ‘Yes,’ there are no grounds for argument, for it makes no sense to disagree with an unfaked photograph. The photograph itself makes no arguable propositions, makes no extended and unambiguous commentary.”

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of view. Fox (1994b, p. 77), with regard to this aspect, affirms that “the emotional intensity of visuals limits the number of rational options we weigh in thinking through problems”, while Hayakawa (in Fox, 1994a, p. 184) maintains that it is easier for people to have an uncritical confidence in images than in words. Although there is something to this argument – pictures can reach a higher emotional intensity and a more immediate impact than words –, leveraging on emotions is not an exclusive property of images, as testified by the well established category of appeals to pathos in classical (verbal) rhetoric. Or suffice it to think of the use of emotional language in verbal arguments on heated topics like abortion or gay rights, as pointed out by Groarke (1996, p. 107). Nor are pictures inherently more irrational that words, as affirmed by Slade (2003, p. 153): […] advertisements, like the new media, are no more and no less irrational than any other medium of communication. They are used for communication: and understanding what others mean, linguistically or non-linguistically, requires complex reasoning.

On the other hand, supporters of visual arguments point out examples of visual (or visual and verbal) artefacts with an argumentative intent: cartoons (Groarke, 1996; Birdsell & Groarke, 1996; Groarke, 2002, 2009), paintings (Groarke, 1996; Blair, 1996/2012) political advertising (Kjeldsen, 2007), films (Alcolea-Banegas, 2009), documentaries (Lake & Pickering, 1998), anti-smoking campaign posters (Groarke, 1996; Birdsell & Groarke, 1996), commercial advertising (Slade, 2003; Kjeldsen, 2012), protest ‘image events’ (Delicath & Deluca, 2003). Medhurst and DeSousa (1981) see political cartoons as a form of enthymeme resting on commonly held assumptions to defend a certain position by means of “acceptable (albeit unspoken) reasons” (Fleming, 1996, p. 11). Delicath and Deluca, following Goodnight (1991) and Olson and Godnight (1994), conceive of image events, i.e. “dramatic acts of protest staged for media dissemination” (2003, p. 324), as a form of post-modern argumentative practice, aimed at stirring social debate on heated issues. In line with the contemporary fragmentation of discourse, these actions provide “images as argumentative fragments that serve as inventional resources for public deliberation, and which shift the responsibility for argument construction to audiences” (Delicath & Deluca 2003, p. 317). Blair (2012) concludes that nothing rules out the possibility of visual argumentation, at least as far as O’Keefe’s definition of argument1is concerned (O’Keefe 1977; 1982). 4 According to O’Keefe, an argument1 consists of “a linguistically ­explicable 4. O’Keefe’s famous definition distinguishes between argument1, intended as something “one person makes (or presents or utters), as is the case in the sentence “he made an argument”), and argument2, something which “two persons have or engage in” (1997, p. 121).



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claim and one or more linguistically explicable reasons”, with the latter overtly expressed. Therefore, according to Blair, it is sufficient for an argument to have reasons overtly expressed, and both reasons and claim linguistically explicable, that is to say they must be able to be restated into words; they needn’t be originally uttered in verbal form. This said, a condition must be met, first, i.e. discerning how propositions functioning as claims can be distinguished from those functioning as supporting reasons (Blair, 2012, p. 208). Groarke (1996, p. 107) addresses some of the objections to the possibility of visual arguments. With regard to the ‘argument-is-two-parts’ objection, he claims that visual arguments can contain a premise-conclusion structure “which is amenable to standard forms of argumentative analysis”. In his 2009 work, he shows that visual arguments can in fact express more than that, as all the four key components of Toulmin’s model (2003) can be retrieved in political cartoons (even though not all of them in just one cartoon). Responding to the ‘visual-as-inherently-undetermined’ argument, he points out that “the implicitness which we associate with visual persuasion has an analogue in implicit or “hidden” premises and conclusions that accompany many verbal claims”. The only provision for giving visual arguments pride of citizenship is acknowledging the existence of visual statements (a not too controversial position) and, more disputably of visual negations (Groarke, 1996, pp. 108, 109). In fact conventions for image composition envisage the possibility of expressing negation, by means of a straightforward recourse to “visual symbols for negation” (e.g. a red circle with a diagonal) but also through the juxtaposition of “incongruent images or incongruent images and words”, or the blatant violation of commonly accepted visual conventions (Groarke, 1996, p. 109). Closely connected with the possibility of expressing negation is images’ possibility for refutation, an aspect explored in depth by Lake and Pickering (1998) with regard to a series of documentaries on abortion, the first of which produced by anti-abortionists, its refutation released by an association defending women’s right to end their pregnancies, and a final response to it by the anti-abortionist association. After a thorough recapitulation of the debate on this specific aspect, Lake and Pickering identify three techniques by means of which visual refutation of non-propositional argumentation can be achieved: the dissection of images whereby the original presentation of a fetus as a child is broken down and challenged bit by bit; the substitution of women as (passive) mothers with women as active professionals, and the transformation of the physical and interpretative frame attached to the original documentary (the images shown in it are reframed in a new setting with a commentator viewing them in a monitor and offering a critique of them). In a joint effort to make a case for the possibility of visual arguments, Birdsell and Groarke (1996) set out an agenda for a theory of visual arguments, identifying four issues that want consideration. The first issue concerns the alleged indeterminacy of

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images which according to the above mentioned “prejudice” among argumentation scholars are “in some intrinsic way arbitrary, vague and ambiguous (p. 1), hence unsuitable to make clearly identifiable claims. Birdsell and Groarke acknowledge the difficulty of distinguishing visual premises and conclusion, but blame this on the lack of adequate pondering on visual arguments in argumentation theory (Birdsell & Groarke, 1996, p. 5), and not on an inherent quality of visual arguments. The second issue has to do with the importance of the context in which visual arguments are produced as a supplement to the meaning which is physically conveyed by the visual. The third issue addresses the relation between resemblance and representation, with specific attention for the forms of conventionalization attendant to the latter, and a recognition of the argumentative potential of both (Birdsell & Groarke, 1996, p. 8). Finally, the fourth issue entails a revision of the boundaries between argumentation and persuasion, as well as of the “typical confinement of visuals with persuasion”. The two concepts are generally seen as differing for the presence/absence of an appeal to rationality, which is at the basis of argumentation and is allegedly missing in persuasion. Blair (2012, p. 219) for example conceives of this difference in terms of “the nature and degree of mediation by the agent”: if a change in our beliefs or attitudes is brought by through the intervention of a choice, then we can talk of persuasion . If we can identify “expressible reasons” provided in favour or against such a change, persuasion is attained by means of argumentation. A different position is held by Birdsell and Groarke, according to whom what is normally considered persuasion, in so far as it entails non logical exhortation, can in fact be construed as an argument: holding a cake in front of a dieter’s nose, which would by normal standards qualify as persuasion, could stand for the argument “Eating this cake would be wonderful, therefore you should forget your diet and eat it” (Birdsell & Groarke, 1996, p. 8). In a later work Groarke (2002) sets the issue of visual arguments in the pragma-dialectical frame of a critical discussion, considering images as speech acts used to try and resolve a difference of opinion. What becomes relevant, then, is not whether images can argue, but whether they can contribute to the resolution of disputes by expressing standpoints or defending them. 5 In this way, Groarke seems to shift attention from images’ inherent capacity to express premises and conclusions, to the nexus of relations between images and contextual factors, which bring to the fore the intentions of participants to intend visual arguments as such. Extending the principles of communication to visual arguments, Groarke posits that 5. Differently from the definition of argument based on their internal structural components (claims and premises), in pragmadialectics, arguments are defined in terms of their function, i.e. as attempts to defend a standpoint (van Eemeren & Grotendorst, 1992, p. 14).



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images in visual arguments can in principle be understood; that images have a meaning that can be understood in terms of the major (visual and verbal) elements they contain; and that such images should be understood in terms of their social, critical, political and aesthetic context”. (2009, p. 231)

This emphasis on the image in context, as opposed to the image as such, is reminiscent of the change in perspective brought about by text linguistics with regard to verbal texts (cf. de-Beaugrande & Dressler, 1981/2001). In that case, besides the traditional text-internal standards or textuality, i.e. cohesion and coherence, other standards – intentionality and acceptability, informativity, situationality and intertextuality – were postulated in order to account for text-external factors which affect how meanings are conveyed via texts. The enhanced role of contextual factors is a crucial assumption for the analysis carried out here, as further exposed in the following section.

3. Material and method The pictures for the analysis are part of three campaigns targeting respectively the violation of human rights in China – released on the occasion of the 2008 Bejing Olympics –, the use of child soldiers, and environmental hazards. The Olympics advertisements, in fact, were commissioned by Amnesty International’s French offices to the firm TBWA, but eventually were dropped by the organization, because deemed too violent. The producer of the ads, however, entered them for a website prize, so they started circulating on the web. At the time of writing they are still retrievable from newspapers websites and blogs (, 16.7.2008; The Inspiration Room, posted on 22.7.2008, both accessed last on July 4, 2014). The child soldiers campaign was still going on at the time of writing and was featured on Amnesty’s website (, last accessed on July 4, 1014). The materials discussed in this chapter, though, are older, and have been retrieved from a Wordpress image gallery (), testifying to the independent ‘life’ objects get once they have entered the Web. The same is true of Greenpeace’s Stop the catastrophe image, developed by Saatchi & Saatchi in Romania. The black and white illustration shows an axman felling a tree shaped like an atom bomb explosion, which is not available anymore on Greenpeace’s website, but is accessible from image galleries and personal blogs (http://wallacegardens.tumblr.com, accessed on July 4, 2014). The images have been selected for their intuitively argumentative drive, and will be put to a critical scrutiny relying on a composite analytic frame which integrates

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Kress/van Leeuwen’s grammar of visual design (2006), with the pragmadialectical approach to argumentation, vis-à-vis the debate on visual arguments outlined in paragraph 2. Each picture will be tested for argumentativeness relying first on Kress and van Leeuwen’s model, by means of which a visual object can be read through analytic categories that can arguably help distinguish visual premises and conclusions. The model proposes a system of correspondences between the verbal and the visual semiotic code, with specific reference to Halliday’s Functional Grammar. Among other things, the two linguists distinguish two macro-categories of visual structures of representation: narrative and conceptual patterns. The former impinges on Halliday’s system of transitivity, with participants connected by vectors that depict them as ‘doing something to or for each other’ in the course of ongoing actions with a focus on the temporal dimension; the latter represent participants “in terms of their class, structure or meaning, in other words, in terms of their generalized and more or less stable and timeless essence (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 59). Although no explicit reference is made to argumentation by Kress and van Leeuwen, the hypothesis is made here that their category of conceptual processes (including classificational, analytical and symbolic processes) can be put to use as a point of departure for the examination of visual arguments. 6 Particularly relevant to the end of this analysis are symbolic processes, which relate to what the object of visual representation ,means or is. 7 In one type of symbolic process, called ‘symbolic attributive’, the image features a carrier, i.e. the participant whose meaning or identity is established, and its symbolic attributes, which represent the meaning or identity itself. Drawing on the work of art historians (in particular Hermeren, 1969) Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, p. 105) define symbolic attributes as pictorial objects having one or more of the following formal characteristics: 1. They are made salient in the representation in one way or another; for instance, by being placed in the foreground, through exaggerated size, through being especially well lit, through being represented in especially fine detail or sharp focus, or through their conspicuous colour or tone.

6. Kress & van Leeuwen’s model was already applied to the analysis of visual arguments by Slade 2003, but with a different focus. 7. For information completion, classificational processes are governed by superordinate/subordinate relations, as is typical of diagrams, flowcharts and taxonomies, while analytical ones are characterized by part-whole relations between a carrier and its attributes, intended as the physical parts which make the whole.



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2. They are pointed at by means of a gesture which cannot be interpreted as an action other than the action of ‘pointing out the symbolic attribute to the viewer’ […] 3. They look out of place in the whole, in some way. 4. They are conventionally associated with symbolic values. (p. 105) In another type of process, the ‘symbolic suggestive’, there is just the carrier symbolizing something through the ‘mood’ or ‘atmosphere’ conjured up by the image. Technically, this evocative power can be achieved through the use of colours (a “soft golden glow”, for instance, for a richly flavoured coffee advert), and of focus (soft focus or extreme lighting making the participants as outlines or silhouettes (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006, p. 106), all features meant to confer onto symbolic suggestive pictures their essentiality, i.e. “their quality of depicting not a specific moment but a generalized essence”. In this chapter, particular reference is made to the representation of symbolic processes, which are about what something is or means, based on the assumption that a pre-condition for visuals to make judgements (the latter being the cognitive function associated with argumentative text types according to Werlich, 1983) is to convey such a relation. When it is said (or conveyed graphically), for example, that deforestation is a catastrophe, a relational 8 process is established between the first element – ‘token’ in Hallidayan terms (Halliday, 1985, pp. 112 ff.),– and the second (the token’s ‘value’). Furthermore the breakdown of images into their components will also make it possible to account, beyond mere intuition, for how negation is visually conveyed in each case. Secondly, the visual objects will be reconstructed analytically as contributing to a critical discussion, with reference to the pragmadialectical approach to argumentation (van Eemeren & Grotendorst, 1984, 2004; van Eemeren et al., 2002; van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2002; van Eemeren 2010). The model, which basically has a heuristic function, permits to break down the content of a discussion into steps which are functionally relevant to the solution of a dispute. Such a ‘reconstruction’ process entails four main transformative operations (van Eemeren et al., 1993): the deletion of ‘irrelevant digressions’; permutation, i.e. rearranging speech acts whose order does not reflect their function in the resolution process; addition, i.e. making explicit such speech acts as remain implicit in the actual discourse; and substitution, i.e. reformulating those speech acts that in their original wording are ambiguous, making their function opaque. 8. In language, relational and existential processes are used to realize conceptual structures, as opposed to action and mental processes.

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In consideration of the peculiarities of visual arguments, recourse will be had in particular to additive and substitutive operations, so as to ‘translate’ each picture into a suitable standpoint and one supporting argument, with the attendant argumentative scheme.

4. Analysis The methodological frame thus outlined will now be applied to the visuals selected for the analysis, starting from one of the Beijing Olympics images:

Picture 1.  Beijing Olympics: swimming pool.

The picture as a whole symbolizes the incongruence between the spirit of the Olympics (which pursues mental and physical well-being while entailing “mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play” http://www. olympic.org/olympism-in-action) 9 and the widespread violation of human rights in China – its host country at the time of this image’s release. More specifically it can be considered an example of the symbolic attributive process, in which the carrier – I would argue – is the swimming pool, standing metonymically for the Olympics. The symbolic attributes one would expect associated with it in the frame of the Olympic games (e.g. a representation of athletes engaged in fair and peaceful competition), are replaced by the torture inflicted by police agents. In other words, the torture scene qualifies as a symbolic attribute, according to Kress/van Leeuwen’s 9. Unless otherwise indicated, websites were last accessed on 20 October 2016.



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definition: it receives its saliency (cf. characteristic 1 in the scheme above) from its centrality in the compositional plan and its dramatic force, but the identity relation which normally characterizes symbolic attributive processes is completely subverted here, torture being antithetical to the conventional symbolic attributes of the Olympics. In the subverted logic thus established, the antithetically symbolic attributes fit perfectly in the remaining of Kress and van Leeuwen’s definition of symbolic attributes: the agents’ gesture of repeatedly forcing the victim’s head into water has the function of “pointing out the symbolic attribute to the viewer” (characteristic 2); the action depicted looks out of place in the context of Olympic games (characteristic 3), and finally it is conventionally associated (from a Western democratic perspective) with certain values (characteristic 4), in this case values of condemnation and censure. The conceptual process thus visually represented qualifies as an argument made of a standpoint (“there is an incongruence in the choice of China as host country for the Olympic games”) and a supporting argument (“because China violates human rights systematically, and violating human rights is symptomatic of being antithetical to the Olympic values”). The incongruence emerging from the relation between the carrier and the symbolic attributes, then, conveys the standpoint, whereas the parts of this picture (torture and the swimming pool) express the supporting argument and its unexpressed premise respectively. A similar pattern is repeated in other adverts from the same campaign, where what varies is the sport, but the presence of a clash remains constant, with a woman chained to a dumbbell in the Olympics colours and a man lashed to an archery target, who has just been executed as shown below:

Picture 2.  Beijing Olympics: dumbbell.

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Picture 3.  Beijing Olympics: archery target.

The reasoning underpinning these visual arguments can be reconstructed as follows: 1.there is a discrepancy between the Olympics spirit and China’s attitude toward Human rights

1.1’

1.1 China violates human rights

&

it is in the Olympics spirit to pursue individual’s physical and mental wellbeing

Diagram 1.  Reconstruction of argumentation.

The standpoint is defended by a single argument (1.1), which rests on an unexpressed premise (1.1′), thus representing an example of simple argumentation (van Eemeren et al., 2002). The scheme that warrants the passage from the argument to the standpoint is based on a symptomatic relation, with the pursuit of physical and mental wellbeing as the essence of the Olympics, and conversely, violation of human rights as a negation thereof. Breaking down the symptomatic scheme into its constitutive parts, and applying the necessary additive and substitutive transformations, the following reformulation can be proposed: Y (being at odds with the Olympics spirit) is true of X (China) Because Z (violating human rights) is true of X (China) And Z (violating human rights) is symptomatic of Y (being at odds with the Olympics spirit).



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Clearly, the propositional content of such visual statements can be accessed only if the receiver shares some background knowledge with the author, concerning the Olympics, China’s reputation for human rights violations and Amnesty International’s mission. However this is not radically different from what happens with verbal arguments, where part of the argumentative structure can remain implicit, and will nonetheless be inferred by the receiver relying on background knowledge. A case in point is an example of argumentation featured on an NGO’s website making the case for a Boycott of Nestlé, the Swiss food giant, for its marketing policy of infant formula in developing countries, as discussed by Degano (2014). The campaign’s homepage contained no explicit standpoint (such as “boycott Nestlé”) but hosted a number of arguments in support of the boycott, so that a user who knows what the organization’s mission is, and what an NGO’s campaign does (i.e. ‘arguing against some practice judged dangerous or morally wrong’) will infer the implicit standpoint and make sense of the individual bits of content in light of that. Nor do arguments differ from other forms of discourse in their calling for the receiver’s contribution of part of the meaning: since texts are neither generated nor received in a vacuum, the receiver must always contribute to the construction of meaning by drawing on his/her background knowledge. Thus, if context is fundamental in all types of discourse, to a greater or lesser extent, in visual arguments its role is all the more important. What was said so far is confirmed by the analysis of some images drawn from Amnesty’s Child Soldiers campaign. Also in this case a macroscopic discrepancy is what gives the visual an argumentative (illocutionary) force:

Picture 4.  Amnesty’s Child Soldiers campaign: road sign.

The image represents two stylized children in war outfit pointing weapons at each other on a seesaw which balances on a bomb. A verbal message accompanies the image, which reads “Caution children at war”. It takes the receiver’s background knowledge to complement this message with fundamental implicit contents: the advertisement contains an intertextual reference to road signs normally found in the proximity of playgrounds, reading ‘SLOW. CHILDREN AT PLAY’, to warn

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drivers that a child might cross the road. While the original sign, then, is meant to preserve children engaged in their natural daily activities from possible injury, Amnesty’s image depicts children in a most unnatural situation, where far from being protected, they are exposed to violence and death. The verbal part of the message adds to the discrepancy, making the intertextual reference more explicit and the paradox more acute, the word caution being completely out of place with the second part of the warning. The conceptual process at stake here is once more of the ‘attributive symbolic’ type, where the carrier (the children) is defined in relation with playful activities, which are by normal standards taken as the symbolic attribute of childhood. This symbolic attribute is, however negated by the presence of war symbols, which become antithetical symbolic attributes, whereby a clash is created. The ensuing standpoint can then be worded as “using children as soldiers negates childhood”, and is hence immoral, and the supporting argument can be expressed as “because child-soldiers kill and are killed” (as summed up by the representation of children pointing weapons at each other), and according to common (Western) wisdom, killing and being killed in war is antithetical to what children should do (i.e. is tantamount to negating childhood): 1. Using children as soldiers negates childhood

1.1 Child-soldiers kill and are killed in war

&

1.1’ Killing and being killed in war is unnatural for children

Diagram 2.  Reconstruction of argumentation.

The scheme linking the argument to the standpoint rests also in this case on a symptomatic relation and can be rendered as follows: Y (Negation of childhood) is true of X (child-soldiers) Because Z (killing and being killed in war) is true of X (child-soldiers) And Z (killing and being killed in war) is symptomatic of Y (negation of childhood).



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The standpoint and supporting arguments represented above can in turn be seen as contributing to the defence of the unexpressed overarching deontic standpoint “stop using child-soldiers”, defended by the unexpressed argument “because using children as soldiers is unethical”. Such a reconstruction is made possible only if background knowledge about Amnesty’s activities and activists’ campaigns as a genre, associated with a common ground of beliefs are brought into the picture by the receiver. Interestingly enough, the road-sign image illustrates quite clearly that a visual argument is capable of expressing a “should have been” meaning (cf. footnote 3), which is conveyed by the explicit graphical codification of both “natural” and antithetical symbolic attributes. The capacity for visual arguments to express alternative states of things is expressed even more explicitly in the following picture where the reality of children soldiers is set in opposition to what “should be”, i.e. children playing. The clash between what is (hanged child-soldiers) and what should be (children free to play as is natural for their age) is made even stronger by the constant of ropes, used in one case to execute child-soldiers and in the other as a form of enjoyment by children.

Picture 5.  Amnesty’s Child-Soldiers campaign: ropes.

Differently from Picture 4, in this case the visual does not seem to contain a supporting argument, but simply an antithetical standpoint (children should not be soldiers, they should be let play and enjoy their age) which is not defended. However, the lack of a supporting argument should not, I argue, lead to dismiss it as a visual argument. It is rather an example of what Buchanan (1989) called ‘assertoric rhetoric’, where the lack of defence may be accounted for by the belief that the reasons for such a claim are self-evident: children are children, not soldiers. A further element in favour of considering Picture 5 argumentative comes from a comparison with another picture of a child-soldier, taken from the same website, which lacks the argumentative drive that Picture 5 has. In Picture 6 a child soldier is portrayed while holding a weapon, and although the act of being a child and carrying a weapon are certainly antithetical, there is nothing in the substantially realistic picture which ‘explicitly’ conveys negation. The previous images were all the result of blatant manipulation (clearly the torture

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Picture 6.  Amnesty’s Child-Soldier campaign: a non argumentative image.

or execution scenes were not to be taken as a reportage, nor the sign-road as a real sign-road), and it is exactly because of such manipulation that they can create the enhanced discrepancy which gives them their argumentative drive. With reference to the taxonomy of image roles in visual arguments proposed by Groarke (2009) – drawing also on Shelley (1996, 2003), Groarke and Tindale (2004), and Birdsell and Groarke (2008) – Picture 6 would qualify as a flag, an image meant to attract the attention of the receiver to an argument, being not an argument itself, whereas the other images discussed in this chapter fall under the headings of visual symbols, “images used to refer to something they represent”, or visual metaphors, images that metaphorically represent something as something different with which it shares some ground of resemblance, thus making a claim. In the following image (Picture 7) deforestation is equated to nuclear disaster, by means of an evocative syncretism of a tree which is being felled and the explosion of an atomic bomb. In terms of representation processes, this is an example of symbolic suggestive process, in which the carrier, i.e. the tree/bomb, symbolizes environmental disaster through the gloomy ‘mood’ or ‘atmosphere’ conveyed by shades of grey as well as the daunting association between deforestation and nuclear explosion. The scheme linking the argument to its standpoint can be represented as follows: (X) Deforestation leads to (Y) environmental disaster Because (Z) nuclear explosion leads to (Y) environmental disaster And (Z) nuclear explosion is analogous to (X) deforestation.



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Picture 7.  Greenpeace: deforestation.

As is typical of arguments based on analogy, the association is drawn here between a form of environmental disaster which is generally recognized as most dangerous (a nuclear explosion) and deforestation, which in common perception is rated as a milder challenge to the environment. The argument leverages on what is already common ground between the sender and the receiver in order to raise awareness of other threats. What the picture expresses explicitly, then, is the nuclear-deforestation analogy, which functions as a supporting argument for a standpoint which is left to be inferred by the receiver on the basis of his/her mental scheme of the consequences of a nuclear explosion.

5. Discussion and conclusion In light of the analysis carried out, a few observations are in order to take a position within the debate on visual arguments outlined in paragraph 2. The images taken into consideration are visual arguments. This is made clear in the first place by the context in which they were produced: activists’ campaigns are inherently argumentative. They stand in opposition to some existing practices that are considered unethical or damaging for human health or the environment. The aim of a campaign is to win new supporters to the cause, a finality which is pursued by means of an array of tools, ranging from presenting public opinion with shocking images (thus leveraging on emotions) to fully fledged appeals to rationality (I’ll come back to the relation between persuasion and argumentation later on). Against the ‘reality’ of image-based arguments, the objection that visual argumentation is not attainable because images are to be made sense of through the mediation of language seems hardly relevant. It is true that a message conveyed

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visually can only be decoded correctly if it is associated to a verbal meaning, but this is the case with pictures in general, and not just with visual arguments. And nobody would reject the possibility of visual representation whatsoever on the only ground that graphical signs need to be interpreted verbally to become meaningful. Incidentally, in discourse analysis the same caveat is extended to social practice in general, where it is assumed that it takes a name – and naming entails the mediation of language – for reality to become a social practice, but this does not per se challenge the possibility of reality. Rather than the way in which sense is cognitively made of a message, it is the form that should be determining: a visual argument is such if one part of the argument is conveyed through images alone (associated with contextual and background knowledge). Likewise, the completeness requisite cannot be a criterion: the condition that visual arguments must necessarily contain both standpoint and supporting arguments is not realistic, as this is not always true even in their verbal counterpart. Suffice it to think of enthymemes, informal forms of syllogistic reasoning, where at least one of the premises or the conclusion is left implicit, either because they are assumed to be self-evident for a universal audience or, familiar to a particular audience. The very operations envisaged in pragma-dialectics to reconstruct a critical discussion include the addition of propositions meant to make explicit those speech acts that are implicit in the actual discussion. As the analysis carried out here suggests, visual arguments can include both a standpoint and a supporting argument, but in other cases the standpoint is missing, based on the assumption that the receiver will be able to infer it from the context. As far as campaigns are concerned, familiarity with the genre (i.e. activity type, in pragma-dialectical terms) makes it evident for the receiver that the standpoint advocates for something to be stopped, or implemented. The set of common values associated in a given culture to the practice represented in the visual arguments will clarify which of the two actions is called for: any receiver knowing that Amnesty defends human rights and Greenpeace the environment will understand that the standpoint defended by the visuals presented above is that the use of child soldiers and deforestation, respectively, are to be stopped. A fundamental issue, still largely unravelled, is the identification of conventions used in visual arguments. The underlying assumption is that just as linguistic indicators exist for the speech acts forming an argumentative discussion (van Eemeren et al., 2007), a graphical equivalent may also be pinned down for visual arguments. This investigation has tried to push forward our understanding of such conventions, positing that the compositional ‘rules’ governing, according to Kress and van Leeuwen’s model (1996), visual design, could account also for the configuration of visual arguments, even if in the original model the representation of argumentative processes is not tackled.



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Negation can be considered an indicator of a standpoint, both in verbal and in visual arguments, and in the latter negation is commonly conveyed through a mismatch, a clash. This suggestion is not new, but the frame of analysis put to use here has helped explain why a clash should stand for negation: resting on the conventions proposed by Krees and van Leeuwen for the representation of symbolic attributive processes, it has been suggested that an incongruence emerges from the relation between the carrier and its symbolic attributes. While normally the attributes are meant to represent the carrier’s essence, in the images analyzed the attributes (or at least some of them) are antithetical to the spirit of the carrier, thus countering the receiver’s expectations. In the case of complete arguments (Beijing Olympics and the Child-soldiers road sign image) the standpoint is conveyed by the incongruent relation between the carrier and its symbolic attributes, i.e. it emerges from the picture as a whole, while the supporting argument is represented by a breakdown of the whole picture into its compositional parts. The representations of human rights violation – conveyed by torture, degrading treatment or execution – on the one hand, and of childhood negation – synthesized by war symbols – on the other hand function as arguments supporting the respective standpoints. In other cases, the visual argument is comparable to an enthymeme, in which the missing part can be either the supporting argument, or the standpoint. The defence is missing where the acceptability of the standpoint is presented as self-evident, as if to say that every sensible human being would immediately concur that children should rather be children than soldiers. The standpoint is graphically unexpressed where it can be easily inferred from the context (Greenpeace could hardly be taken as defending deforestation), and/or is expressed verbally by the marginal verbal component of the image-based message. In the stop-the-catastrophe ad, for example, the reason for adhering to the inferred standpoint (indiscriminate deforestation must be stopped urgently) are not considered self-evident, as testified also by the choice of a scheme based on analogy (typically used when one of the two terms of the analogy serves as a starting point to facilitate acceptance of the second, which is more controversial), and consequently could not be left implicit. Finally, a word is in order on the relation, too often perceived as dichotomical, between argumentation as an activity grounded in logic, hence eminently rational, and forms of persuasion impinging on rhetoric which are seen as essentially irrational. In line with Birdsell and Groarke (1996), and with the extended version of the pragmadialectical approach (van Eemeren, 2010), there seems to be nothing irrational in pursuing rhetorical effectiveness trying at the same time to comply with the dialectical rigour proper of argumentation. And if visual arguments do have a potential for stirring emotions (as certainly is the case in most of the images examined here), this does not prevent them from adhering to accepted forms of

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reasoning, as the reconstruction of the critical discussion staged by such images has demonstrated. Put in this perspective, the form – visual, verbal or a mix of the two – becomes a matter of presentational choices in the broader frame of strategic manoeuvring. In certain argumentative contexts the party acting as a protagonist in a critical discussion deems images more effective than words for reaching the receiver’s adherence of mind (Perelman & OlbrechtsTyteca, 1969) but by no means does such a choice entail an automatic derailment of the ‘discussion’ from the commonly accepted conditions for argumentation. To conclude, then, the analysis carried out here supports the view that (1) visual arguments are not only possible, but are actually exploited in activists’ campaigns to try and win supporters to their causes, images having a stronger and more immediate impact than words; (2) the advances accomplished in research on the organizational principles (i.e. grammar) of visual design may help shed light on the internal structure of visual arguments, and (3) visual arguments rest on forms of reasoning similar to those underpinning verbal argumentation, thus also sharing in its reasonableness.

References Alcolea-Banegas, J. (2009). Visual Arguments in Film. Argumentation, 23: 259–275. doi: 10.1007/s10503-008-9124-9 Andrews, R., Costello, P. J. M., & Clarke, S. (1993). Improving the Quality of Argument: Final Report. Hull, England: University of Hull, School of Education, Centre for Studies in Rhetoric. Balthrop, W. (1980). Argument as linguistic opportunity: A search for form and function. In J. Rhodes & S. Newell (Eds), Proceedings of the Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 184–213). New York: McGraw Hill. Birdsell, D. S., & Groarke L. (1996). Toward a theory of visual argument. Argumentation and Advocacy, 33 (1), 1–10. Birdsell, D. S., and Groarke L. (2008). Outlines of a Theory of Visual Argument. Argumentation and Advocacy 43 (1), 103–113. Blair, J. A. (2012)2. The possibility and actuality of visual arguments. In C. W. Tindale (Ed.), Groundwork in the Theory of Argumentation, Selected Papers of J. Anthony Blair (pp. 23–39). Dordrecht: Springer (First edition Argumentation and Advocacy, 1996). Bowman, J. W. (1968). Graphic Communication. New York: Wiley. Buchanan, R. (1989). Declaration by design: Rhetoric, argument, and demonstration in design practice. In V. Margolin (Ed.), Design Discourse: History, Theory, Criticism (pp. 91–109). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. De Beaugrande, R. & Dressler, W. (1981/2001). Introduction to Text Linguistics. Harlow: Longman. Degano, C. (2013). Argumentation in Hypertext: A Case Study of NGOs’ Campaigning. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 2 (2), 204–225.  doi: 10.1075/jaic.2.2.02deg Degano, C. (2014). Textuality on the Web: A Focus on Argumentative Text Types. In H. L. Lim & F. Sudweeks (Ed.), Innovative Methods and Technologies for Electronic Discourse Analysis (pp. 414–436). Hershey PA: IGI Global.  doi: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4426-7.ch019



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Delicath, W. J, & Kevin M. D. (2003). Image Events, the Public Sphere, and Argumentative Practice: The Case of Radical Environmental Groups. Argumentation, 17, 315–333. doi: 10.1023/A:1025179019397 Eemeren, F. H. van. (2010). Strategic Manoeuvring in Argumentative Discourse: Extending the Pragma-Dialectical Theory of Argumentation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/aic.2 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst R. (1984). Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions: A Theoretical Model for the Analysis of Discussions Directed Towards Solving Conflicts of Opinion. Dordrecht: Floris Publications.  doi: 10.1515/9783110846089 Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies. A Pragma-dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, & Grootendorst R. 2004. A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The PragmaDialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst R, & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2002). Argumentation: Analysis, Evaluation, Presentation. Mahwa (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum. Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst R., Jackson S., & Jacobs S. (1993). Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse. Studies in Rhetoric and Communication. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser P. (2002). Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse: Maintaining a Delicate Balance. In F. H. van Eemeren, & Houtlosser, P. (Eds.), Dialectic and Rhetoric. The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis (pp. 131–159). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Eemeren, F. H. van, Houtlosser P., Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2007). Argumentative Indicators in Discourse: A Pragma-Dialectical Study. Dordrecht: Springer.  doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-6244-5 Eemeren, F. H. van, Grootendorst R., & Kruiger T. (1984). The Study of Argumentation. New York: Irvington. Fleming, D. (1996). Can pictures be arguments? Argumentation & Advocacy, 33 (1), 11–22. Fox, F. R. (1994a). Beyond ‘The Empty Eye’: A conversation with S. I. Hayakawa and Alan R. Hayakawa. In R. F. Fox (Ed.), Images in Language, Media, and Mind (pp. 183–192). Urbana, IL: NCTE. Fox, F. R. (1994b). Where we live. In R. F. Fox (Ed.), Images in Language, Media, and Mind (pp. 69–91). Urbana, IL: NCTE. Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (pp. 109–142). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press. Garzone, G., Catenaccio P., & Poncini G. (Eds). (2007). Multimodality in Corporate Communication. Web Genres and Discursive Identity. Milano: Franco Angeli. Gombrich, H. E. (1982). The visual image: Its place in communication. In E. H. Gombrich (Ed.), The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (pp. 137–161). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Goodnight, G. T. (1991). Controversy. In D. Parson (Ed.) Argument in Controversy: Proceedings of the seventh SCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation (pp. 1–13). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds) Syntax and Semantics (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Groarke, L. (1996). Logic, Art and Argument. Informal Logic, 18 (2/3), 105–129. Groarke, L (2002). Toward a pragmadialectics of visual argument. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in Pragma-Dialectics (pp. 137–151). Amsterdam: Sic Sat.

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Groarke, L. (2009). Five Theses on Toulmin and Visual Argument. In F. H. van Eemeren, & B. Garssen, Pondering on Problems of Argumentation: Twenty Essays on Theoretical Issues (pp. 229–239). Dortrecht: Springer.  doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9165-0_16 Groarke, L, & Tindale C. W. (2004). Good Reasoning Matters!: A Constructive Approach to Critical Thinking. Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Hermeren, Göran. (1969). Representation and Meaning in the Visual Arts. Lund: Scandinavian University Books. Hintikka, J., & Bachman J. (1991). What if . . . ? Toward excellence in reasoning. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield. Jamieson, K. H. (1988). Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking. New York: Oxford UP. Johnson, R. (2005). Why ‘Visual Arguments’ aren’t Arguments. In H. V. Hansen, C. Tindale, J. A. Blair & R. H. Johnson (Eds), Informal Logic at 25. University of Windsor, CD-ROM. Kjeldsen, E. J. (2007). Visual argumentation in Scandinavian political advertising: A cognitive, contextual, and reception oriented approach. Argumentation and Advocacy, 43, 124–132. Kjeldsen, E. J. (2012). Pictorial Argumentation in Advertising: Visual Tropes and Figures as a Wayof Creating Visual Argumentation. In F. H. van Eemeren, & B. Garssen (Eds.), Topical Themes in Argumentation Theory: Twenty Exploratory Studies (pp. 239–255). Argumentation Library. Dortrecht: Springer.  doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-4041-9_16 Kneupper, W. C. (1978). On argument and diagrams. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 14, 181–186. Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London / New York: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203164754 Kress, G., & van Leeuven, T. (2006). The Grammar of Visual Design. London / New York: Routledge (second edition). Lake, A. R., & Pickering, B. A. (1998). Argumentation, the Visual, and the Possibility of Refutation: An Exploration. Argumentation, 12, 79–93.  doi: 10.1023/A:1007703425353 Manovich, L. (1998). Cinema as a Cultural Interface. In W3LAB, . Reprinted in J. Olsson (Ed.) (2000). Arresting Movements: From Pre-Cinema to Digital Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Medhurst, M. J., & DeSousa, M. A. (1981). Political cartoons as rhetorical form: A taxonomy of graphic discourse. Communication Monographs, 48, 197–236.  doi: 10.1080/03637758109376059 O’Keefe, D. J. (1977). Two concepts of argument. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 13, 121–128. O’Keefe, D. J. (1982). The concepts of argument and arguing. In J. R. Cox, & C. A. Willard (Eds), Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research (pp. 3–23). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Olson, K. M., & Godnight T. G. (1994). Entanglements of Consumption, Cruelty, Privacy and Fashion: The Social Controversy over Fur. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 80, 249–276. doi: 10.1080/00335639409384072 Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Pierce, C. S. (1991). Pierce on Signs: Writings on Semiotic, Edited by J. Hoopes. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.



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Postman, N. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin. Shelley, C. (1996). Rhetorical and demonstrative modes of visual argument: Looking at images of human evolution. Argumentation and Advocacy, 33 (2), 53–68. Shelley, C. (2003). Aspects of visual arguments: A study of the ‘March of Progress. Informal Logic, 21 (2), 92–112. Slade, C. (2003). Seeing Reasons: Visual Argumentation in Advertisement. Argumentation, 17, 145–160.  doi: 10.1023/A:1024025114369 Toulmin, E. S., Rieke R. D., & Allan Janik. (1979). An Introduction to Reasoning. New York: Macmillan. Toulmin, E. S. (2003). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511840005 Werlich, E. (1983). A Text Grammar of English. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer

Chapter 13

Attacks on the cartoonist’s strategic manoeuvring An argumentative analysis of criticism on political cartoons H. José Plug

University of Amsterdam

Political cartoons may be understood as instances of visual or multimodal argumentative discourse. When a political cartoon is a subject of controversy, the criticism of the cartoon may therefore be aimed at the argumentation. For the purpose of a systematic analysis of visual and multimodal argumentation that gives rise to controversy, I make use of insights of the extended pragma-­dialectical argumentation theory by van Eemeren (2010). The analysis provides a starting point to determine what aspect of strategic manoeuvring is criticised and to specify the derailment of strategic manoeuvring the cartoonist is accused of. Accordingly, the analysis facilitates a refined evaluation of the accusation in which general soundness conditions are amended or supplemented by relevant institutional conditions. In this study I will concentrate on controversies on political cartoons that make use of visual metaphors to scrutinize politicians’ behaviour or actions.

1. Introduction Political cartoons are a part of opinion-formation in liberal democracies and may therefore be conceived as a significant form of political argumentative communication (El Raffaie, 2009; Lamb, 2004; Manning & Phiddian, 2004a). According to Medhurst and DeSousa (1981, p. 232), a cartoonist who publishes on the editorial page of a newspaper, should be seen as an ‘editor in charge of graphic opinion.’ Other scholars, however, consider a political cartoon’s potential contribution to the political debate of little significance, since a political cartoon would offer only a passing chuckle (Abraham, 2009, pp. 119, 121). Werner (2004, p. 11), too, trivializes the discursive function a political cartoon may have in the public debate, when he observes that: ‘readers do not take the cartoon as seriously as the written word. Rarely is there a published letter taking issue with a cartoon’s bias or expressing delight

doi 10.1075/aic.10.14plu © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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or concern with how it was expressed.’ Werner expressed his opinion a year before the publication of the well-known Muhammad-cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (September 30, 2005). The international discussion that followed clearly demonstrates that a political cartoon should not only be conceived as an argumentative contribution to a political debate, but may also provoke a debate on the acceptability of the contribution. More recently, the reception of a political cartoon by the Italian cartoonist Vauro Senesi (April 9, 2009) also indicates that a political cartoon is not primarily to be conceived as a drawing that merely offers a passing chuckle, but rather as a potentially controversial contribution to political debate. In this case the acceptability of the political cartoon was not questioned by the public, but by Mauro Masi, the general director of the state television company RAI. In April 2009, in the television show Annozero, Senesi presented a number of cartoons on the subject of the earthquake in the Abruzzo that struck the town of L’Aquila in Italy and caused considerable damage. One of the cartoons portrayed the then Prime Minister Berlusconi as Roman emperor Nero overseeing the destroyed buildings saying: ‘La new town!’

Picture 1.  Vauro Senesi, Annozero 9 April 2009

For Mauro Masi, this cartoon was reason enough to suspend Senesi and to take disciplinary action against him. Since Masi was appointed by Berlusconi’s Parliamentary majority, some newspapers suggested that it was in fact Berlusconi who initiated the suspension. 1 Berlusconi’s interest in the suspension was subject to written questions in the European Parliament by Giulietto Chiesa (PSE). 2

1. See for example Nieuwsblad.be, 16 April 2009 and de Volkskrant, 15 April 2009. 2. On 4 May 2009, also Vittorio Agnoletto (GUE/NGL) tabled a written question to the Commission on this subject (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP// TEXT+WQ+E-2009-3254+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN).



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In the wide range of studies on political cartoons, many other examples of cartoons that were criticized or even ‘spiked’ (rejected) are presented (Abraham, 2009; Lamb, 2004; Medhurst & DeSousa, 1981; Manning & Phiddian, 2004b). The variety of examples show that critique on the acceptability of a cartoon may be brought forward by the editor of a newspaper, a website or a television program, by the readers or the public, or by the politician who is depicted in the cartoon. Many of the studies in the field of new media, political studies or rhetoric, however, do little to analyse the criticism passed on political cartoons in order to establish what the criticism entails and to determine how it could be evaluated. In this article I will start out to show how criticism on the acceptability of a cartoon may be systematically analysed by making use of insights from the extended pragma-dialectical argumentation theory by van Eemeren (2010, 2013). 3 Although nowadays many scholars in the field of argumentation theory agree that a political cartoon can be regarded as a species of visual or multimodal argumentative discourse, others oppose this view because they consider argumentation to be verbal in essence. 4 Van Eemeren (2010, p. 27), though, explicitly acknowledges that moves carried out by parties in an argumentative discussion need not be qualified as linguistic or verbal but rather as ‘communicative’, thus allowing for the possibility that these be conveyed partly or wholly by non-verbal means. Building on this, Tseronis (2013, p. 7) points out that the study of the language use that is necessary for the pragma-dialectical reconstruction and evaluation of argumentative discourse can be more broadly understood as the study of any mode of communication, be it verbal or non-verbal, at the arguers’ disposal for making their contributions to an argumentative discussion. 5 It is from the same perspective that Groarke (2002) and Feteris, Groarke, and Plug (2011) set out to demonstrate how a political cartoon, if considered as a mode of visual argumentation, could be analysed as a contribution to an argumentative discussion. My research on criticism on political cartoons departs from the same background and is concentrated on political cartoons in which the cartoonist makes use of a visual metaphor to scrutinize the behaviour of a politician. Feteris, Groarke and Plug (2011) argue that, from a pragma-dialectical perspective, a political cartoon may be considered as a form of indirect argumentation which

3. This article is based on a presentation at the VIOT conference in 2011, organized at Leiden University. 4. More background on this discussion is presented by, amongst others, Tseronis (2013) and Groarke (2015). 5. Groarke (2015) argues that sound, smells, tactile sensations, etc. should also be considered modes of non-verbal argumentation.

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is advanced in support of a negative standpoint regarding the behaviour of a politician. In his attempt to convince his audience of the negative standpoint, the cartoonist manoeuvres strategically. This means, in the words of van Eemeren (2010, 2013), that the cartoonist will try to combine pursuing at the same time the objectives of being reasonable and being effective. If, however, he is unable to balance between effectiveness and reasonableness, the attempt may result in a so-called derailment of strategic manoeuvring, or in fallacious strategic manoeuvring. Within this argumentation theoretical approach, criticism by the audience on the acceptability of a political cartoon may therefore be reconstructed as an accusation of defective or fallacious strategic manoeuvring. In order to determine whether or not the strategic manoeuvring that takes place in a cartoon may indeed be viewed as a fallacious argumentative contribution to the discussion, it should be examined if and how general soundness criteria should be specified by context-dependent criteria. Since political cartoons could be considered a specific argumentative activity type, the institutional context of political cartoons imposes certain conventional constraints on the strategic manoeuvring that is considered acceptable in this argumentative activity type. However, before the strategic manoeuvring can be evaluated, the visual or multimodal argumentation underlying the cartoon should be reconstructed. In this paper I will demonstrate how the model by Feteris, Groarke, and Plug (2011, p. 63), that specifies the potential structure of the visual argumentation, may be of help to provide such a reconstruction. This reconstruction may, in its turn, be instrumental to determine to what element(s) in the argumentation the criticism is directed at. By means of an argumentative analysis of examples of political cartoons that have been publicly criticized by the audience or by the politician that was depicted, I will demonstrate that the critique on the acceptability of a cartoon may be different in nature and may result in different attacks on the strategic manoeuvring that takes place in the cartoon. This differentiation in the attacks may be relevant for the evaluation of complaints about political cartoons.

2. The structure of the argumentation underlying the political cartoon The starting point for the reconstruction of the argumentation underlying a political cartoon is that a political cartoon is generally considered to express a negative opinion (Schilperoord & Maes, 2009; Abraham, 2009, p. 154). 6 The cartoonist’s critical standpoint, reconstructed on the basis of the visual metaphor, may be directed 6. Hogan (2001, p. 47) suggests that cartoons that praise politics, politicians, or the political institutions do not appear because they would not be humorous.



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at a politician’s behaviour, at a public policy or a political situation. When a cartoonist defends his point of view on the behaviour of a politician (P) in situation (S) by means of a visual metaphor in which he refers to certain characteristics (Y1, Y2, etc.) of the politician’s behaviour, the complex argumentation in support of his standpoint can be reconstructed as symptomatic argumentation. This argumentation consists of an argument that says that the behaviour of a politician has certain characteristics (argument 1.1a) and an argument that says that these characteristics should be judged as negative (argument 1.1b). Both arguments are situated on the first level, in direct support of the standpoint. On the second level, the argumentation that supports the negative evaluation of the characteristics (Y1, Y2, etc.) of the politician’s behaviour can be reconstructed. In this symptomatic argumentation, it is stated that these characteristics of his behaviour conflict with a particular common principle or value (V) (argument 1.1b.1a) and that behaviour that conflicts with these principles or values should be evaluated negatively (argument 1.1b.1b). A general schematic overview (or model) of the argumentation in defence of a critical stance towards the behaviour of a politician could be represented as follows. 1 The behaviour of politician (P) in situation (S) must be evaluated negatively 1.1a The behaviour of politician (P) in situation (S) has characteristics (Y1, Y2 etc.). 1.1b The characteristics (Y1, Y2 etc.) of the behaviour of politician (P) in situation (S) must be evaluated negatively 1.1b.1a Characteristics (Y1, Y2 etc.) conflict with common starting points or commonly accepted principles or values (V) 1.1b.1b B ehaviour that is in conflict with common starting points or commonly accepted principles or values (V) must be evaluated negatively. Diagram 1.

In Example 1, Senesi’s standpoint that could be reconstructed concerns a critical stance towards Berlusconi’s behaviour after the earthquake in the Abruzzo region. The argument in the cartoon in support of this standpoint can be reconstructed as ‘The promise made by Berlusconi to the victims of the earthquake to swiftly rebuild L’Aquila is a false one and was only aimed at keeping up appearances abroad’. This standpoint, as well as its support, are expressed indirectly by using the visual metaphor of Roman Emperor Nero who, in the year 64, after a large part of Rome had been burned down, built himself a palace, the Domus Aurea, the Golden Home, on the plot that had become available. The cartoonist is of the opinion that Berlusconi’s pledge is in fact a false promise and that the Prime Minister is as unconcerned about

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the victims as Nero was of his and has no intention of rebuilding L’Aquila. By means of a visual metaphor, the negative characteristics of Nero’s behaviour are transferred to Berlusconi, thus expressing the essence of the criticism on the former Prime Minister. The additional criticism that Berlusconi’s promise was only intended to keep up appearances abroad may be reconstructed on the basis of the text depicted in the cartoon. The question ‘And now?’ (‘E ora ?’) is formulated in Italian, but the answer is partly formulated in English (New Town) and, therefore, does not seem to be directed exclusively at an Italian audience of victims. When applying the general schematic overview that is presented above to the cartoon by Senesi, the argumentation structure, in which the relation between the indirect standpoint and the indirect complex argumentation is reconstructed, can be represented as follows. 1

Berlusconi’s behaviour (P) in the wake of the earthquake in L’Aquila (S) should be evaluated negatively. 1.1a Berlusconi’s behaviour (P) in the wake of the earthquake in L’Aquila (S) is characterized by the false promise that L’Aquila will be rebuilt, a promise only aimed at safeguarding his own reputation abroad (Y). 1.1b Berlusconi’s false promise that L’Aquila will be rebuilt, aimed at safeguarding his own reputation abroad (Y), should be evaluated negatively. 1.1b.1a Berlusconi’s false promise that L’Aquila will be rebuilt, aimed at safeguarding his own reputation abroad (Y) is in conflict with the unwritten rule that civilians in a democratic constitutional state should be able to trust politicians and administrators to behave like a prudent ‘family man’ (‘bonus pater familias’) and look after citizens who have fallen victim to a natural disaster and not give preference to their own interests (V). 1.1b.1b Actions in conflict with the unwritten rule that civilians in a democratic constitutional state should be able to trust politicians and administrators to behave like a prudent ‘family man’ (‘bonus pater familias’) and look after citizens who have fallen victim to a natural disaster and not give preference to their own interests (V) should be evaluated negatively.

Diagram 2.

The reconstruction of the cartoon based on the model (Diagram 1), aims to reconstruct the structure of the argumentation underlying the cartoon, but does not pretend to provide the final interpretation of the propositional content of the arguments. The model provides the analyst with a tool which enables him to represent a justifiable reconstruction of the cartoonist’s argumentation, yet does not exclude



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different reconstructions which may be defensible. Interpretative differences are characteristically caused by visual metaphors expressing claims in an indirect way (Feteris, 2012, p. 204). According to Abraham (2009), it is the implicit nature of visual imagery, their lack of explicitness, that may provide a cartoonist with a shield of deniability that cannot be claimed with explicit verbal communication. However, the aim of the reconstruction here is limited to providing a starting point for determining when criticism on a political cartoon may be interpreted as a potential attack on the strategic manoeuvring that takes place in the cartoon.

3. Criticism aimed at the visual metaphor In the political cartoons that are the subject of this article, cartoonists employ visual metaphors or visual allusions in order to represent criticism on the actions of certain politicians. Metaphors may express one concept in terms of a different concept in order to transfer certain qualities of the one, the ‘source domain’, to the other, the ‘goal domain’. The use of a metaphor, as Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 10) have pointed out, makes it possible to express one kind of thing in terms of another and thereby highlight or hide specific aspects of a concept. In Plug (2013, p. 433) it is argued that, in view of the critical aim of political cartoons, the cartoonist, in principle, selects a source of the visual metaphor that is generally charged negatively by the audience. By means of the visual metaphor, the negative qualities of the negatively branded concept (the source domain) are transferred to the politician’s behaviour (the goal domain). When, however, the source of the visual metaphor has a conventionalized meaning that is valued ‘neutral’ or ‘positive’, the representation of the metaphor in the cartoon needs to be adapted in order to be able to express a critical stance. Classical and modern literature on rhetoric provides advice for the use of metaphors in written and spoken discourse. Based on this literature Plug and Snoeck Henkemans (2008) deduced three requirements that effective metaphors have to meet in order to be able to contribute to the persuasiveness of the argumentation in the domain of political communication. These requirements were geared to the activity type of the parliamentary debate. Within the domain of political communication, these requirements will also have to be met by visual metaphors used in the activity type of political cartoons. The three requirements and the way in which some of them are discussed in studies on political cartoons, may be summarized as follows. Firstly, the image that is used will have to tally in all the relevant aspects with the matter the cartoonist wishes to express. In other words, the audience will have to be able to establish the similarities between the visual image that was used

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by the cartoonist and the matter at hand. The interpretative skills of the individual reader as well as his general knowledge will also decide whether or not he will successfully do so (El Rafaie (2009, p. 190), Grofman (1989, p. 171), Medhurst and DeSousa (1981, p. 217), but it is the cartoonist’s task to enable the (prospective) reader to make the connection. In the second place, metaphors should be used moderately: a metaphor should not be repeated too often in the course of one debate. The contribution of a cartoonist to a political debate is usually concentrated in one drawing. This characteristic of the activity type excludes the danger of repetition of the use of a visual metaphor in the same contribution. However, different cartoonists may scrutinize the behaviour of the same politician, referring to one political action in particular, in different cartoons. These cartoons could be seen as different argumentative contributions to one public debate and using the same visual metaphor to express these contributions may affect their persuasiveness negatively. On discussion forums on political cartoons copying visual metaphors is criticized by reporting a so-called ‘cartoon yahtzee’ when five cartoonists make use of the same visual metaphor in order to discuss one and the same political event. 7 In the third place, the metaphor should be appropriate, not too commonplace, tasteless or too insensitive. Both classical and modern handbooks on rhetoric point out that a metaphor may offer discussants considerable advantages, but if the metaphor is not appropriate it will lack persuasiveness. According to Quintilian (VIII. VI.8), the metaphor is governed by laws of good taste and should never be distasteful or banal. Aristotle (1406b), for example, warns that tastelessness often lies at the bottom of the use of metaphors. It is this last requirement in particular that is relevant to criticism as to the acceptability of cartoons. Forceville (1996, p. 201) claims that critical comments expressed by cartoonists are much sharper and more offensive than would be acceptable if the same criticism took a verbal form, nevertheless it is criticism on the appropriateness of visual metaphors that fuelled numerous cartoon controversies. The standards that specify the requirement of appropriateness of a visual metaphor expressed in political cartoons are determined, to a certain extent, by its institutional context. That context consists first and foremost of guidelines established by the newspaper (or other media) publishing the cartoon. These guidelines are as different as the newspapers that employ them. According to Medhurst and DeSousa (1981, p. 229), the cartoonist from the Los-Angeles-Times cartoonist Paul Conrad, had ‘complete autonomy from constraints imposed by editors to ensure appropriateness.’ In the case of many other newspapers it is for the editorial board

7. Several examples are given on www.cagle.com.



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to decide that certain cartoons will not be published or need to be tailored according to internal guidelines ruled by ‘good taste.’ How often cartoons are rejected by editorial boards explicitly on the ground that the visual metaphor is inappropriate, is mostly unknown. 8 Sometimes the grounds to decide against running a cartoon are discussed publicly, but sometimes they may only be revealed years after the difference of opinion was at issue. From the personal archives of the Dutch cartoonist Opland, for example, it is known that the editorial board of de Volkskrant in the course of time rejected a number of his cartoons. In one such cartoon Opland used a visual metaphor to depict the then Christian Democratic Minister of Welfare, Health and Culture Mr Brinkman as a German second-world-war soldier. In yet another cartoon Opland used the visual metaphor of the crucifixion to put forward his opinion in the time of the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. However, even if a cartoon is in line with the guidelines of the newspaper and the visual metaphor the cartoonist uses is confirmed by the editor as being appropriate, it may be condemned as being inappropriate by the audience. A drawing published in The New York Post of 18 February 2009 is one example of a cartoon that was criticized for its tastelessness by the readership of a newspaper.

Picture 2.  Sean Delonas, The New York Post, 18 February 2009

Sean Delonas’s cartoon depicts two police officers who have just shot down a monkey. The monkey, having sustained three bullet holes in its chest, is lying in a pool of blood and the gun with which the animal was shot is still smoking. One of the police officers says: ‘They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.’ The image used by the cartoonist refers to a then topical incident involving an aggressive monkey in Connecticut. The monkey had escaped and

8. Lamb (2004, p. 162) reports from a survey conducted in the United States that found that 50 percent of editorial cartoonists believe that cartoons are rejected because they are in questionable taste.

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was shot by police officers after having attacked and seriously wounded a woman. The cartoon was published the day after President Barack Obama had signed the stimulus bill into law. 9 This political event, immediately preceding the publication of the cartoon, justifies that the reconstructed standpoint (1) refers to President Obama and that it scrutinizes his behaviour as to the realization of the new law. The reconstruction of the argumentation (1.1a and 1.1b) supporting this standpoint is complicated since it is hard to establish unequivocally the relationship between the image from the source domain (the wounded monkey) and the goal domain (Obama’s behaviour). It is unclear which of the negative characteristics of the visual metaphor is intended to be transferred to the characterization of the behaviour of President Obama. Characteristics that could be intended are, for example, the aggressiveness, carelessness or stupidity of the monkey. 10 If the aggressiveness was intended, the reconstruction of the argumentation could be schematized as follows. 1. The behaviour of President Obama (P), creating the new legislation (S), should be evaluated negatively. 1.1a The behaviour of President Obama (P), creating the new legislation (S) can be characterized as being aggressive (Y). 1.1b The aggressiveness (Y) of President Obama’s behaviour with respect to creating the new legislation must be evaluated negatively. Diagram 3.

The criticism on this particular cartoon, however, is not aimed at the comprehensibility of the argumentation that has been conveyed by means of the visual metaphor, the first requirement, but on the acceptability of the visual metaphor that is used, the third requirement. Readers protested outside the offices of the New York Post against the publication of the cartoon about the stimulus bill showing a dead chimpanzee that they saw as representing President Obama. Politicians and civil rights activists too criticised the cartoon. Al Sharpton, a Baptist minister and civil rights activist, for example, called the cartoon ‘troubling at best, given the historic racist

9. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which used to be referred to as the Stimulus bill, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009. 10. Apart from these characterisations, there are many others, some of which may be inferred from the various meanings or the connotations of the word ‘monkey’ or ‘ape’, as given in dictionaries (e.g. Van Dale, Webster): misfit, a clumsy person, a mischievous person, rude person (US), go ape (idiom/slang): to become violently emotional.



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attacks [on] African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.’ He added: ‘Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (…) and has become synonymous with him, it is not a reach to wonder: are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?’ (The Guardian, Wednesday 18 February 2009). The owner of the New York Post, Rupert Murdock, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Col Allen, as well as the cartoonist, Sean Delonas, deny that the cartoon intends to scrutinize (the behaviour of) President Obama. In a statement published in the New York Post, Murdoch said that the cartoon was intended only to ‘mock a badly written piece of legislation’. Col Allan, the New York Post’s editor-in-chief, said the cartoon ‘is a clear parody of a current news event. It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy.’ The author of the cartoon himself, Sean Delonas, has described the idea that the chimpanzee was meant to depict Barack Obama as ‘ridiculous’: ‘Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon’. 11 Although the cartoon leaves room for different alternative interpretations, none of the interpretations given by representatives of the newspaper are very convincing or well justified. 12 The combination of the image of one monkey and the fact that the policemen in the cartoon explicitly mention a ‘someone else’, pleads for the interpretation that the criticism expressed in the cartoon is directed at a particular politician (and not at ‘Washington’ or at those who produced ‘badly written legislation’). Knowing from the context of the coming about of the stimulus bill that Obama (co-) authored the bill and that a bill may only become law if it is signed by the President, makes it plausible to conclude this particular politician to be Barack Obama. The main point of this analysis, however, is to demonstrate that resistance to the visual metaphor used by the cartoonist to visualize his criticism does not necessarily imply an accusation of a derailment of strategic manoeuvring. Diagram 3 demonstrates that it is not (primarily) the propositional content of the argumentation or the relationship between the arguments and the standpoint that are under attack. The negative characterization of the politician’s behaviour as presented in the reconstructed argument (1.1a) could, in principle, be acceptable if the same propositional content of the argument would have been expressed using a different visual metaphor. 11. The claim that it was ‘just’ a cartoon scandalized cartoonists. The founder of the UK’s Political Cartoon Society, Tim Benson, says the defense that the cartoon is “just a cartoon” does not wash. “You cannot avoid editorial responsibility as a cartoonist – you’re still a journalist like any other,” he says. (BBC News, Friday 20 February 2009). 12. Tim Benson is of the opinion that the cartoon doesn’t work unless the monkey is intended to be Obama. (BBC News, Friday 20 February 2009).

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If, in Example 2, the cartoonist would not have used the visual metaphor of a monkey but, say, of a pit-bull terrier to characterize Barack Obama’s behaviour regarding this particular legislation as being aggressive (or stupid, or…) the acceptability of the cartoon might not have been disputed. The criticism on the visual metaphor used in the example concerns the racist connotation of depicting black people as monkeys. 13 From a pragma-dialectical perspective, criticizing the use of a certain visual metaphor should be analyzed as criticism on the acceptability of the rhetorical tool (the presentational device) that was chosen by the cartoonist to express his opinion and should, as such, be considered an accusation of ‘bad strategy’. 14

4. Criticism aimed at the standpoint Apart from criticism on the acceptability of a visual metaphor, a political cartoon may also be deemed unacceptable in a certain situation or at a certain time. When discussing appropriateness in political cartooning, Medhurst and DeSousa (1981, p. 232) point out that cartoons on politicians who are recently deceased may be considered unacceptable, on the ground of ‘situational inappropriateness’. Research by Walter and Holsteyn (2007, p. 194) on the representation of the politician Pim Fortuyn in cartoons, demonstrates that this convention is observed by Dutch cartoonists and editors of newspapers as well. Before Fortuyn was assassinated on 6 May 2002, he was a high-profile politician, often criticized for his political standpoints and his demagogical attitude. Walter and Holsteyn examined the way Pim Fortuyn, leader of the Dutch political party List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), was portrayed in 102 political cartoons published in six national newspapers, from August 2001 to July 2002. 15 Walter and Holsteyn found that, after his assassination, newspapers do still publish cartoons portraying Fortuyn, yet never cartoons in which he is depicted negatively. After the assassination of Fortuyn, in 69 per cent of the cartoons portraying him, the standpoint on his former behaviour is neutral and in 31 per cent of 13. Joseph (2011, p. 394) concludes in a study on representations of Obama that the linkages between the Obamas and monkeys have continued throughout his Presidency. The imaging of Obama as ape activates the entrenched stereotype of people of African descent as monkeys and the myth of Black people’s proximity to monkeys through a combination of religion, economics, and pseudo-science. 14. See van Eemeren (2010, p. 198). 15. The corpus of 102 cartoons was selected from the following Dutch newspapers: Algemeen Dagblad, De Telegraaf, Het Parool, NRC Handelsblad, de Volkskrant en Trouw.



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the cases it is judged in a positive way. Whereas Fortuyn, before his assassination, was depicted as, for example, Frankenstein or Mefisto to visualize criticism on his behaviour, after his death these kinds of visual metaphors that are generally charged negatively were not used any longer. Jos Collignon’s cartoon, published on 15 May 2002 in de Volkskrant, on the very day of the parliamentary elections, seems to be the exception which proves the rule.

Picture 3.  Jos Collignon, de Volkskrant, May 15, 2002

The cartoon depicts a line of marching rats, sporting a placard saying ‘Vote the pied piper’ is led by rat catcher (Pied Piper) Pim Fortuyn. Then, the Pied Piper is assassinated, upon which the rats march on, without their leader, showing a placard that says ‘Vote rat’. The cartoonist, Collignon, takes his visual metaphor from the source domain of the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. 16 In this legend the piper is a rat-catcher hired by the town Hamelin to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When 16. The Pied Piper of Hamelin (or the Rat-Catcher of Hamelin) is the subject of a medieval legend concerning the departure of a great number of children from the town of Hamelin (Germany). The famous legend also appeared in the writings of the Brothers Grimm (Deutsche Sagen, 1816), in poetry by Bertolt Brecht (Gedichte 1938–1941) and in music by Led Zeppelin (Stairway to Heaven, 1971) etc.

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the citizens refuse to pay for this service, he retaliates by turning his power that he put in his pipe against their children, leading them away as he had the rats. Based on this legend a critical standpoint regarding the way in which Pim Fortuyn led his electorate may be reconstructed. This standpoint and the reconstructed arguments can be schematized as follows. 1. Pim Fortuyn’s (P) behaviour concerning the way in which he led his electorate (S) must be evaluated negatively. 1.1a Pim Fortuyn’s (P) behaviour concerning the way in which he led his electorate (S) could be characterized as playing his electorate in order to lure them away from established politics (Y). 1.1b The exercise of party leadership (S) by Pim Fortuyn (P) that was characterized by playing the electorate and luring them away from established politics (Y) must be evaluated negatively. Diagram 4.

Readers of de Volkskrant complained, commenting that they found Collignon’s cartoon tasteless and its publication inappropriate. The essence of these comments may be seen as an example of situational inappropriateness: the readers’ criticism is not aimed at the acceptability of the specific metaphor that was used to visualize a comment on the deceased politician. The newspaper’s readership criticized the negative evaluation of Pim Fortuyn’s behaviour. This criticism amounts to the opinion that certain standpoints should (temporarily) be excluded from the discussion. However, a constraint on advancing a certain standpoint is considered a violation of the pragma-dialectical Freedom rule that holds that parties must not prevent each other from putting forward standpoints or cast doubts on any of the standpoints put forward. This dialectical rule could, however, be amended by macro-contextual criteria that depend on institutional conventions of the activity type of political cartoons. The question is, nevertheless, whether considerations of situational appropriateness based on the principle of ‘let the other side be heard’ or on ‘do not speak ill of the dead’ (De mortuis nil nisi bene) should be recognized as institutionalized conventions of the activity type of political cartoons that allow for such an amendment of a general soundness condition. The unsure status of this amendment explains why the editors of de Volkskrant had their doubts as to publishing the cartoon on Fortuyn.



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5. Criticism aimed at the sub-standpoint In addition to newspapers’ own guidelines, national or international codes of conduct, drawn up by professional journalists, too, limit the acceptability of cartoons. In the Netherlands, for example, such a code is formulated as guidelines from the Netherlands Press Council (richtlijnen van de Raad voor de Journalistiek). 17 These guidelines are based on the Code of Conduct of the International Federation of Journalists (1986) as well as on the Code of Conduct for Dutch journalists drawn up by the Dutch Society of Editors (1995). In the guidebook for journalistic behaviour from Netherlands Press Council (2010), article 3 prescribes the following. 3. Column, cartoon, review 3.1. Columnists, cartoonists and reviewers enjoy a large amount of freedom in expressing their opinions on events and persons. Stylistic tools such as exaggeration and a conscious one-sided focus are permitted. The bounds of what is permissible are passed when cartoons and (sections of) columns and reviews do not leave any reasonable room for a characterisation other than that they are offensive and insulting to persons or sections of the population. 18

Politicians who are criticized in a cartoon or readers who feel that a certain cartoon exceeds the bounds of what is generally permissible, with a view of journalistic responsibilities, may lodge a complaint at the Netherlands Press Council. The Netherlands Press Council then decides if the cartoon is in breach of article 3. From a pragma-dialectic perspective, this guideline for journalistic behaviour may therefore be interpreted as an institutional constraint on a political cartoonist’s room for strategic manoeuvring. This constraint imposes a restriction on what indirectly may be brought forward as an argument in support of, in our cases, the standpoint that scrutinizes the behaviour of a politician. It means that it is not permissible in the reconstructed argument to characterize the behaviour of a politician in such a way that it can only be interpreted as being offensive or insulting to the politician or to (a part of) the public. Criticism on the acceptability of a cartoon that is based on this institutional rule, may be seen as an accusation of a derailment of strategic manoeuvring. Based on this rule, an accusation of committing an ad hominem may be admissible. A politician whose behaviour is criticized in a cartoon, or indeed any reader, may also decide to bring a case to court. This was done by the then Dutch Minister

17. Following any complaint about a journalistic statement or behaviour, the Netherlands Press Council investigates whether the limits of what, is socially acceptable have been overstepped with a view to the requirements of journalistic responsibility. 18. See: www.rvdj.nl/english.

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Picture 4.  Theo Gootjes, Rotterdams Dagblad, September 1995

of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, Ms Neelie Peper-Kroes. 19 She decided to take legal action against the Rotterdams Dagblad for publishing this cartoon, in which she was criticized, by cartoonist Theo Gootjes in September 1995. The cartoon depicts the former Minister as a chorus girl, carrying on her belly a large bag, decorated with the guilder-symbol and the texts ‘I love money’ and ‘I love TCR’ on her thighs. Tanker Cleaning Rotterdam (TCR) was a (fraudulent) waste disposal company subsidized by the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. The Minister instituted summary proceedings, in which she sued for an immediate rectification by the newspaper, that should read as follows: ‘(…) The cartoon suggests that waste disposal company TCR was given preferential treatment by Ms Neelie Kroes in her capacity as Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management for personal financial profit. This suggestion lacks any factual ground(…).’ The Minister’s interpretation of the argumentation as presented in the cartoon may be schematized as follows: 1 Minister Peper-Kroes’s (P) behaviour with regard to providing TCR with government subsidies (S) should be evaluated negatively. 1.1a Minister Peper-Kroes’s (P) behaviour with regard to providing TCR with government subsidies (S) is characterized by motives of personal financial profit (Y). 1.1b Providing government subsidies with a view to personal financial profit (Y) should be evaluated negatively. Diagram 5.

19. Neelie Smit-Kroes was in office as the Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, from 1982 until 1989.



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In this case, the criticism on the cartoon should not be analysed as an attack on the use of the visual metaphor (the chorus girl) or on the standpoint (that the behaviour of the Minister with regard to providing TCL with government subsidies should be evaluated negatively), but on the argument that underpins the standpoint. From a pragma-dialectical point of view, the attack by the Minister may be reconstructed as an accusation of fallacious strategic manoeuvring. The argument that, according to the Minster, says that the behaviour of the Minister in the TCR case is characterized by personal financial profit by means of government subsidies, may be viewed as an ad hominem fallacy. By means of a personal attack the cartoonist violates the pragma-dialectical Freedom Rule. The Rotterdams Dagblad, however, disagrees with former Minister Peper-Kroes’s interpretation and claims that the cartoon merely wishes to convey that Peper-Kroes attaches greater importance to financial interests than to the environment and does not aim to suggest that she received money, or even bribes. The newspaper’s interpretation of the cartoonist’s argumentation could be reconstructed as follows: 1 Minister Peper-Kroes’s (P) behaviour with regard to providing TCR with government subsidies (S) should be evaluated negatively. *1.1a Minister Peper-Kroes’s (P) behaviour with regard to providing TCR with government subsidies (S) is characterized by the fact that she attached greater importance to financial interests than to the environment (Y). *1.1b Giving preference to financial interests over the environment when providing government subsidies (Y) should be evaluated negatively. Diagram 6.

The judge takes a different view and holds the cartoon unlawful. He does not, however, orders a rectification since the newspaper explained its position already in a later publication. 20 In the judicial decision, the judge considers the following: It may be true that the general public knows how to recognize the usual caricatural exaggeration for what it is worth, nevertheless, the cartoon in question could very well imprint the notion on the average reader that former Minister Kroes gave waste disposal company TCR a leg up, as it were, and in doing so gained personal financial profit. The cartoonist does protest that he meant to say quite something else but, according to the judge, he failed to convey his message in his cartoon, at least not to a degree that it is unequivocally clear what he did mean to say. The publication of the cartoon is inappropriate as regards Ms Kroes and therefore unlawful. Accusing a politician of a political mortal sin, like accepting 20. From Mediaforum, Tijdschrift voor media- en communicatierecht (Journal for Law relating to the press and to communication), 2001, 7/8.

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bribes, is quite different from disapprovingly pronouncing a critical or even vicious value judgement on a politician by means of caricatures, albeit in a witty manner. Politicians should be able to bear the latter, whereas he need not accept the first if there is no ground of truth in the accusation. That is why the cartoon in the Rotterdams Dagblad, which gave rise to this judgement, is the exception to the rule. [Translation by the author]

Thus, the judge puts the Minister in the right. The judge is of the opinion that the cartoonist’s standpoint could also be interpreted the way Minister Kroes does, a fact that, in the judge’s view, overrules the fact that the newspaper and its cartoonist produce a different interpretation. The argumentation in this ruling resembles an American case McKimm v. Ohio Elections Commission regarding a cartoon in an election campaign brochure (Lamb, 2004, p. 208). The cartoon depicted a quiz in which one candidate, Dan McKimm, illustrated the reasons why he would make a better candidate than his opponent, Randy Gonzales, the incumbent. Appearing next to one of the questions was a cartoon indicating that the incumbent had taken a bribe. The Ohio Supreme Court said that the inference was false, that it had no basis in fact, and that the candidate who published the brochure knew it was false, and therefore it was libellous. In 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the Ohio decision, letting the ruling stand. The case fell outside the parameters of protected expression because it was not based on widely known real or assumed facts. Both these cases illustrate that for the evaluation of an accusation of fallacious strategic manoeuvring context-dependent criteria pertinent to the activity type of political cartoons are decisive. The communicative activity type of political cartoons leaves room for personal attacks, but they may be considered fallacious if the context dependent soundness criteria that specify the general Freedom rule are violated.

6. Conclusion Controversies on political cartoons may concern the visual or multimodal argumentation that has been brought forward by the cartoonist. In this contribution I have examined how differences in criticism on the acceptability of political cartoons that scrutinize the behaviour of politicians may affect the way in which these criticisms should be evaluated. The analysis of criticism on cartoons starts out from the idea that political cartoons may be seen as an argumentative activity type in which strategic manoeuvring takes place. Criticism on the acceptability of a political cartoon could, therefore, be considered as an attack on the strategic



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manoeuvring on the part of the cartoonist. In order to be able to evaluate an attack, we should first determine which element of the strategic manoeuvring is the target of criticism. I have shown that an analytic overview of the reconstructed argumentation underlying the cartoon can be instrumental when one has to determine at which element the attack is directed. By means of analyses of a number of cartoons that were criticized for being unacceptable, I distinguished three different types of attack. Firstly, an attack that may be directed at the choice or the application of the visual metaphor. Secondly, an attack that may be directed at the reconstructed standpoint in which the behaviour of the politician is scrutinized. And thirdly, an attack that may be directed at the reconstructed argument in which the behaviour of a politician is characterized negatively. Depending on their focus, the attacks may entail accusations regarding the effectiveness or the soundness of the strategic manoeuvring that takes place in the cartoon. Whether or not an accusation should be evaluated as being well-founded depends on context-independent and context dependent criteria for judging the fallaciousness or the effectiveness. If the attack is directed at the visual metaphor and thereby criticizes the presentational device, the attack does, in principle, not affect the soundness of the argumentation and can therefore not be considered an accusation of fallacious strategic manoeuvring. The attack, i.e, resistance to the visual metaphor, rather implies an accusation of defective strategic manoeuvring. The evaluation of the accusation depends on contextual criteria that may vary per newspaper. If the attack is directed at the standpoint, holding that a negative standpoint that has been conveyed may (temporarily) not be brought forward, the attack implies an accusation of derailment of strategic manoeuvring. The accusation is based on the idea that specific context dependent soundness criteria that impose restrictions regarding the general Freedom Rule are violated. If the attack is aimed at the argument that characterizes the behaviour of a politician, the attack can be reconstructed as an accusation of a derailment of strategic manoeuvring. The macro-context of the activity type of political cartoons indicates that the context-independent general soundness conditions for judging the fallaciousness of personal attacks may, in principle, be stretched. However, specific context dependent criteria also determine when the general soundness conditions are stretched too far and when a personal attack may be evaluated as a fallacious derailment of strategic manoeuvring.

336 H. José Plug

References Abraham, L. (2009). Effectiveness of Cartoons As a Uniquely Visual Medium for Orienting Social Issues. Journalism and Communication Monographs, 11 (2), 117–165. doi: 10.1177/152263790901100202 Aristotle (1991). On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Translated by G. A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press. Eemeren, F. H. van. (2010). Strategic Manoeuvering in Argumentative Discourse. Extending the Pragma-Dialectical Theory of Argumentation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/aic.2 Eemeren, F. H. van. (2013). Fallacies as derailments of argumentative discourse: Acceptance based on understanding and critical assessment. Journal of Pragmatics, 59, 141–152. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.06.006 El Refaie, E. (2009). Multiliteracies: how readers interpret political cartoons. Visual Communication, 8 (2), 181–205.  doi: 10.1177/1470357209102113 Feteris, E. T. (2012). Strategisch manoeuvreren in politieke cartoons met een visuele scenariometafoor. Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, 34, 2, 199–212.  doi: 10.5117/TVT2012.3.STRA432 Feteris, E. T., Groarke, L. & Plug, H. J. (2011). Strategic maneuvering with visual arguments in political cartoons: A pragma-dialectical analysis of the use of topoi that are based on common cultural heritage. In E. T. Feteris, B. J. Garssen & A. F. Snoeck Henkemans (Eds.) Keeping in Touch with Pragma-dialectics. In Honor of Frans H. van Eemeren (pp. 59–74). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  doi: 10.1075/z.163.05fet Forceville, C. (1996). Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203272305 Groarke, L. (2002). Towards a Pragma-dialectics of Visual Argument. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.) Advances in Pragma-dialectics (pp. 137–152). Amsterdam: SicSat. Groarke, L. (2015). Going Multimodal: What is a Mode of Arguing and Why Does it Matter? Argumentation, 29, 133–155.  doi: 10.1007/s10503-014-9336-0 Grofman, B. (1989). Richard Nixon as Pinocchio, Richard II, and Santa Claus: The Use of Allusion in Political Satire. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 51 (1). (Feb., 1989), 165–173.  doi: 10.2307/2131614 Hogan, M. (2001). Cartoonists and political cynicism. The Drawing Board: An Australian Review of Public Affairs, vol. 2 (1), 27–50. Joseph, R. L. (2011). Imagining Obama: Reading Overtly and Inferentially Racist Images of our 44th President, 2007–2008, Communication Studies, 62(4), 389–405. Lakoff, G., & and Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Lamb, C. (2004). Drawn to the Extremes. The Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartoons. New York: Columbia University Press. Manning, H., & Phiddian, R. (2004a). Censorship and the political cartoonist. Refereed paper presented to the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, University of Adelaide. Manning, H. & Phiddian, R. (2004b). In defence of the political cartoonists’ licence to mock. Australian Review of Public Affairs, 5 (1), 25–42. Medhurst, M. J. & DeSousa, M. A. (1981) Political Cartoons as a Rhetorical Form: A Taxonomy of Graphic Discourse. Communication Monographs 48, 197–236.  doi: 10.1080/03637758109376059 Plug, H. J. (2013). Manoeuvring strategically in political cartoons: transforming visualizations of metaphors. In H. van Belle & P. Gillaerts (Eds.), Verbal and Visual Rhetoric in a Media World (pp. 433–445). Amsterdam: Leiden University Press.



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Plug, H. J., & Snoeck Henkemans, A. F. (2008). Apologies for Metaphors as a Strategic Manoeuvre in Political Debates. In: L. Dam, L. Holmgreen, & J. Strunck (Eds.). Rhetorical Aspects of Discourses in Present-day Society (p. 102–116). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. Quintilian (2001). The Orator’s Education. Edited and translated by Donald A. Russell. Cambridge Massachusetts, London England: Harvard University Press. Schilperoord, J., & Maes, A. (2009). Visual Metaphoric Conceptualization in Editorial Cartoons. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.) Multimodal Metaphor (pp. 221–238). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Tseronis, A. (2013). Argumentative functions of visuals: Beyond claiming and justifying. OSSA Conference Archive. Paper 163. http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive/OSSA10/ papersandcommentaries/163. Walter, A. S., & van Holsteyn, J. J. M. (2007). ‘Pim in prenten. De weergave van Pim Fortuyn in politieke tekeningen’. In G. Voerman, (Ed.), Jaarboek Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen 2005 (Jaarboek Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Politieke Partijen) (pp. 176–205). Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen/DNPP. Werner, W. (2004). On political cartoons and social studies textbooks: visual analogies intertextuality and cultural memory. Canadian Social Studies, 38 (2), 1–12.

Name index

A Amossy, R.  177, 184 Aristotle  23, 58, 64, 107, 117, 125, 178, 324 Attardo, S.  58 Austin, J. L.  23, 58, 60, 69 B Benoit, P. J.  17, 230 Benoit, W. L.  17, 230, 256 Berlusconi, S.  318, 321–322 Blair, J. A.  2, 16, 36–37, 39, 42, 54, 296–298, 312, 314 Blum-Kulka, S.  260, 264 Bres, J.  182, 192 C Chouliaraki, L.  202, 225 Crimea  74, 83, 85–95, 134, 137–138, 143–144 D Diogenes Laertius  24, 37 Ducrot, O.  26, 37, 264, 282 E Engels, F.  23, 104, 115, 125 Euclid of Megara  24 F Fairclough, I.  99, 107–112, 115, 117, 120, 123 Fairclough, N.  99, 107–112, 115, 117, 120, 123, 154, 174, 202, 225, 227 Fanshel, D.  86–87, 97 Fillmore, Ch.  91, 96 Finocchiaro, M.  26–28, 30–31, 37

G Goffman, E.  74, 96, 212, 226 Goodnight, G. T.  3, 16, 128, 146, 296, 313 Govier, T.  36, 37, 40, 54 Grice, H. P.  2, 294 Gronbeck, B. E.  3, 5, 16 H Habermas, J.  110, 123, 229, 257, 313 Halliday, M. A.K.  133, 146, 153, 300–301, 314 Hardt-Mautner, G.  184, 193-* Heritage, J.  73–74, 77, 83–84, 89, 96, 97 J Johnson, A.  155, 175 Johnson, M.  103, 109, 120, 124, 323, 336 Johnson, R. H.  26–32, 37, 38, 54, 292–294, 314 K Klumpp, J. F.  3–5, 16, 256 Koselleck, R.  82, 97 Krabbe, E. C.  2, 16–17, 36, 37, 39, 41–43, 45, 47, 50, 53–55, 76, 98 L Labov, W.  86–87, 97 Laertius  (see Diogenes Laertius) Lakoff, G.  100, 103–104, 109, 118, 120, 124, 323, 336 Lederer, M.  169, 175 Levinson, S. C.  294, 314 Louise Michel  (see Michel, L.) Luxemburg, R.  104, 124

M Maingueneau, D.  180 Martin, H. P.  116, 125 Martin, J. R.  127–129, 132–133, 135, 141, 146 McKerrow, R. E.  3–4, 16 Michel, L.  11, 99–107, 110–111, 122–125 Mill, J. S.  104, 125 Montgomery, M.  73, 76–78, 97 O Obama, B.  124, 326–328, 336 Olbrechts-Tyteca, L.  1, 16, 101, 107–108, 110–113, 117–118, 125, 178, 182, 193, 212, 228, 293, 312, 314 Orwell, G.  115, 125 P Perelman, C.  1, 16, 101, 107–108, 110–113, 117–118, 124, 125, 178, 182, 193, 212, 228, 293, 312, 314 Pierce, C. S.  314 Plato  24, 36, 262, 285 R Rowland, R. C.  4–6, 14 S Sacks, H.  156, 159, 175 Saussure de, L.  264, 282, 286 Schegloff, E.  77, 98, 156, 159, 175 Scott, M.  184, 194 Searle, J.  23, 38, 60, 69, 70, 262–263, 284, 286 Seleskovitch, D.  159, 175

340 Argumentation across Communities of Practice

Snoeck Henkemans, A. F.  16, 26, 37, 38, 123, 145, 151, 157, 161–162, 164, 168–170, 174, 201, 226–227, 313, 323, 336 Socrates  24, 29–30 Sperber, D.  264, 281, 286 T Toulmin, S. E.  2–3, 5–6, 16–17, 48, 54–55, 231, 257, 293, 297, 314, 315 U Ukraine  73, 85–86, 90, 130, 134–135, 138–139, 143

V van Eemeren, F.  2, 13, 15–16, 23, 30, 32, 37, 39–41, 43, 54, 62, 69, 82, 83, 90, 97, 99, 101, 107–109, 111, 121–125, 128, 151–152, 156–157, 161–162, 164, 168–170, 174, 180, 184, 193, 201, 213–215, 226, 227–232, 234, 235, 239, 242, 246, 249, 256, 259, 261, 268, 284, 285, 287, 292, 294, 298, 301, 304, 310–311, 313–314, 317, 319–320, 328, 335, 336 van Leeuwen, T.  14, 73, 74, 291, 293, 300, 301, 302–303, 310–311, 314 van Rees, A.  26, 37, 38, 206, 217

W Walton, D. N.  2, 17, 24–26, 28, 32, 34, 36, 37, 41–43, 48, 51–53, 75–76, 87–89, 98, 101, 108, 112, 117, 120, 124, 125, 127–129, 132, 136–137, 139–140, 146, 154, 166, 176, 231, 257, 260, 287 Werlich, E.  301, 315 White, P. R. R.  127, 129, 132–133, 135–136, 146, 147 Willard, C. A.  3–5, 16–17, 314 Wilson, D.  264, 286 Wilson, R.  285 Wodak, R.  108, 125, 128, 147 Z Zarefsky, D.  4, 17, 260, 287

Subject index

A acceptability  2, 10, 15, 32–33, 42, 46, 49, 51–52, 54, 82, 89, 110, 128, 179, 201, 230, 232, 252, 273, 299, 311, 318–320, 324, 326, 328, 330–331, 334 activity type  12, 13, 151, 152, 173, 232, 233, 254, 316, 323, 324, 330, 334, 335 argumentative  15, 155, 229, 230, 231, 232, 255, 256, 257, 320, 334 context-dependent 2 communicative  99, 109, 180, 338 conventionalized  238, 239, 254, 255 deliberative activity type 233 adjudication  11, 99, 109, 180 affect  60, 132–133, 135–136, 138–139, 141–145, 204, 244, 299, 324, 334–335 aggressive  6, 76–78, 83, 96, 110, 325–326, 328 aggressiveness  77, 82, 326 agonistic  21, 24–28, 31–33, 35–36 answer  7, 10–11, 22, 25, 29, 31– 33, 36, 44, 46, 59, 62, 73–74, 78–82, 84–85, 87, 89–90, 95, 99–100, 109, 122, 155, 158–159, 170, 244, 246, 254, 263, 278, 280, 295, 322 antithetical symbolic attributes 306–307 appreciation  64, 133–136, 138–139, 141–144 appraisal  11, 15, 127, 132–140, 142–146

attitude  11, 31–32, 34–36, 45, 51, 61–62, 65, 80, 99–100, 127, 133, 135–136, 139–145, 190, 192, 238, 270, 328 appropriateness  11, 81, 90, 95, 324, 328, 330 argument communities  3, 16 field  2–6, 12, 16, 17 from alternatives  109–112 from figurative analogy 116–117 in public debate  90, 229, 232, 255 schemes  2, 11, 100–101, 107– 109, 112–113, 118, 127–128, 131–132, 136, 140–142, 144, 157, 213, 286 ad hominem argument  137, 140–141, 143, 168–169, 174, 241, 331, 333 ad populum argument  89 ad verecundiam argument 88 ethotic argument  137 rule-based argument  137, 139 uncontroversial argument 21–43 argumentation practice  1, 6–10, 12–14, 259, 282 process  5, 7, 8, 29, 81, 162, 249, 251 scheme defence  48–49, 53 structure  151, 248–249, 322 theory  1, 15, 17, 37, 69, 108, 124, 145, 179, 192–193, 197– 199, 201–202, 223–224,

226, 231, 261, 284, 293, 298, 314, 317, 319 complex argumentation  38, 162, 249, 321–322 covert argumentation  73, 95 causal argumentation  120, 137, 168 diplomatic argumentation 11, 127–147 judicial argumentation  177–178, 191, 193 persuasive argumentation  1, 2 symptomatic argumentation 157, 321 argumentative activity type  15, 155, 229–232, 255–257, 320, 334 discussion  151–152, 157, 202, 209, 269, 272, 275, 279, 310, 319 means  13, 232, 248, 254–255 response 51 rhetorical content  10, 57–58, 62, 65–69 argumentum ad numerum  89, 94 Argumentum Model of Topics 14, 259, 261, 286 audience  1, 3–7, 11, 13, 22, 25, 29, 33–37, 40, 46, 64, 73–79, 82–84, 88, 94, 99–100, 107–108, 111, 120, 122–123, 125, 127–128, 142–144, 146, 174, 179, 182, 201, 213, 215, 223, 233, 253, 293, 310, 319–320, 322–323, 325

342 Argumentation across Communities of Practice

B Barack Obama case  326–328 BBC HARDtalk programme  83 Berlusconi case  318, 321–322 C cartoon  15, 296, 317–335 claim  5, 9, 21, 25–32, 40, 49, 61, 63, 65–68, 86, 89, 102, 111, 114, 136, 184–185, 204, 210, 215, 236–237, 241, 246–247, 253, 271–272, 291–292, 294, 297, 307–308, 327 code of conduct  331 community/ies of practice  1, 8, 14, 25, 80, 82, 282 conflict  7, 13, 24–25, 28, 32, 64, 86, 129–130, 139, 145, 174, 179, 194, 198, 201, 203, 205–206, 214, 223, 266, 284, 321–322 connection 39–54 connection criticism  45, 47 connection premise  9–10, 39–42, 45–49, 54 controversy  9, 22–24, 26–33, 35–36, 58, 95, 189, 198–199, 210–211, 216, 220, 224, 226, 234, 294, 313–314, 317 corporate discourse  218 counter-argument  29, 30, 73, 88, 183, 187, 189 counter-argumentation  2, 11, 73, 90, 95, 217 counter-claim  86, 89 counter-statement  87, 89, 93 Crimea  74, 83, 85–95, 134, 137–138, 143–144 annexation of  74, 83, 85–93, 95 crisis  42–44, 46–47, 49–50, 65, 85, 90, 116, 121, 138, 197–198, 200, 202–203, 209–215, 224–225 Critical Discourse Analysis  11, 99, 107–108, 174, 193, 202, 225, 227 critical questions  11, 98, 101, 108–109, 120, 157, 169–170, 172–173, 201

D definition  1, 11, 22, 25–28, 30, 32, 37, 51, 58, 77, 88, 90, 92–93, 95, 97, 101, 123, 128, 130, 203–204, 227, 261, 268, 273, 280, 296, 298, 303 delegitimize  73, 90, 95 deliberation  2, 8, 11, 13, 16, 99, 109, 121, 180, 229, 233, 253, 255, 296 aimed at opinion-formation 13, 233, 253, 255 dialectic  21–24, 26–32, 36, 38, 55, 70, 103, 156, 201, 208, 256–257, 287, 313, 331 dialectics  9, 23, 37 dialecticians  24, 26–27, 31, 36 dialogism  182, 192 dialogue  1–2, 5, 9–10, 14, 16–17, 23–24, 28–30, 32, 36–37, 39, 41, 43–46, 48, 50–55, 73–74, 76, 81, 83, 87, 90, 95, 97–98, 132, 136, 138, 151–152, 154, 174–175, 182, 194, 221, 231, 259, 268, 281–282, 286 genre  10, 73, 95 inquiry dialogue  10, 73, 76, 87, 95, 154 diplomatic correspondence 129, 136, 142, 145 diplomatic discourse  8, 136, 145 directives  135, 140–144 discourse genre  74, 152, 155 discourse of rights  105–122 dismissive response  50–51 dispute  4, 13, 22–23, 25, 30, 35, 87, 157, 192, 200, 223–224, 253, 269, 284, 295, 301 doubt  26–27, 29–33, 50, 87, 99– 100, 109, 176, 230, 234–235, 246, 250, 265, 268–269, 294 E echo questions  80–81, 96, 98 enthymeme  14, 66, 141, 296, 310 enthymemic argument  131, 139, 216 eristic  2, 24

ethos  11, 64, 99–101, 107, 109, 122 ethotic argument  137 EU  75, 83, 94, 114, 138, 143, 174, 318 European Union  174 evaluation  2–3, 6, 11–12, 15, 21, 28, 31, 80–82, 86, 94, 107–109, 120–121, 127, 130, 132–133, 137–139, 146, 151, 156, 174, 190–191, 197, 226–228, 231, 234, 242, 245, 252, 263, 275, 313, 317, 319–321, 330, 334–335 explanation  33–35, 46, 50, 58, 130, 175, 208, 268, 275 expository questions  79, 85 F face  6, 9, 22, 26, 36, 63, 65, 96, 129–130, 132, 136, 198, 213–214, 217, 224, 230 fallacy  40–41, 110, 124–125, 169, 210, 333 family  8–9, 13–14, 259–261, 264–271, 274, 276–278, 281–288, 322 feedback  22, 36, 81 field  1–6, 8, 12, 15, 21, 24, 33, 58, 76, 111, 178–179, 193, 200, 209, 217–218, 227, 231, 282, 319 boundaries 4 categories 4 dependence  2, 3, 5, 15, 231, 282 focus  1, 3, 7–10, 12–13, 15, 22, 24, 42, 59, 67, 73–77, 79, 81, 85, 87, 100, 107–108, 128–129, 134–135, 139, 151, 160, 181, 184, 191, 201, 205, 210, 219, 223, 230, 259, 261, 272, 275, 279, 300–301, 312, 331, 335 follow-up question  81 force  10, 75, 79, 81, 91, 93, 115, 134–135, 143, 155, 181, 231, 274, 303, 305 freedom  66–67, 99–104, 110–112, 124, 131, 139, 186, 189–190, 237, 240–241, 260, 330–331, 333–335



G genre  10, 13, 15, 73–74, 76, 95, 97, 99, 109, 130, 146, 152–153, 155–156, 177–178, 180–181, 185, 191, 230, 233, 255, 292, 307, 310 dialogue genre  10, 73, 95 discourse genre  74, 152, 155 hybrid genre  97 graduation  11, 127, 133–136, 140–144 grammar of visual design  293, 300, 314 H hortatory argument  128, 132–132, 135, 143 hybrid dialogue  73, 87 hybrid genre  97 I Ideal Model of a Critical Discussion  62, 254, 269 ignorance 32–33 impartial  73, 77, 136–137, 233, 238 impartiality  75, 84–85, 237–238, 240–241 implicits  14, 259, 281–282 incongruence  173, 302–303, 311 initial situation  13, 232–233, 254–255 inquiry dialogue  10, 73, 76, 87, 95, 154 institutional constraints  161, 229, 231–232, 237–239 institutional context  2, 151–152, 156, 173, 181, 230, 254, 320, 324 institutional procedures  5 institutional relationships  81 interaction  3, 5–6, 8, 15, 21–24, 28, 34, 36, 73–74, 76, 79–81, 90–91, 97–98, 151–152, 154– 155, 159, 176, 201, 233, 264, 283, 285–286 interpersonal relationship  8, 143, 260 interpersonal style  11, 127, 132–133, 143–144 interpreter mediation  12, 151–152, 155

Subject index 343

interrogation  12, 153–156, 158, 160, 162, 169, 172–173, 176, 294 interview  10–12, 73–78, 81–88, 90, 95–96, 98, 109, 151–162, 164, 166, 168, 170–175, 238, 256 accountability interview  10, 73–74, 76–78, 82, 87–88, 95, 98 interpreter-mediated police interview  151, 157 media interview  74, 76, 96 political accountability interview  10, 73, 78, 82, 95 interviewee  10, 12, 73–82, 86–90, 95, 154–155, 159–160, 169, 172–173 interviewer  10, 12, 73–79, 81–84, 86–90, 95, 98, 154–155, 159, 166, 169, 172 J journalistic discourse  135–136 judgement/s  8, 12, 133, 136, 138, 141, 143–144, 177–178, 181–184, 186, 191–192, 194, 217, 301, 333 judicial argumentation  177–178, 191, 193 K keyword  10, 74, 82, 89, 91–95, 216 L leading questions  75, 78–79, 173 legitimation  175, 197, 208, 217, 224, 227 legitimize  73, 75, 90, 95, 222 logos  11, 23, 64, 86, 99–101, 107, 122 M macro-context  151–152, 180–181, 183, 185, 188, 191, 335 management of subjectivity  11, 132, 144–145

manoeuvring  2, 15, 292, 312–313, 317, 320, 323, 327, 331, 333–336 maximally argumentative analysis 162 maximally argumentative interpretation 162 mealtime  13, 259–261, 264, 266, 270, 283–285 conversations  260, 261, 266, 267 media  5–9, 21, 35–38, 74–77, 96–98, 128, 146, 197, 221, 229, 240, 242, 257, 260, 284, 287, 292, 296, 313–314, 319, 324, 333, 336 interview  74, 76, 96 megaphone diplomacy  136, 142 meso-context  151–152, 180–181, 183, 186, 188 metaphor  15, 100, 109, 118, 146, 226, 319–321, 323–330, 332, 335–336 moderately-conventionalized 13, 229 multimodal argumentative discourse  317, 319 multi-participant TV debate 13, 229–230, 238, 255–256 N Neelie Peper-Kroes case  331–334 non-argumentative rhetorical content  10, 57–58, 62, 65–66, 68 O objections  27–30, 34, 36, 217, 297 P participant  1, 5, 13, 15, 22, 91, 154, 159, 229–230, 235–238, 241–242, 246, 249–252, 255–256, 294, 300 role  1, 5, 15, 159 particularist defence  39, 41, 48 pathos  11, 64, 87, 99–101, 107, 122, 296

344 Argumentation across Communities of Practice

persuasion  1–2, 8, 10, 43, 53, 55, 58, 63–64, 73, 76, 87, 95, 98, 107, 127–128, 146, 208, 231, 287, 297–298, 309, 311 dialogue  2, 10, 43, 53, 73, 76, 87, 95 Pim Fortuyn case  328–337 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 152 PACE Codes of Practice 2002 152–153, 158, 171 police interview  12, 151–159, 161, 173–175 political accountability interview  10, 73, 78, 82, 95 political cartoon  317–320, 323, 327–328, 334 political communication  109, 323 political crisis  90 political interview  87, 109, 256 politician  15, 34, 77, 83, 88, 319–321, 323–324, 327–328, 330–331, 333, 335 possible outcome  13, 172, 232, 253–255 power  63, 77–82, 85, 92, 94, 103–104, 115–116, 130, 143–144, 146, 151–152, 154, 156, 173–175, 207, 217, 224, 226, 301, 329 practical reasoning (based) argument  11, 128, 132, 136, 137, 140, 141 pragma-dialectical reconstruction 319 pragma-dialectics  11–12, 23, 27–28, 31, 34, 37, 62, 99, 101, 107–109, 122–123, 156, 184, 201, 227, 230–232, 249, 254, 310, 313, 336 pragma-rhetorical approach 10, 13, 15, 75, 82, 97, 123, 227 pragmatic argument  112–113, 115–116, 190 pragmatics  21, 59, 69–70, 97, 147, 156, 256–257, 284, 286, 314, 336 presentational device  109, 118, 328, 335 press release  128, 130–131, 134, 136, 138–139, 146

presuppositions  14, 36, 259, 262–264, 281–282 prolepsis 36 public debate  90, 138, 183, 229, 317, 324 Q question-answer  79, 80, 81, 85, 90 argumentation 82 design  74, 79, 95 interplay  10, 11,95 sequence  74, 78, 81, 85 turn-taking structure  74, 85 questions coercive questions  155 critical questions  11, 98, 101, 108–109, 120, 157, 169–170, 172–173, 201 expository questions  79, 85 follow-up question  81 leading questions  75, 78–79, 173 rhetorical questions  79–81, 97–98, 143, 254 standard questions  79 questioning  12, 73–82, 84–85, 87, 89, 96–98, 152–153, 155, 159, 172, 175, 208, 225 practices  74, 80–81, 84 strategies  77–79, 175 questioning techniques  155 R (re)definition  206, 208 resistance to metaphor  227, 235 response  5, 29, 48, 50–51, 59–61, 78–80, 97–98, 131, 142, 169, 198, 215, 257, 283, 295, 297 rhetoric  classical rhetoric  107 new rhetoric  107-108, 124, 178, 192, 193, 222, 314 political rhetoric  99-125 revolutionary rhetoric  11, 99-125 rhetorical analysis  60, 83 rhetorical appeals  86 rhetorical approach   1, 179 rhetorical content  10, 57–69 rhetorical device  58, 60, 64-66, 68, 206, 272

rhetorical effect  10, 60, 64, 69 rhetorical effectiveness  201, 224, 311 rhetorical function  81, 133 rhetorical goal  83, 232 rhetorical dimension  2, 10, 58-60, 64, 69, 128 rhetorical strategy  88 rule-based argument  137, 139 Russian Federation  74, 83, 85–88, 90–95, 138, 147 S same-sex marriage  10, 57–58, 67–68 scheme based on analogy  311 scheme criticism  41, 50, 53 socialization  2, 259, 261–263, 280–281, 283, 285–286 solidarity  129, 143, 205–206, 208–209, 223–225, 302 source-based argument  136, 140, 143 speech-act of arguing  10, 62–63, 65, 69 standard question  79 standpoint  2, 11, 14–15, 21, 26, 28–29, 31–35, 37, 88–89, 95, 128, 157–158, 160–162, 169, 171–172, 201, 205, 212–215, 222, 230, 232, 234–237, 242, 244–246, 248–252, 261, 268–270, 272, 275, 278–279, 291–293, 298, 302–311, 319–322, 326–332, 334–335 argumentative standpoint 11, 105 controversial standpoint 2, 122 irreconcilable standpoint  95 justified standpoint  34 motivated standpoint  35 opposing standpoint  234, 238, 248-250 starting points  13, 232, 238–239, 244, 246–247, 251, 254–255, 321 strategic manoeuvring  2, 15, 292, 312–313, 317, 320, 323, 327, 331, 333–335



derailment of  122, 317, 320, 327, 331, 335 fallacious strategic manoeuvring 333–335 subjectivity  11, 127, 129, 132, 135, 144–145 symbolic attribute  301–303, 306 symbolic suggestive process 308 symptomatic argumentation 157, 321 symptomatic scheme  304

Subject index 345

T tag question  89, 272 thematic role  91–92 turn-taking  73, 78, 95, 175, 230, 257 types of interviews  74–76 U Ukraine  73, 85–86, 90, 130, 134–135, 138–139, 143 V virtual objections  27 virtual opponent  21, 37

visual argumentation  15, 291–292, 294, 296, 309, 314–315, 319–320 visual arguments  14, 291–293, 296–300, 302, 304–305, 307–312, 314–315, 336 visual metaphor  15, 319–321, 323–329, 332, 335 voice  61, 64, 66, 91–92, 135–136, 159, 174, 191, 230, 233, 246, 253, 262 W warrant defence  48

Featuring multidisciplinary and transcultural investigations, this volume showcases state-of-the-art scholarship about the impact of argumentationbased discourses and ield-speciic argumentation practices in a wide range of communities of practice belonging to the media, social, legal and political spheres. The investigations make use of integrative, wide-ranging theoretical perspectives and empirical research methodologies with a focus on argumentation strategies in real-life environments, both private and public, and in constantly growing virtual environments. This book brings together linguists, argumentation scholars, philosophers and communication specialists who convincingly show how interpersonal and/or intergroup interactions shape, challenge or change the argumentative practices of users, what argumentation skills and strategies become critical and consequential, how argumentative discourse contexts may stimulate or prevent critical relection and debate, and what are the wider implications at personal, institutional and societal levels. Reaching beyond the boundaries of linguistics and argumentation sciences, this book should be a valuable resource for researchers as well as practitioners in the ields of pragmatic linguistics, argumentation studies, rhetoric, discourse analysis, political sciences and media studies.

“This engaging book, I am convinced, will ill a signiicant need in connecting close study of actual argumentative practice with theoretical relection representing multiple approaches rather than a preconceived doctrine. An essential read to be warmly welcomed.” Christian Kock, University of Copenhagen “Combining updated analytical tools with interdisciplinary theoretical approaches, this book is essential reading for all those who research the complex processes by means of which argumentation is conducted in real-life discourse environments and culture-speciic contexts.” Louise Cummings, Nottingham Trent University

isbn 978 90 272 1127 9

“[T]his volume, which addresses an under-researched area in argumentation studies, is indispensable reading for critically minded students of argumentation, language and communication studies.” David Cratis Williams, Florida Atlantic University

John Benjamins Publishing Company